(Mr. Watson, Mrs. Watson recalled the other day, was an “extremely good dancer who everyone wanted.”)<br />Soon after Mr. Watson proposed, Mrs. Watson’s father traveled from New Mexico to try to talk her out of marrying him.<br />“What is your problem?”<br />The Oakland public schools were racially mixed, and the Watsons’ children rarely faced overt discrimination, though José Watson said<br />that when he was a teenager, a police officer suspected he was driving a stolen car because he was black and pulled him over.<br />Mr. Watson, 89, and Mrs. Watson, 88, do not have to look any further than their own family to see how much has changed since their marriage.<br />“It was very unusual then, and I never told anyone that I was married to a black man,” she said.<br />We Are Not Unusual Anymore’: 50 Years of Mixed-Race Marriage in U. S. -<br />By JENNIFER MEDINAJUNE 11, 2017<br />OAKLAND, Calif. — For their first date, in 1949, Leon Watson and Rosina Rodriquez headed to the movie theater.
