Seeking to claim their own identity

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 16, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Rico and Kaya Munn can thank Nancy Reagan for bringing them together.

In 1988, when they were both high school juniors, they met while attending a youth event in Fort Collins that was part of the former first lady's "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign.

He was a black teenager who grew up in a military family in Colorado Springs. She was a white Cherry Creek High School student whose family had recently moved to Colorado.

They quickly became friends, fell in love and in 1998, they married.

"Our wedding reception was at the Loew's Giorgio hotel (in Glendale)," Munn said. "Kaya walks in with her wedding gown, and sitting in the lobby is Nancy Reagan."

A decade later, the Denver couple both giggled at that irony, sitting in their Green Valley Ranch home with their two young children on their laps. They never did tell Nancy Reagan about how they met.

Both their families embraced the couple, but in the two decades since that first meeting, the interracial couple have encountered prejudice from strangers.

"Oh yeah," Rico Munn said, "we've had our share of rude, ignorant comments by people. We've gotten that look that we attribute to people not liking us."

But as time has gone on, they've seen less and less of that look, Kaya Munn observed.

"It's interesting to see how things have changed," she said. "I think a lot of people are more tolerant now."

Both agree that Barack Obama's candidacy as well as his history growing up in a bi racial family, has contributed to that change.

"I'm not saying an Obama victory means an end to racism," he said. But it would mean that society had made significant progress on race relations, even if the Illinois Democrat loses in November.

Rico Munn is a lawyer who served on the Colorado State Board of Education and currently serves as director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Affairs. He and his wife have a girl, 22-month-old Asha, and a boy, 5-month-old Nyjah.

When they previously lived in the neighborhood that bordered the former Stapleton International Airport, their block included biracial families on either side of their house.

They chose to live in Green Valley Ranch and attend church at Colorado Community Church in Aurora because of their diverse populations. For them, diversity goes well beyond black and white in Colorado.

Rico Munn has been involved since college with Amnesty International. Kaya Munn has gotten to know the local Arab-American community through her interest in belly dancing.

They want their children to inherit that interest and curiosity about people who are different than themselves.

"We want to make sure they have a strong sense of faith and values so that when they grow up, they can claim their own identity and not one that the government defined for them," Rico Munn said.

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