Mariah was born on March 27 in Huntington, Long Island, New York as the child of an interracial couple. (Interracial marriage was illegal in some American states until 1967, years after her parents married.) Her mother, Patricia Hickey, was an Irish American opera singer and vocal coach, and her Afro-Venezuelan father, Alfred Roy Carey, was an aeronautical engineer. The Hickey family disapproved of Patricia and Alfred’s relationship, which caused a painful, lasting strain on the marriage.