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Melting pot or racial divide? The growth of interracial marriages is
slowing among U.S.-born Hispanics and Asians. Still, blacks are substantially
more likely than before to marry whites.
The number of interracial marriages in the U.S. has risen 20 percent
since 2000 to about 4.5 million, according to the latest census figures. While
still growing, that number is a marked drop-off from the 65 percent increase
between 1990 and 2000.
About 8 percent of U.S. marriages are mixed-race, up from 7 percent in
2000.
The latest trend belies notions of the U.S. as a post-racial,
assimilated society. Demographers cite a steady flow of recent immigration that
has given Hispanics and Asians more ethnically similar partners to choose from
while creating some social distance from whites due to cultural and language
differences.
White wariness toward a rapidly growing U.S. minority population also
may be contributing to racial divisions, experts said.
“Racial boundaries are not going to disappear anytime soon,” said
Daniel Lichter, a professor of sociology and public policy at Cornell
University. He noted the increase in anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. after
the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as well as current tensions in Arizona over
its new immigration law.
“With a white backlash toward immigrant groups, some immigrants are
more likely to turn inward to each other for support,” Lichter said.
Broken down by race, about 40 percent of U.S.-born Asians now marry
whites — a figure unchanged since 1980. Their likelihood of marrying
foreign-born Asians, meanwhile, multiplied 3 times for men and 5 times for
women, to roughly 20 percent.
Among U.S.-born Hispanics, marriages with whites increased modestly
from roughly 30 percent to 38 percent over the past three decades. But when it
came to marriages with foreign-born Hispanics, the share doubled — to 12.5
percent for men, and 17.1 percent for women.
In contrast, blacks are now three times as likely to marry whites than
in 1980. About 14.4 percent of black men and 6.5 percent of black women are
currently in such mixed marriages, due to higher educational attainment, a more
racially integrated military and a rising black middle class that provides more
interaction with other races.
The numbers reflect in part an internal struggle that Asians and
Hispanics say they feel navigating two cultural worlds — the U.S. and their
parents’ homeland.
Hai Nguyen, 37, of Houston recalls the instant connection she felt
after meeting her first Vietnamese boyfriend, Greg, in college. Nguyen says
while she had to explain herself to white boyfriends, with Greg it was a
feeling that “he so gets me, because we eat the same food, we like the same
things, our families know each other and there is so little that needs to be
said.”
With the enthusiastic support of her parents, she and Greg married. But
their connection soon began to fade, due partly to Nguyen’s budding career as a
business analyst, which clashed with more traditional expectations for her to
“always have fresh food on the table.” The two divorced and Nguyen is now
remarried to Jon, who is white.
“My parents have prejudices, but they’ve accepted it,” said Nguyen. She
described occasionally feeling different with her parents and other single-race
couples. “They know it’s inevitable. My native tongue will eventually fade, and
history will take its course.”
The demographic shifts can complicate conventional notions of racial
identity.
Due to increasing interracial marriages, multiracial Americans are a
small but fast-growing demographic group, making up about 5 percent of the
minority population. Together with blacks, Hispanics and Asians, the Census
Bureau estimates they collectively will represent a majority of the U.S.
population by mid-century.
Still, many multiracial people — particularly those who are part black
— shun a “multi” label in favor of identifying as a single race.
By some estimates, two-thirds of those who checked the single box of
“black” on the census form are actually mixed, including President Barack
Obama, who identified himself as black in the 2010 census even though his
mother was white.
Census figures also show:
• Hawaii had the highest share of mixed marriages, about 32 percent. It
was followed by Alaska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Nevada, which ranged from 15
percent to 19 percent. The bottom five states were Pennsylvania, Maine,
Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia, each ranging from 3 percent to 4
percent.
• Mississippi had the fastest growth in mixed marriages from 2000-08, a
sign of closer ties between blacks and whites, though it still ranked second to
last in overall share of mixed marriages.
• Mixed
marriages jumped from 2.25 million to 3.7 million, or 65 percent, from
1990-2000, as such unions became more broadly accepted in Southern states.
• Among U.S.-born whites, about 0.3 percent married blacks in 1980;
that figure rose to about 1 percent in 2008. About 0.3 percent of whites
married Asians in 1980 and about 1 percent in 2008. About 2 percent of whites
married Hispanics in 1980, rising to about 3.6 percent in 2008.
Juan Thurman, 37, a Houston sales account manager, says both family
pressure and a strong ethnic identity weighed heavily on him as a Hispanic when
he was dating, even as he found himself interacting more with other races in
school.
In high school and at Rice University, Thurman said, he had fewer
opportunities to meet Hispanic women in his honors classes. Ultimately, he
married Emily, who is white, based on shared life views of gender equity and a
liberal outlook toward religion. He relishes having friends of many different
backgrounds.
“Interracial marriage is not a big deal,” Thurman said. “Still, from a
family standpoint, I did feel culturally different and I continue to feel so.” —AP
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