Mixed Race Studies

Las Vegas has second-highest rate of interracial marriage in US

Las Vegas Review-Journal
2018-12-25

Michael Scott Davidson

Wife and husband Christie Faux, 63, left, and Kurt Faux, 61, sit together on a couch in their home in Henderson, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2018. Caroline Brehman/Las Vegas Review-Journal

She was raised in Silicon Valley, the black daughter of two well-paid IBM employees. He was a white child who lived with his mother and grandmother in Las Vegas — some days not having enough money to eat — before moving back to a rural West Virginia county to finish high school.

Despite such different backgrounds, Erica Kyles and Kevin Pauley felt an immediate connection when a mutual friend introduced them at a Henderson gym in 2007.

“We went on a date, and that was it,” said Erica, 39, referring to the couple’s marriage at a Las Vegas Strip resort in March 2010. “We were really inseparable ever since.”

Erica and Kevin, now living in a southwest Las Vegas Valley suburb, are far from alone in their decision to wed. The Las Vegas metropolitan area has the second-highest rate of interracial marriage among U.S. metro areas, according to Pew Research Center findings published last year.

Almost 1 in 3 newlyweds here have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity, according to the analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data from 2011 through 2015. Only the Honolulu metro area ranked higher.

“Generally, intermarriage rates tend to be higher in places with more racial and ethnic diversity. Both Honolulu and Las Vegas would fall into that category,” Pew senior researcher Gretchen Livingston said. “The pool of potential spouses is just much more diverse.”…

Read the entire article here.

Nevada GOP lawmaker to ‘colored’ colleague: Racism is over because the president is black

Raw Story
2015-03-18

David Ferguson

The Nevada state Assemblywoman who believes that cancer is a “fungus” that can be flushed from the body with saline solution has now said that she believes that racism in her state is a thing of the past.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, State Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore (R) said that racism is over, now, so people of color should stop “using the race card” about voter ID laws and other Republican policies that unfairly impact people of color and the poor.

She also congratulated an African-American colleague for being the first “colored” person to graduate from his college.

Fiore is one of the cosponsors of a proposed voter ID law in Nevada which — like all such laws — has been predicted to have an adverse effect on voter turnout by blacks, the elderly and students, all traditionally Democratic voting blocs.

Addressing “peers that are concerned with color,” Fiore went on to congratulate Democratic Assemblyman Harvey J. Munford — an opponent of the voter ID law — for being “the first colored man to graduate from his college.”

“We’re in 2015 and we have a black president, in case anyone didn’t notice,” she added. “So the color and the race issue, I think it’s time that we put that to rest.”…

Read the entire article here.