Mixed Race Studies

Multiracial Residents Are Changing the Face of the US

Stateline
Pew Charitable Trusts
2022-05-13

Tim Henderson, Staff Writer

The number of Americans who identified as more than one race nearly doubled to 13.5 million people between 2010 and 2020, and did double or more in 34 states and the District of Columbia, a Stateline analysis of census figures shows.

To some observers, the increase in the number of Americans identifying as more than one race shows that barriers are breaking down. But the increase also may reflect changes to census questions designed to tease out the heritage of multiracial people.

The increases contributed to a first-ever decline in the population identifying solely as non-Hispanic White. The number of people identifying as White who also identified as Hispanic or another race did grow, however.

“It’s not unreasonable to imagine that if people keep intermarrying, if they define themselves as White and they are accepted as White, the definition of White in 2052 could be much different than it is in 2022,” said Ellis Monk, an associate sociology professor at Harvard University who has studied the way official racial categories can be misleading.

But Monk emphasized that he and other people with dark skin or other distinctive racial features continue to face discrimination and reduced opportunities, even if they identify as more than one race. Monk is Black, and like most African Americans he has White forebears, but he doesn’t consider himself to be biracial…

Read the entire article here.

How young Americans are set to change the US forever

BBC News
2017-07-18

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow
Metropolitan Policy Program
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

William H. Frey is the author of Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America.

Getty Images

Older white Americans still hold most of the economic and political power in the US. But the great ethnic diversity of younger generations means that change is coming.

America’s workforce, politics and place on the world stage will soon be changed forever.

So great and so rapid are the shifts in the country’s population, that, in the coming decade, the US is set to be transformed far more than other nations.

Almost half of millennials and children are from ethnic minority groups and it is this great diversity that is at the heart of demographic changes.

As the country comes to rely on them for its future prosperity, everyone will have to consider how society must change to make a success of this new reality…

Read the entire article here.

Census change may result in fewer ‘white’ Americans

The Los Angeles Times
2015-11-22

Associated Press

The Census Bureau is considering changes to its race and ethnicity questions that would reclassify some minorities who were considered “white” in the past, a move that may speed up the date when America’s white population falls below 50%.

Census Director John Thompson told the Associated Press that the bureau is testing a number of new questions and may combine its race and ethnicity questions into one category for the 2020 census. That would allow respondents to choose multiple races.

The possible changes include allowing Latinos to give more details about their ethnic backgrounds and creating a distinct category for people of Middle Eastern and North African descent…

…William Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, says the proposed changes would grant residents more freedom to define their races and ethnicities.

“I don’t know if this will make a huge difference in the 2020 census on whites becoming the minority, but it could later,” said Frey, author of “Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America.”

In the past, “white” was the only racial option available to Arab American respondents, a classification that didn’t truly reflect their social standing and hurt efforts for their political empowerment in post-Sept. 11 America, said Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

“If you are going to classify me as white, then treat [me] as white,” Khalaf said. “Especially when I go to the airport. So, yeah, it’s inaccurate.”…

Read the entire article here.

Multiracial Gen Z And The Future Of Marketing

Media Post
2015-09-03

Jose Villa, Founder and president
Sensis, Los Angeles, California

Millennials are generally believed to be the most ethnically and racially diverse generation in American history. Hispanics (20%), African-Americans (14%) and Asians (6%) make up 40% of the total millennial population. This diversity underpins the notion of the bicultural millennial, a young consumer straddling two worlds, balancing their cultural lives with their mainstream integration into popular culture. Yet, lost in the buzz around bicultural millennials is the growing multiracial U.S. population truly living in two worlds at home and in society…

…Multiracial America

The large segment of multiracial Gen Z is the result of demographic trends at work for the last two decades. Starting with the 2000 census – the first census that allowed individuals to self-identify with more than one race – we have been seeing a steady demographic shift resulting from an increase in multiracial marriage. In a recent New Republic article, William Frey laid out how the blending of racial minorities through multiracial marriage is leading to a major demographic shift in the U.S. In 2000, 6.7% of all marriages were multiracial. That number jumped to 8.4% in 2010. Hispanics are driving the increase in multiracial marriages, accounting for 49% of all multiracial marriages in 2010 (Hispanics and Whites: 44%, Hispanics and Black: 3%, Hispanics and Asian: 2%). Furthermore, more than one in seven newlywed couples are now multiracial. This data also does not account for non-married multi-racial couples that are adding to the growing multiracial Gen Z population…

Read the entire article here.

Black-white mixed race identity rises in the South

The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
2015-08-12

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow

As shown in my book, “Diversity Explosion,” the growth of black-white marriages in the United States is unmistakable, as are the gains in the population that identifies itself as “white and black,” particularly among the very young. As further evidence that the white-black divide is eroding, it is useful to look at the region most historically resistant to change: the South. Because of past prejudices and customs, the white-black population, as a percentage of all blacks, is still considerably lower in Southern states than in other parts of the country (see map). In a slew of states leading from Maryland to Texas, “white and black” populations represent less than 5 percent of the black-only populations. In Mississippi and Louisiana, “white and black” populations constitute only 1 percent. These figures compare with more than 20 percent of “white and black” persons in a handful of states with sparse black populations in the West, Great Plains, and New England.

Read the entire article here.

Multiracial marriages are dispersing across the country

The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
2015-06-18

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow

As I discuss in my book, “Diversity Explosion,” the geographic dispersion of minority populations from traditional melting-pot regions to the rest of the country sets the stage for the dispersion of multiracial marriages as well. To be sure the greatest prevalence of multiracial marriages are in melting-pot states such as Hawaii, where three in 10 marriages are multiracial, as well as Alaska and Oklahoma, where the share is nearly two in 10 (see map)…

Read the entire article here.

Our rising white-black multiracial population

The Avenue / Rethinking Metropolitan America
The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
2015-02-23

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program

The fastest growing racial group in the country is those who identify themselves as “two or more” races. Yet, perhaps most encouraging, as discussed in my book Diversity Explosion, is the rise in the population that identifies itself as both white and black. The racial divide in the United States has been so stark that it was not until the 2000 Census that federal statistics allowed multiracial status. For a long period in our history, persons were identified as black according to the “one drop” rule which stipulated that if they had any black ancestors, they could not be classified as white…

Recently, a clear sign of the softening of racial boundaries was the 2010 Census report that persons identifying as black and white were the largest biracial population at 1.8 million—more than double those identified in the previous census…

To read the entire article, click here.

How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America

The Diane Rehm Show
WAMU 88.5 FM
Washington, D.C.
2015-01-05

Diane Rehm, Host

Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Hispanic Research
Pew Research Center

Jim Tankersley, Economic Policy Correspondent
The Washington Post

William Frey, Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program (author of Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America)
Brookings Institution

Jamelle Bouie, Staff writer covering politics, policy, and race
Slate

America is becoming a country with no racial majority. In 2009, for the first time in U.S. history, more minority than white babies were born in a year. Soon, most American children will be racial minorities. The nation’s diversity surge played a key role in Barack Obama’s election as president. Many see these trends as necessary as a much-needed younger minority labor force is already boosting an aging baby boom population. But challenges loom, including clashes over public resources, overcoming a cultural generation gap, and fears over losing privileged status. Diane and her guests discuss how new racial demographics are remaking America.

Listen to the show (00:51:40) here.

Multiracial Marriage on the Rise

The Brookings Institution
The Avenue: Rethinking Metropoliitian America
2014-12-18

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow
Metropolitan Policy Program

One consequence of America’s diversity explosion is a rise in multiracial marriages. In 1960, before immigration levels to the United States started to rise, multiracial marriages constituted only 0.4 percent of all U.S. marriages. That figure increased to 8.4 percent in 2010 and for recent newlyweds, 15 percent.

Not surprisingly the prevalence of out-marriage is high for new minorities, Hispanics and Asians, in light of the large pool of potential partners who are of different origins. More than four in ten new marriages of each group marry someone of a different race—with whites the most likely partners…

Read the entire article here.

New Projections Point to a Majority Minority Nation in 2044

Brookings Instituion
Washington, D.C.
2014-12-12

William H. Frey, Senior Fellow
Metropolitan Policy Program

New population projections released this week by the Census Bureau indicate that the U.S. population will become “majority minority” in 2044. At that time, whites will make up 49.7 percent of the population compared with 25 percent for Hispanics, 12.7 percent for blacks, 7.9 percent for Asians and 3.7 for percent multiracial persons. This tipping point will result from two countervailing trends that are projected to continue between now and 2060:…

…These trends underscore the minority driven demographic transformation analyzed in my book Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America, which outlines the challenges and opportunities associated with a nation whose youthful, growing minority population is juxtaposed against an aging, slow-growing, and soon to be declining, white population.

Read the entire article here.