1.4

• Multiracial Americans


  People with "more than one race"
• Sociologists do not favor a biological definition of race, but a discussion of people with "more than one race" reflects a reference to the "biological" aspect of race
• The social construction of race plays a role in identifying and categorizing individuals who are multiracial
• Multiracial individuals


  • President Obama (African father, white mother)
  • Tiger Woods (one-half Asian, one-quarter white, one-eighth Native American, one-eighth African American)
• Cablinasian


  A creative way for Tiger Woods to reference his diverse background
• Prior to the twentieth century, interracial marriage (referred to as miscegenation) was extremely rare, and in many places, illegal
• Anti-miscegenation laws were first passed in the 1600s to prevent freed Black slaves from marrying whites
• Later versions of anti-miscegenation laws added persons of Asian origin or ancestry to the list of groups forbidden to marry Whites
• Early examples of anti-miscegenation laws singled out those of "Mongoloid" origin specifically, and were later amended to include Filipinos and Asian Indians
• Amalgamation


  The process by which a marginalized group and a dominant group combine to form a new group
• Anti-miscegenation laws flourished in the South during the Jim Crow era, with the root of white supremacy revolving around the fear of miscegenation
• Films portraying interracial relationships

  • Island in the Sun
  • Westside Story
  • Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
  • La Bamba
  • Jungle Fever
  • Mississippi Masala
  • The Joy Luck Club
  • The Watermelon Woman
  • Fools Rush In
  • Loving
  • Liberty Heights
  • Something New
• The 1945 War Brides Act allowed American GIs to marry and then bring their wives over from Japan, China, the Philippines, and Korea
• The 1965 Immigration Act inadvertently enhanced intermarriages across races
• Removal of miscegenation laws and a trend toward equal rights and legal protection against racism have steadily reduced the social stigma attached to racial exogamy
• In 1967, interracial marriages represented 3% of all newlyweds, and have experienced a steady increase since then, representing 17% of all newlyweds and 10% of all married people in 2015

  
• Honolulu, Hawaii is the city with the highest percentage of interracial marriages in the U.S.
• Most common intermarriage types

  • White-Latinx
  • White-Multiracial
  • White-Black
  • Latinx-Black
  • White-AI/AN
  • Latinx-AAPI
  • Latinx-Multiracial
• Next one --> More than one race

  The categories for race on the Census have changed over time, with Mulatto being a racial category from 1850-1920 (except 1900), and the option for individuals to identify as "more than one race" being added in 2000
• The U.S. Census currently measures race-ethnicity in two separate questions, with the racial categories not reflecting a category for Latinx
• In 1930, Mexican was a racial category on the Census, but in 1921, Mexico abandoned its category for race, recognizing the amalgamated ancestry of Mexicans, mestizo/mestiza
• Latinx may identify as white, Black, Native American, Asian, or other racial group
• Race


  As defined by the Census, though these categories would undoubtedly appear different if sociologists created them
• The racial categories on the Census do not reflect a category for Latinx, though many do write in Mexican American or Central American, yet the majority of Latinx responded as white, per the 2010 census results
• Mexican was a racial category on the Census


  1930
• Mexico abandoned its category for race on the Census, recognizing the amalgamated ancestry of Mexicans, mestizo/mestiza


  1921
• Mestizo/mestiza


  Individuals with a mixture of Indigenous and Spanish descent, hence the origin of Mexican people
• Racial groups Latinx may identify as

  • White
  • Black
  • Native American
  • Asian
  • Other racial group
• Hapa


  A Hawaiian word for individuals who have mixed ethnicity
• Hapa haole


  A word that characterizes individuals who are mixed with white/European
• A growing number of people chose multiple races to describe themselves on the 2010 Census
• 89% of those identifying as multiracial have two racial backgrounds, classified as bi-racial
• In 2010, 2.9% of people who completed the U.S. Census identified as more than one race
• Largest multiracial groups in descending order

  • White-Black
  • White-Asian
  • White-American Indian
  • White-Black and white-some other race
• Including the option of checking more than one race has most impacted the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) population, increasing by more than 160% between 1990 and 2010, with the biggest growth attributed to individuals who marked AI/AN and one other race
• The first notable cohort of multiracial Asian Americans offspring resulted from marriages after the 1945 War Brides Act
• Approximately 25,000 Amerasians, offspring of U.S. GIs and Vietnamese women, were allowed to immigrate to the U.S. following the Vietnamese Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1988
• The Amerasian population had faced challenging discrimination and hostility in Vietnam following the U.S. war in Vietnam that ended in the fall of Saigon and "reunification" of Vietnam in 1975
• Next one --> Multiracial: Category or Identity

  Pew Research estimates that 6.9% of the U.S. population could be considered multiracial, defined as more than one race
• Multiracial babies comprised 10% of all U.S. babies in 2013