ABSTRACT
The 2000 U.S. Census was the first census that allowed Americans to select “one or more races” to indicate their racial identification, reflecting the view that race is no longer conceived of as a bounded category. In 2000, 6.8 million people, or 2.4 percent of the U.S. population (i.e., one in every forty Americans), identified themselves as multiracial. Although one in forty may not appear to be a substantial fraction, by the year 2050, this ratio could soar to one in five (Farley, 2001; Smith and Edmonston, 1997). Asian Americans, however, have a much higher rate of multiracial identification compared to other groups, with 12.4 percent claiming a multiracial background, a figure that is rapidly rising. By the year 2050, sociologists project that 35 percent of Asian Americans could claim a multiracial background (Smith and Edmonston, 1997). If this projection proves accurate, more than one in every three Asian Americans could claim a multiracial background in just a few decades. This level of substantial growth in the Asian multiracial population could mostly result from today’s high rates of Asian intermarriage, which at present involve more than one out of every four Asians, and more than one out of every two native born Asians, being married to someone of a different race, most commonly someone white.
