ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s the number of racial/ethnic intermarriages in the United States has increased substantially. The implication is that group boundaries have weakened. Indeed, marriages between people of different racial/ethnic backgrounds mean that barriers to social interaction and intimacy have broken down and that marital partners—by definition—accept each other as social equals. The potential societal implications of intermarriage are arguably much larger. For example, intermarriage commingles, to varying degrees, the diverse family, friendship, and social networks of each spouse (Romano 2003). The growing population of mixed-race children from intermarriage also blurs racial boundaries over successive generations (Labov and Jacobs 1998). Such trends signal improving racial/ethnic relations, the incorporation of historically disadvantaged minorities into American society, and the breakdown of persistent racial/ethnic economic and cultural distinctions (Alba and Nee 2003; Bean et al. 2004).
