Interracial marriage in the United States

Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...

in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

has been fully legal in all U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

s since the 1967 Supreme Court decision

Loving v. Virginia

Loving v. Virginia, , was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v...

that deemed anti-miscegenation laws

Anti-miscegenation laws

Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...

unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage at much earlier dates. Multiracial American

Multiracial American

Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...

s numbered 9.0 million in 2010, or 2.9% of the total population, but 5.6% of the population under age 18.

Cultural background

The differing ages of individuals, culminating in the generation

Generation

Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....

divides, have traditionally played a large role in how mixed ethnic couples are perceived in America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

n society. Interracial marriages have typically been highlighted through two points of view in the United States: Egalitarianism and Cultural conservatism. Egalitarianism's view of interracial marriage is acceptance of the phenomenon, while traditionalists view interracial marriage as taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

and as socially unacceptable. Egalitarian viewpoints typically are held by younger generations, however older generations have an inherent influence on the views of the younger. Gurung & Duong (1999) compiled a study relating to mixed-ethnic relationships ("MER"s) and same-ethnic relationships ("SER"s), concluding that individuals part of "MER"s generally do not view themselves differently from same-ethnic couples.

In Social Trends in America and Strategic Approaches to the Negro Problem (1948), Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal

Gunnar Myrdal

Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...

ranked the social areas where restrictions were imposed on the freedom of Black Americans by Southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

White Americans through racial segregation

Racial segregation

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...

, from the least to the most important: basic public facility access, social equality, jobs, courts and police, politics and marriage. This ranking scheme illustrates the manner in which the barriers against desegregation

Desegregation

Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...

fell: Of less importance was the segregation in basic public facilities, which was abolished with the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...

. The most tenacious form of legal segregation, the banning of interracial marriage, was not fully lifted until the last anti-miscegenation laws

Anti-miscegenation laws

were struck down in 1967 by the Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

ruling in the landmark Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, , was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v...

case.

Social enterprise

Social enterprise

A social enterprise is an organization that applies business strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. Social enterprises can be structured as a for-profit or non-profit....

research conducted on behalf of the Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School is the business school of Columbia University in Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1916 to provide business training and professional preparation for undergraduate and graduate Columbia University students...

(2005–2007) showed that regional differences within the United States in how interracial relationships are perceived have persisted: Daters of both sexes from south of the Mason-Dixon Line

Mason-Dixon line

The Mason–Dixon Line was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute between British colonies in Colonial America. It forms a demarcation line among four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and...

were found to have much stronger same-race preferences than northern daters did. The study also observed a clear gender divide in racial preference with regards to marriage: Women of all the races which were studied revealed a strong preference for men of their own race for marriage, with the caveat that East Asian women only discriminated against Black and Hispanic men, and not against White men. A woman's race was found to have no effect on the men's choices.

Socio-economic background

Several studies have found that a factor which significantly affects an individual's choices with regards to marriage is socio-economic status ("SES")-- the measure of a person's income, education, social class, profession, etc. For example, a study by the Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, Newcastle University confirmed that women show a tendency to marry up in socio-economic status; this reduces the probability of marriage of low SES men.

Research at the universities of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)

University of Alabama at Birmingham

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is a public university in Birmingham in the U.S. state of Alabama. Developing from an extension center established in 1936, the institution became an autonomous institution in 1969 and is today one of three institutions in the University of Alabama System...

and Texas A&M

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...

addressing the topic of socio-economic status, among other factors, showed that none of the socio-economic status variables appeared to be positively related to outmarriage within the Asian American

Asian American

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...

community, and found lower-SES Asians sometimes utilized outmarriage to Whites

White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

as a means to advance social status.

Marital instability among interracial and same-race couples

A 2008 study by Jenifer L. Bratter and Rosalind B. King conducted on behalf of the Education Resources Information Center

Education Resources Information Center

ERIC - the Education Resources Information Center - is an online digital library of education research and information. ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education...

examined whether crossing racial boundaries increased the risk of divorce. Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (Cycle VI), the likelihood of divorce for interracial couples to that of same-race couples was compared. Comparisons across marriage cohorts revealed that, overall, interracial couples have higher rates of divorce, particularly for those that married during the late 1980s. The authors found that gender plays a significant role in interracial divorce dynamics: According to the adjusted models predicting divorce as of the 10th year of marriage, interracial marriages that are the most vulnerable involve White females and non-White males (with the exception of White females/Hispanic White males) relative to White/White couples. White wife/Black husband marriages are twice as likely to divorce by the 10th year of marriage compared to White/White couples, while White wife/Asian husband marriages are 59% more likely to end in divorce compared to White/White unions. Conversely, White men/non-White women couples show either very little or no differences in divorce rates. Asian wife/White husband marriages show only 4% greater likelihood of divorce by the 10th year of marriage than White/White couples. In the case of Black wife/White husband marriages, divorce by the 10th year of marriage is 44% less likely than among White/White unions. Intermarriages that did not cross a racial barrier, which was the case for White/Hispanic White couples, showed statistically similar likelihoods of divorcing as White/White marriages.

Census Bureau statistics

The number of interracial marriages has steadily continued to increase since the 1967 Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

ruling in Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, , was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v...

, but also continues to represent an absolute minority among the total number of wed couples. According to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Census Bureau, the number of interrracially married couples has increased from 310,000 in 1970 to 651,000 in 1980, to 964,000 in 1990, to 1,464,000 in 2000 and to 2,340,000 in 2008; accounting for 0.7%, 1.3%, 1.8%, 2.6% and 3.9% of the total number of married couples in those years, respectively.
These statistics do not take into account the mixing of ancestries within the same "race"; e.g. a marriage involving Indian

Indian American

Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestral roots lie in India. The U.S. Census Bureau popularized the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Indigenous peoples of the Americas who are commonly referred to as American Indians.-The term: Indian:...

and Japanese

Japanese American

are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...

ancestries would not be classified as interracial due to the Census regarding both as the same category. Likewise, since Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

is not a race but an ethnicity, Hispanic marriages with non-Hispanics are not registered as interracial if both partners are of the same race (i.e. a Black Hispanic

Black Hispanic

In the United States, a Black Hispanic or Afro American Hispanic is an American citizen or resident who is officially classified by the United States Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget and other U.S. government agencies as a Black American of Hispanic descent. African American/Black...

marrying a non-Hispanic Black partner).

Married couples in the United States in 2010 (thousands)
	White Wife	Black Wife	Asian Wife	Other Wife
White Husband	50,410	168	529	487
Black Husband	390	4,072	39	66
Asian Husband	219	9	2,855	28
Other Husband	488	18	37	568

Based on these figures:

White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

s were statistically the least likely to wed interracially, though in absolute terms they were involved in interracial marriages more than any other racial group due to their demographic majority. 2.1% of married White women and 2.3% of married White men had a non-White spouse. 1.0% of all married White men were married to an Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...

woman, and 1.0% of married White women were married to a man classified as "other".
4.6% of married Black American women and 10.8% of married Black American men had a non-Black spouse. 8.5% of married Black men and 3.9% of married Black women had a White spouse. 0.2% of married Black women were married to Asian American men, representing the least prevalent marital combination.
There is a notable disparity in the rates of exogamy
Exogamy
Exogamy is a social arrangement where marriage is allowed only outside of a social group. The social groups define the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. In social studies, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects:...

by Asian American males and females. Of all Asian American/White marriages, only 29% involved an Asian American male and a White female, and of all Asian American/Black marriages only 19% involved an Asian American male and a Black female. 17.5% of married Asian American women and 8.2% of married Asian American men had a non-Asian American spouse.

In 2006, 88% of foreign-born White Hispanic males were married to White Hispanic females. In terms of out-marriage, Hispanic males who identified as White had non-Hispanic wives more often than other Hispanic men.

2008 Pew Research Center Report (U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey)

The study found that in 2008:

A record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another. This compares to 8.0% of all current marriages regardless of when they occurred. This includes marriages between a Hispanic and non-Hispanic (Hispanics are an ethnic group, not a race) as well as marriages between spouses of different races – be they white, black, Asian, American Indian or those who identify as being of multiple races or some other race.
Among all newlyweds in 2008, 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 31% of Asians married someone whose race or ethnicity was different from their own.
Among all newlyweds in 2008, intermarried pairings were primarily White-Hispanic (41%) as compared to White-Asian (15%), White-Black (11%), and Other Combinations (33%). Other combinations consists of pairings between different minority groups, multi-racial people, and American Indians.
Among all newlyweds in 2008, Native-Born Hispanics and Asians were far more likely to intermarry than Foreign-Born Hispanics and Asians: 41.3% of Native-Born Hispanic men out-married compared to 11.3% of Foreign-Born Hispanic men; 37.4% of Native-Born Hispanic women out-married compared to 12.2% of Foreign-Born Hispanic women; 41.7% of Native-Born Asian men out-married compared to 11.7% of Foreign-Born Asian men; 50.8% of Native-Born Asian women out-married compared to 36.8% of Foreign-Born Asian women. Foreign-Born excludes immigrants who arrived married.
Gender patterns in intermarriage vary widely. Some 22% of all black male newlyweds in 2008 married outside their race, compared with just 9% of black female newlyweds. Among Asians, the gender pattern runs the other way. Some 40% of Asian female newlyweds married outside their race in 2008, compared with just 20% of Asian male newlyweds. Among whites and Hispanics, by contrast, there are no gender differences in intermarriage rates.
Rates of intermarriages among newlyweds in the U.S. more than doubled between 1980 (6.7%) and 2008 (14.6%). However, different groups experienced different trends. Rates more than doubled among whites and nearly tripled among blacks. But for both Hispanics and Asians, rates were nearly identical in 2008 and 1980.
These seemingly contradictory trends were driven by the heavy, ongoing Hispanic and Asian immigration wave of the past four decades. For whites and blacks, these immigrants (and, increasingly, their U.S.-born children who are now of marrying age) have enlarged the pool of potential spouses for out-marriage. But for Hispanics and Asians, the ongoing immigration wave has also enlarged the pool of potential partners for in-group marriage.
There is a strong regional pattern to intermarriage. Among all new marriages in 2008, 22% in the West were interracial or interethnic, compared with 13% in both the South and Northeast and 11% in the Midwest.
Most Americans say they approve of racial or ethnic intermarriage – not just in the abstract, but in their own families. More than six-in-ten say it would be fine with them if a family member told them they were going to marry someone from any of three major race/ethnic groups other than their own.
More than a third of adults (35%) say they have a family member who is married to someone of a different race. Blacks say this at higher rates than do whites; younger adults at higher rates than older adults; and Westerners at higher rates than people living in other regions of the country.

Asian and White

Marriages between White American

White American

s and Asian American

Asian American

s are increasingly common for both genders in the United States.

In 2008, of new marriages including an Asian man, 80% were to an Asian spouse and 14% to a White spouse; of new marriages involving an Asian woman, 61% were to an Asian spouse and 31% to a White spouse. Asian Americans of both genders who are U.S.-raised are much more likely to be married to Whites than their non-U.S.-raised counterparts. A 1998 Washington Post article states 36% of young Asian Pacific American

Asian Pacific American

Asian-Pacific American or Asian-Pacific Islander is a term sometimes used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans....

men born in the United States married White women, and 45% of U.S.-born Asian Pacific American women took White husbands during the year of publication.

According to social studies by Jenifer L. Bratter and Rosalind B. King gender plays a significant role in interracial dynamics. White wife/Asian husband couples are 59% more likely to divorce by the 10th year of marriage than White wife/White husband couples, whereas Asian wife/White husband couples show only 4% greater likelihood of divorce than White wife/White husband couples over the same period. Social enterprise

Social enterprise

A social enterprise is an organization that applies business strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. Social enterprises can be structured as a for-profit or non-profit....

research by the Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School

(2005–2007) concluded that while East Asian women statistically prefer East Asian men for marriage, they show no discrimination against White men, causing Asian women/White men pairings to consistently become the prevalent form of interracial dating & marriage in the United States.

Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging marriages between Whites and non-Whites were affecting Asian immigrants and their spouses from the late 17th to early 20th century. By 1910, 28 states prohibited certain forms of interracial marriage. Seven states including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah extended their prohibitions to include people of Asian descent. The laws of Arizona, California, Mississippi, and Utah referred to "Mongolians". Asians in California were barred by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying White Americans (a group including Hispanic Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...

). Nevada and Oregon referred to "Chinese," while Montana listed both "Chinese" and "Japanese" persons. For example, a Eurasian

Eurasian (mixed ancestry)

The word Eurasian refers to people of mixed Asian and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indians of mixed British and Indian descent....

daughter born to an Indian father and Irish

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...

mother in Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

in 1680 was classified as a "mulato

Mulatto

Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...

" and sold into slavery, and the Bengali

Bengali people

The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

revolutionary Tarak Nath Das

Tarak Nath Das

Taraknath Das was an anti-British Bengali Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organizing the Asian Indian immigrants in favor of the Indian freedom movement...

's white American wife, Mary K. Das, was stripped of her American citizenship for her marriage to an "alien

Alien (law)

In law, an alien is a person in a country who is not a citizen of that country.-Categorization:Types of "alien" persons are:*An alien who is legally permitted to remain in a country which is foreign to him or her. On specified terms, this kind of alien may be called a legal alien of that country...

ineligible for citizenship." In 1918, there was controversy in Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

when an Indian farmer married the sixteen year-old daughter of one of his White tenants. California law did not explicitly bar Filipinos and whites from marrying, a fact brought to wide public attention by the 1933 California Supreme Court case Roldan v. Los Angeles County; however the legislature quickly moved to amend the laws to prohibit such marriages as well in the aftermath of the case.

Black and White

In the United States there has been an historical disparity between Black female and Black male exogamy

Exogamy

Exogamy is a social arrangement where marriage is allowed only outside of a social group. The social groups define the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. In social studies, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects:...

ratios: according to the United States Census Bureau

United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, there were 354,000 White female/Black male and 196,000 Black female/White male marriages in March 2009, representing a ratio of 181:100. This traditional disparity has steadily declined over the last two decades, having seen its peak in 1981 with a ratio of 371:100. In 2007, 4.6% of all married Blacks in the United States were wed to a White partner, and 0.4% of all Whites were married to a Black partner.

The role of gender in interracial dynamics, found in social studies by Jenifer L. Bratter and Rosalind B. King, was highlighted when examining marital instability among Black/White unions. White wife/Black husband marriages show twice the divorce rate of White wife/White husband couples by the 10th year of marriage, whereas Black wife/White husband marriages are 44% less likely to end in divorce than White wife/White husband couples.

Native American and Asian

Filipino Americans have frequently married Native American and Alaskan Native

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

people. In the 17th century, when Filipinos were under Spanish rule, the Spanish colonists ensured a Filipino trade between the Philippines and the Americas. When the Mexicans revolted against the Spanish, the Filipinos first escaped into Mexico, then traveled to Louisiana, where the exclusively male Filipinos married Native American

Native Americans in the United States

women. In the 1920s, Filipino American

Filipino American

Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...

communities of workers also grew in Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, and Filipino American men married Alaskan Native women. On the west coast, Filipino American

Filipino American

s married Native American women in Bainbridge Island, Washington

Washington State

Washington State may refer to:* Washington , often referred to as "Washington state" to differentiate it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state- See also :...

Asian and Black

With African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s and Asian American

Asian American

s, the ratios are even further imbalanced, with roughly five times more Asian female/African male marriages than Asian male/African female marriages. However, C.N. Le estimated that among Asian Americans of the 1.5 generation and of the five largest Asian American ethnic groups this ratio narrows to approximately two to one. Even though the disparity between African American and Asian American interracial marriages by gender is high according to the 2000 US Census, the total numbers of Asian American/African American interracial marriages are low, numbering only 0.22% percent for Asian American male marriages and 1.30% percent of Asian female marriages, partially contributed by the recent flux of Asian immigrants.

Historically, Chinese American

Chinese American

Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...

men married African American women in high proportions to their total marriage numbers due to few Chinese American women being in the United States. After the Emancipation Proclamation

Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...

, many Chinese Americans immigrated to the Southern states, particularly Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

, to work on plantations. The tenth US Census of Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

counted 57% of interracial marriages between these Chinese American

Chinese American

s to be with African American

African American

s and 43% to be with European American

European American

A European American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe...

women. After the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese American men had fewer potential ethnically Chinese wives, so they increasingly married African American women on the West Coast.. In Jamaica and other Caribbean nations as well many Chinese males over past generations took up African wives, gradually assimilating or absorbing many Chinese descendants into the African Caribbean community or the overall mixed-race community.

Native American and White

The interracial disparity between genders among Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

is low. According to the 1990 US Census (which only counts indigenous people with US-government-recognized tribal affiliation), Native American women intermarried European American men 2% more than Native American men married European American women. Historically in Latin America, and to a lesser degree in the United States, Native Americans have married out at a high rate. Many countries in Latin America have large Mestizo

Mestizo

Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

populations; in many cases, mestizos are the largest ethnic group in their respective countries.

Native American and Black

In the United States, interracial unions between Native Americans and African Americans has also existed throughout the 16th through early 20th century resulting in some African Americans having Native American heritage.

Marriage squeeze

A term has arisen to describe the social phenomenon of the so-called "marriage squeeze" for African American

African American

females. The "marriage squeeze" refers to the perception that the most "eligible" and "desirable" African American men are marrying non-African American women at a higher rate, leaving African American women who wish to marry African American men with fewer partnering options. According to Newsweek, 43% of African American women between the ages of 30 and 34 have never been married. This figure is similar to the percentage of unmarried women of other races except white females. Several explanations of this phenomenon have been advanced by sociologists. It may be in part due to the still lingering effects of social ostracism, to which Caucasian American men who married African American women were heavily subjected in the past. It may also be the result of a desire among African American women to marry African American men due to concepts such as racial loyalty. In recent times, however, many African American women have expressed a desire and openness to marriage with non-African American men.

Education and interracial marriage

Using PUMS data from both the 1980 and 1990 US Census to determine trends within interracial marriage among Caucasian Americans, African American

African American

s, and Asian American

Asian American

s, it may be seen that endogamy

Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...

(marrying within race) was more prevalent for African American men at lower education levels.
In 1980, the numbers were as follows: African American males without a high-school diploma participated in endogamy at 96.5%; for those who received a high-school diploma, 95.6%; for those with a college degree and above, the percentage of endogamy were 94.0%. Therefore, the total change in percentage among African American men with a college degree was merely 2.5%. The rates for African American women changed very little with different educational levels. For the African American woman who had not received a high school diploma the rate was 98.7%, high school diploma was 98.6%, with some college it was 98.2%, and college degree or higher, 98.5%.
During this time there was a significant increase in marriages between Caucasians and African Americans, maintaining that African Americans are most likely to marry Caucasians over other groups. .

The 1990 results show that rates of endogamy dropped for both males and females, albeit more for the African American male. In 1990, an African American male with a college degree and more was participating in endogamy at 90.4%; for an African American female with the same educational level, 96.4%. The results for the propensity of individuals at higher educational attainment levels to participate less in endogamy over the 10-year period were similar across races, including Caucasians, Hispanics, and Asian Americans.

Immigrants and interracial marriage

Racial endogamy

Endogamy

is significantly stronger among recent immigrants. This result holds for all racial groups, with the strongest endogamy found among immigrants of African descent. Interestingly, the gender differences in interracial marriage change significantly when the non-white partner is an immigrant. For instance, female immigrants of African descent are more likely to marry U.S.-born Caucasians than are their male counterparts.

Interracial marriage versus cohabitation

In the United States, rates of interracial cohabitation

Cohabitation

Cohabitation usually refers to an arrangement whereby two people decide to live together on a long-term or permanent basis in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married...

are significantly higher than those of marriage. Although only 7 percent of married African American men have Caucasian American wives, 12.5 percent of cohabitating African American men have Caucasian American partners. 25 percent of married Asian American women have Caucasian spouses, but 45 percent of cohabitating Asian American women are with Caucasian American men—higher than the percentage cohabitating with Asian men (less than 43 percent). Of cohabiting Asian men, slightly over 37 percent of Asian men have white female partners. These numbers suggest that the prevalence of intimate interracial contact is greatly underestimated when one focuses only on marriage data.

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