Multiracial Americans

Multiracial Americans, also known as mixed-race Americans, are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed-race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially (cf. the one-drop rule). In the 2020 United States census, 33.8 million individuals or 10.2% of the population, self-identified as multiracial. There is evidence that an accounting by genetic ancestry would produce a higher number.

The multiracial population is the fastest growing demographic group in the United States, increasing by 276% between 2010 and 2020. This growth was driven largely by Hispanic or Latino Americans identifying as multiracial, with this group increasing from 3 million in 2010 to over 20 million in 2020, making up almost two thirds of the multiracial population. Most multiracial Hispanics identified as white and "some other race" in combination, with this group increasing from 1.6 million to 24 million between 2010 and 2021. While the multiracial population has been growing naturally for the last few decades, increasing by around 32% between 2000 and 2010, the sharp rise of 276% seen in the 2020 census has been attributed mostly to changes in the Census Bureau's methodology on counting write-in ancestry responses, rather than cultural or demographic shifts.

The impact of historical racial systems, such as that created by admixture between white European colonists and Native Americans, has often led people to identify or be classified by only one ethnicity, generally that of the culture in which they were raised. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their multiracial heritage because of racial discrimination against minorities. While many Americans may be considered multiracial, they often do not know it or do not identify so culturally, any more than they maintain all the differing traditions of a variety of national ancestries.

After a lengthy period of formal racial segregation in the former Confederacy following the Reconstruction Era and bans on interracial marriage in various parts of the country, more people are openly forming interracial unions. In addition, social conditions have changed and many multiracial people do not believe it is socially advantageous to try to "pass" as white. Diverse immigration has brought more mixed race people into the United States, such as a significant population of Hispanics. Since the 1980s, the United States has had a growing multiracial identity movement (cf. Loving Day). Because more Americans have insisted on being allowed to acknowledge their mixed racial origins, the 2000 census for the first time allowed residents to check more than one ethno-racial identity and thereby identify as multiracial. In 2008, Barack Obama, who is of Luo (Kenyan) and Scottish lineage, was elected as the first biracial President of the United States; he acknowledges both sides of his family and identifies as African-American.

Today, multiracial individuals are found in every corner of the country. Multiracial groups in the United States include many African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Latino Americans, Métis Americans, Louisiana Creoles, Hapas, Melungeons and several other communities found primarily in the Eastern US. Many Native Americans are multiracial in ancestry while identifying fully as members of federally recognized tribes.

The American people are mostly multi-ethnic descendants of various culturally distinct immigrant groups, many of which have now developed nations. Some consider themselves multiracial, while acknowledging race as a social construct. Creolization, assimilation and integration have been continuing processes. The Civil Rights Movement and other social movements since the mid-twentieth century worked to achieve social justice and equal enforcement of civil rights under the constitution for all ethnicities. In the 2000s, less than 5% of the population identified as multiracial. In many instances, mixed racial ancestry is so far back in an individual's family history (for instance, before the Civil War or earlier), that it does not affect more recent ethnic and cultural identification.

Interracial relationships, common-law marriages and marriages occurred since the earliest colonial years, especially before slavery hardened as a racial caste associated with people of African descent in Colonial America. Several of the Thirteen Colonies passed laws in the 17th century that gave children the social status of their mother, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, regardless of the father's race or citizenship. This overturned the precedent in common law by which a man gave his status to his children – this had enabled communities to demand that fathers support their children, whether legitimate or not. The change increased white men's ability to use slave women sexually, as they had no responsibility for the children. As master as well as father of mixed-race children born into slavery, the men could use these people as servants or laborers or sell them as slaves. In some cases, white fathers provided for their multiracial children, paying or arranging for education or apprenticeships and freeing them, particularly during the two decades following the Revolutionary War. (The practice of providing for the children was more common in French and Spanish colonies, where a class of free people of color developed who became educated and property owners.) Many other white fathers abandoned the mixed race children and their mothers to slavery.

The researcher Paul Heinegg found that most families of free people of color in colonial times were founded from the unions of white women, whether free or indentured servants and African men, slave, indentured or free. In the early years, the working-class peoples lived and worked together. Their children were free because of the status of the white women. This was in contrast to the pattern in the post-Revolutionary era, in which most mixed-race children had white fathers and Black mothers.