Multiracial groups continue to fight monoracial concept
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
The share of Americans who identify themselves as multiracial has shrunk this decade, an unexpected trend in an increasingly diverse nation.
About 1.9% of the people checked off more than one race in a 2005 Census Bureau survey of 3 million households, a meaningful decline from two surveys in 2000.
“There’s no overall explanation” for the drop, says Reynolds Farley, a research scientist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research who analyzed the trend.
The data show that the nation continues to wrestle with racial identity even in the face of growing diversity, he says. “We’re a society where we still basically assume everyone is in one race,” he says.
Multiracial groups fought that concept in the 1990s. The small but vocal movement gained momentum in 1997 after golfer Tiger Woods proclaimed his race “Cablinasian” — for Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian. The spotlight hit other multiracial celebrities, including singer Mariah Carey, actress Halle Berry and Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
Mixed-race Americans lobbied the government to stop requiring people to choose one race category on Census and other federal forms. The 2000 Census for the first time allowed people to check more than one race. About 2.4%, or 6.8 million people, did so in the full Census.
Multiracial groups fought that concept in the 1990s. The small but vocal movement gained momentum in 1997 after golfer Tiger Woods proclaimed his race “Cablinasian” — for Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian. The spotlight hit other multiracial celebrities, including singer Mariah Carey, actress Halle Berry and Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
Mixed-race Americans lobbied the government to stop requiring people to choose one race category on Census and other federal forms. The 2000 Census for the first time allowed people to check more than one race. About 2.4%, or 6.8 million people, did so in the full Census.