The Surge of Young Americans - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

La oleada de jóvenes estadounidenses
from Minority-White Mixed Families &
Its Significance for the Future

Richard Alba

The number of youth from mixed majority-minority families, in which one parent
is White and the other minority, is surging in the early twenty-first century. This de-
velopment is challenging both our statistical schemes for measuring ethnicity and
race as well as our thinking about their demographic evolution in the near future.
This essay summarizes briefly what we know about mixed minority-White Ameri-
cans and includes data about their growing numbers as well as key social character-
istics of children and adults from mixed backgrounds. The essay concludes that this
phenomenon highlights weaknesses in our demographic data system as well as in the
majority-minority narrative about how American society is changing.

A largely unheralded demographic development holds the potential to re-

shape the ethnoracial contours of American society in the coming de-
cades. That development is the surge of young people coming from
ethnoracially mixed families, and especially from those in which one parent is
non-Hispanic White (“White” in what follows) and the other minority, either
non-White or Hispanic.

To be sure, mixing across ethnic and racial lines has been a feature of the
American experience since the earliest days of European colonization. Mixing be-
tween different European origins was celebrated as early as the eighteenth cen-
tury by Hector St. John de Crèvecouer in Letters from an American Farmer. En el
post–World War II period, the rise of marriage on a large scale across ethnic and
religious lines among Whites played a leading role in the story of mass assimi-
lación, which forged a White mainstream that included the descendants of late
nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century immigrants from Ireland and South-
ern and Eastern Europe.1 Throughout American history, Whites’ dominant sta-
tus has been expressed in sexual encounters across racial divisions, particularly
between White men and minority women, that have produced children. Cuando
these children were mixed White and Black, they were mostly consigned to the
African American population by virtue of the so-called one-drop rule. Cuando el

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children were mixed White and American Indian, they had a greater chance of be-
ing absorbed into the White population.2

The mixing across the major boundaries–of race and of Hispanic ethnicity–
appears to hold a new significance in the early twenty-first century. The current
situation seems novel in the degree of social recognition accorded mixed ethnora-
cial parentage as an independent status, rather than one that must be amalgamat-
ed into one group or another (as in the one-drop rule). The Census Bureau’s im-
portant decision to allow multiple-race reporting starting in 2000 is an acknowl-
edgment of this new reality but also has contributed to it by creating statistical
data concerning racial mixture that permeate into public consciousness.3

Sin embargo, the extent and long-run significance of this mixing still elude the
stylized demographic “facts” of which Americans are most aware, epitomized
in the majority-minority society anticipated by midcentury. In truth, mixing be-
tween Whites and minorities presents major challenges to common conceptions
de, and census classification schemes for, ethnicity and race. Por esta razón, el
degree of mixing and our ability to discern its societal significance are not reflect-
ed clearly in publicly available demographic data.

En este ensayo, I assess ethnoracial mixing, presenting estimates of its current ex-
tent and trend. I also summarize, if all too briefly, what we know about the charac-
teristics of individuals from mixed minority-White family backgrounds, en orden
to gauge where they appear to locate within American social structures.4 Though
the details of this picture are complex, its broad outlines seem apparent. Para el
most part, individuals from these origins seem to be integrating into what can be
described as the “mainstream” of American society, where most Whites are also
found. The important exception involves individuals with Black and White par-
entage, who suffer from the severe racism that still impedes Americans of visible
African descent. In the conclusion, I point out the implications of mixing for our
demographic understanding of the American near future.

E thnoracial mixing in families has risen steadily since the late 1960s. Criti-

cal to this trend was the wonderfully named 1967 decision of the U.S. Su-
preme Court Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated the remaining antimis-
cegenation laws. To be sure, marriages are only a measure of the trend: they do
not encompass the entirety of mixing since family connections, such as coparent-
En g, form outside of marriage. But we have good data for marriage. The Pew Re-
search Center has tracked marriages involving partners from two different major
ethnoracial categories.5 In 1967, acerca de 3 percent of newlyweds were in intermar-
riages; por 2015, this rate had risen to 17 por ciento. It seems highly likely that the rate
of mixing in families formed without marriage is at least as high, since one reason
that couples do not marry is family opposition, which is usually greater when a
partner belongs to a different ethnoracial group. Eighty percent of the mixed mar-

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

riages of 2015 united a White partner with a minority partner, the largest grouping
among them constituted by Hispanic-White couples.6

A consequence of rising mixing in families is, quite obviously, an increase in
the fraction of youth who are growing up with parents, as well as numerous oth-
er close relatives, from two different ethnoracial groups. We can think of kinship
connections that by virtue of birth span major societal boundaries as the socio-
logical essential of a mixed family background. Birth certificates provide the best
data about mixed backgrounds in this sense, since they include the children of
noncohabiting parents, who may still provide kinship connections for them. En
2018, fathers’ and mothers’ ethnoracial backgrounds were indicated on 87 por ciento
of birth certificates. Birth certificates missing a parent’s information–invariably
the father’s–are unlikely to represent mixed parentage since the missing data
probably indicate a broken parental connection, so they can be counted among
the unmixed. Sobre esta base, 10.8 percent of all the births in 2018 were to mixed
minority-White couples. The parents of an additional 3.7 percent of births came
from different minority backgrounds.

Cifra 1 shows the breakdown of the mixed infants of 2018 in terms of the eth-
noracial origins of the parents.7 The largest single category by far–almost 40 por-
cent of all mixed births, and more than half of all those in which one parent is
White–is for infants with one Hispanic parent and one White, non-Hispanic par-
ent (a group I will refer to as “Anglo-Hispanic” or “Hispanic-White”). It is fairly
evenly divided between families in which the Hispanic parent is the father and
those in which it is the mother. Other large categories of mixed infants with one
White parent include: those whose minority parent is Black (and usually the fa-
ther), amounting to 13.3 percent of all mixed births; those whose minority parent
is Asian (and usually the mother), 9.4 percent of all mixed births; and those with
a mixed-race parent, 10.4 percent of mixed births. Most of the racially mixed par-
ents have some White (eso es, European) ancestry. As we will see, there is a strong
tendency for individuals from mixed minority-White backgrounds to choose
White partners.

Infants with a White parent are three-quarters of all mixed infants. In the quar-
ter of mixed births involving minority parents only, Hispanics are again central.
Infants with one Black parent, usually the father, and one Hispanic parent are 8.5
percent of all mixed births. Infants with one Hispanic parent and one non-His-
panic parent of mixed race are 3.6 por ciento; and those with one Hispanic parent
and one Asian parent are 3.2 por ciento. Infants with a Black parent, usually the fa-
ther, and a racially mixed parent are also appreciable in number at 3.9 por ciento de
mixed births. El restante 6.1 percent are scattered among various combina-
tions of mixed minority origins.

To put the mixing between Whites and minorities into perspective, infantes
born to a minority-White parent combination are more numerous than those

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

Cifra 1
Ethnoracial Mixes among 2018 Births

Black-Mixed Race, 3.9%

Hispanic-Mixed Race, 3.6%

Asian-Hispanic, 3.2%

Black-Hispanic, 8.5%

Mixed Race-White, 10.4%

American Indian-White, 2.3%

Other Minority Mixed, 6.1%

Hispanic-White, 39.1%

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Asian-White, 9.4%

Black-White, 13.3%

Nota: Pie chart shows the composition of the 14.5 percent of all 2018 births that were mixed:
eso es, the father and mother belonged to different major ethnoracial categories.
Fuente: Author calculations from public-use birth-certificate data. (See Joyce A. Martín, Brady
mi. hamilton, Michelle J. k. Osterman, and Anne K. Driscoll, “Births: Final Data for 2018,”
National Vital Statistics Reports 68 (13) (2019), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/
nvsr68_13-508.pdf.)

born to two Black parents (9.1 percent of all births). Sin embargo, when births to
Black mothers who are solo parents (eso es, no information for fathers is given)
are counted in the unmixed Black group, then the unmixed Black group, en 13.6
por ciento, eclipses the mixed minority-White group. The latter is also smaller than
the unmixed Hispanic group, en 19.5 percent of all births. Sin embargo, no other group
of minority babies approaches the mixed minority-White one in size.

Another way of thinking about numerical impact is in terms of the share of
births to minority parents that also involve White parents. Consider the Hispanic
population in this regard, since it is the largest minority in the United States and
projected to increase substantially in size by midcentury. En 2018, 29.1 por ciento de
all births involving Hispanic parents also involved a non-Hispanic parent, y 20.7

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

percent–one of every five–involved a White parent. Por supuesto, many contempo-
rary Hispanic parents are immigrants, and the rates of mixing are moderately high-
er when parents are U.S. born. The story is more or less the same for other minority
poblaciones. Even for Whites, still the largest ethnoracial population in the United
Estados, the rate of mixing is appreciable: 19.0 por ciento, or one out of five.

Like the rate of intermarriage, the percentage of all infants with mixed parent-
age has been rising over time. The best measure we have of this trend comes from
census data and must for this reason be limited to infants in households contain-
ing both parents. En 1980, justo 5 percent of these infants had mixed parentage, y
this mixing incidentally was dominated by Anglo-Hispanic couples. En 2017, el
equivalent percentage was 16.1 por ciento, a threefold rise in less than forty years.

It seems certain that the rate of mixing will continue to rise, although it is im-
possible to say how high it will go. Key demographic features of the immigrant-
origin minority populations point in different directions. Por un lado, su
rising size over time is likely to dampen somewhat family mixing because larger
groups offer more opportunity for in-group partnering. (By the same logic, el
declining size of Whites among young adults is consistent with greater mixing
for them.) Por otro lado, the generational shift away from the immigrants–
and especially to the third generation–is strongly associated with family mixing.
Y, in the case of Hispanics, increasing educational attainment is, también. The pop-
ulation projections of the Census Bureau indicate much greater future mixing be-
tween Whites and minorities.8

O ne great truism of social science is that where we start in life is a very

good predictor of where we wind up. And for many children from mixed
minority-White backgrounds, their start in life is better than where
those with the same minority family origins start, though it is typically not equiv-
alent to where White children begin. The one great exception involves children
with one White and one Black parent, who suffer at the start from systemic racism
that accompanies them as they grow up.

Consider the education of parents, a strong predictor of education in the new
generación (ver figura 2). There is a gradient in the parental education of mixed
minority-White infants that runs from the children of Asian-White parentage, el
most advantaged, to those with a Black father and a White mother, who are domi-
nant among Black-White infants but also the least advantaged mixed group. En el
case of the former, the majority of infants have two parents who are college gradu-
ates, and for more than half of the rest, one parent graduated from college. En esto
respeto, Asian-White infants enjoy a more favorable start in life than do infants
with two White parents, among whom one-third have two college-graduate par-
ents. Sin embargo, the children of a Black father and a White mother are on average
only slightly better off than the children of two Black parents; acerca de 30 por ciento

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

Cifra 2
Parental Education of Infants from Different Mixed and Unmixed Family
Backgrounds

Two White Parents

Two Black Parents

Two American Indian Parents

Two Asian Parents

Two Hispanic Parents

Black Father, White Mother

White Father, Black Mother

American Indian Father, White Mother

White Father, American Indian Mother

Asian Father, White Mother

White Father, Asian Mother

Hispanic Father, White Mother

White Father, Hispanic Mother

Mixed Father, White Mother

White Father, Mixed Mother

One Black, One Hispanic Parent

One Minority, One Mixed White Parent

Other Mixes

40
50
Percent

One Parent with BA

Both Parents with BA

Fuente: Author calculations from public-use birth-certificate data. (See Joyce A. Martín, Brady
mi. hamilton, Michelle J. k. Osterman, et al., “Births: Final Data for 2017,” National Vital Statis-
tics Reports 67 (8) (2018), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf.)

have at least one parent who completed college. The children of a White father and
a Black mother are better off–about 40 percent have a college-educated parent–
though their parents average less than the educational level of two White parents.
Two other major categories of minority-White infants are also positioned
more favorably than the average infant with minority parents only. Acerca de 40 por-
cent of Hispanic-White infants have at least one parent with a college degree; el
figure is higher when the White parent is the father. Más que 40 percent of in-
fants with a White parent and a racially mixed one have a college-educated parent,
and once again the figure is higher when the father is White.

Another revealing aspect of the situation of infants of mixed parentage is
where their families reside. Residential disparities in a highly segregated society
like the United States are a primary mechanism of transmitting inequality across

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

the generations. School quality, to take an obvious instance, is highly variable, en
part because of the predominant role of local and state funding, and tends to cor-
respond with the ethnoracial and socioeconomic composition of local areas.9 To
examine the situation of the families of infants included in American Communi-
ty Survey data, the spatial divisions of the country can be fit into a serviceable, si
rough, scheme that takes account of how urban a space is and whether a residence
is owned or rented.10 The combination of these two factors maps out socially very
different residential spaces in the United States.

Minorities are more likely than Whites to live in urban and inner-suburban
areas (abbreviated as “urban” subsequently) that are dominated by rental hous-
En g. Por ejemplo, nearly half of the families of Black infants live in rental spaces in
cities or inner suburbs, but only one-quarter are in owner-occupied homes in sub-
urban areas. The families of White infants are more likely to live in suburban or
city-edge areas (abbreviated subsequently as “suburban”) dominated by owner-
occupied homes. Nearly half are in homeowner suburban areas, while only 15 por-
cent are urban renters. Another quarter are located in rural areas and small towns,
mostly in homes they own.

The families of some categories of mixed minority-White infants are at least
as concentrated in homeowner suburban areas as White infants and their fami-
lies are. This is true, Por ejemplo, of families in which one parent is White and the
other parent is of mixed race. Like Whites, they are also represented in rural areas
and small towns. Asian-White families with infants are even more concentrated
in homeowner suburban spaces than the families of White infants; sin embargo, y-
like Whites but like Asian-only families, they are infrequently found outside, o
on the edge of, metropolitan regions.

The families of Hispanic-White infants are more likely to reside in homeowner
suburban areas than in rental urban ones, but their residential distribution does
not favor the former as much as that of White families does. Sin embargo, ellos
are much less located in urban rental spaces than are Black or Hispanic families.
En otras palabras, they are closer to White families in terms of residence than they
are to the main minority ones. Also in between, but this time closer to a residential
distribution like minorities, are Black-White families with infants.

An implication of these patterns is that mixed minority-White children of-
ten are located in places that, while they may be diverse, include many White
niños. De este modo, many have White playmates and learn how to relate amicably to
Whites, as some Whites do to them. This childhood integration potentially has
major implications for adult life, where pathways to socioeconomic success often
run through largely White institutions and social worlds. Is the implication cor-
roborated by other data?

We have both qualitative and quantitative evidence to support it. In an analy-
sis of friendship patterns of adolescents, found in the Adolescent Health Sur-

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

vey (Add Health), a rigorously conducted, nationally representative study, entonces-
ciologist Grace Kao and her colleagues found that some groups of mixed youth
frequently chose White best friends. Asian-White adolescents are an example:
acerca de 70 percent chose White best friends, y solo 11 percent chose Asian ones.
The tendency of mixed Asian-White youth to befriend Whites is partly the result
of the racial mix of the high schools they attend, which are majority White on
promedio. Hispanic-Whites also seem to have many White best friends, a pesar de
an inferential step is required to reach this conclusion. The study examined the
friendship of racially White Hispanics, among whom most mixed Hispanic-
White youth are likely found. The majority of these youth (57 por ciento) chose
White best friends, and another 13 percent chose Hispanic friends who are de-
scribed as racially White. En este caso, the choice pattern mirrors the composi-
tions of the schools attended.11

The pattern looks very different for mixed youth of African descent. Negro-
White adolescents are much more likely than Asian-White and Hispanic-White
youth to choose friends of the same minority origin: about half did so in the Add
Health study, though this tendency is markedly lower than that of Black-only ad-
olescents. Solo 20 percent chose White best friends. These choices are more con-
centrated among minority friends than would be expected from the composition
of the schools Black-White adolescents attend, which are almost half White.

A qualitative study of young adults by sociologist Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl
gives insight into the experiences that lie behind the different friendship pat-
terns of Asian- and Black-Whites.12 The Asian-White interviewees mostly grew
up around Whites, and seem to feel that their childhoods were not unusual. Ellos
were exposed to forms of microaggression during childhood–jokes about any
distinctiveness in their physical appearance or the food they ate–but were gener-
ally able to shrug them off. In Strmic-Pawl’s apt characterization, they felt “White
enough.” For Black-White young adults, the weight of childhood experience was
not so benign. Their interviews convey a sense that managing racism and race-
inflected encounters is a major theme throughout their life experience. Strmic-
Pawl characterizes this theme as “salient Blackness,” and presumably its develop-
ment began during childhood.

T he surge of individuals from ethnoracially mixed families is mostly a

twenty-first-century phenomenon, y, además, mixed backgrounds
seem to have attained a new social recognition since 2000. These facts im-
ply that our data about adults with mixed backgrounds are less reliable as guides
to the near future than are our data about today’s children. Mixed family back-
grounds are more unusual among adults, and hence the adults from them may
have grown up encouraged by the “one-drop” views of others to think of them-
selves in terms of a single origin.

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

There is another problem. In our main demographic data sets, like the Ameri-
can Community Survey, the reporting of mixed ethnoracial origins is selective: eso
es, the reporting is not consistent, even for the same individual over time; muchos
individuals from mixed backgrounds appear at any one moment in unmixed cat-
egories. We have very convincing evidence of this.13 Therefore, in examining the
characteristics of those who report mixed backgrounds at any one moment, nosotros
are missing many with the same origins who classify themselves in a different eth-
noracial category. Además, we do not know yet how those we can see in the data
differ from those we cannot. A solution to this problem is ancestry tracing: eso es,
gathering data separately about the mother’s and father’s family origins. Sin embargo-
es, only a few surveys, especially those by the Pew Research Center, do this, y
their samples are not large.

One way of counteracting selectivity in reporting of origins is to expand the
range of information we consider. Por ejemplo, the American Community Sur-
vey has a question about ancestry that is usually not taken into account in eth-
noracial classifications. Sin embargo, it allows us to identify a substantial portion
of the otherwise hidden mixed individuals, such as Hispanics who report hav-
ing ancestry like German or Irish. These are, en otras palabras, persons with mixed
Hispanic-White family backgrounds, and the following analysis considers them
tal como.

For investigating the adult socioeconomic status associated with mixed fami-
ly backgrounds, the best indicator is educational attainment. That is because, como
adultos, mixed individuals skew young, and therefore they are concentrated in the
early stages of work careers. Educational attainment, especially when it involves
college graduation or postbaccalaureate education, is surely predictive of eventu-
al labor-market position.

The key finding is that the educational attainment of the major mixed minority-
White groups lies in-between that of Whites, whom we can use as a measure of
the mainstream pattern, and that of the minority. pero lo es, on the whole, closer to
the White level than the minority one. This pattern can be seen in Figure 3, cual
presents the educational attainment of major ethnoracially mixed and unmixed
categories for U.S.-born men and women between the ages of twenty-five and
thirty-nine.

This conclusion is exemplified by the Anglo-Hispanic group. Unmixed His-
panic men (only the U.S. born are considered) have a relatively low rate of bac-
calaureate attainment, solo 16 por ciento, well behind that of White, or Anglo, hombres,
37 percent of whom have the credential. Desde 30 percent of Anglo-Hispanic men
also have graduated from college, they are notably closer to the White percent-
age than to the Hispanic one. Anglo-Hispanic women are similarly positioned be-
tween the White and Hispanic rates, although all the rates of baccalaureate attain-
ment are higher for women.

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

Cifra 3
Postsecondary Educational Attainment of Mixed and Unmixed
Ethnoracial Categories (Expanded), U.S.-Born Men and Women Aged
Twenty-Five to Thirty-Nine

Hombres

Women

80%

60%

40%

20%

Non-Hispanic Black
Black-White
Non-Hispanic White
American Indian
American Indian-White

asiático

Asian-White

Hispanic-White
Hispano

American Indian-White
American Indian
Non-Hispanic Black
Black-White
Non-Hispanic White

Asian-White
asiático

Hispanic-White
Hispano

More than BA

Nota: In order to counteract selective reporting of mixed backgrounds on the race and
Hispanic-origin census questions, expanded mixed categories take into account ancestry data
también. See text discussion. Fuente: 2017 American Community Survey, provided by IPUMS.
Steven Ruggles, Sarah Flood, Ronald Goeken, et al., IPUMS USA: Versión 9.0 [conjunto de datos]
(Mineápolis: IPUMS, 2019), http://doi.org/10.18128/D010.V9.0.

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Individuals who come from Black-White backgrounds occupy a more interme-
diate position. One-quarter (26 por ciento) of the men have a college degree, clearly
higher than the 17 percent of Black-only men but substantially lower than the 37
percent of White-only men. The educational attainment of Black-White women
is similarly situated: 37 percent with baccalaureates or more versus 47 percent for
White women and 26 percent for Black women.

Since the expansion of the mixed categories with data from the ancestry ques-
tion is unlikely to overcome entirely the problem of selectivity, some corrobora-
tive evidence would be valuable. It comes from the annual CIRP (Cooperative In-
stitutional Research Program) Freshman Survey, conducted by the University of
California, Los Angeles’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). In several
of the early years of this century (2001–2003), this survey of the nation’s enter-
ing college class asked not only about the ethnoracial backgrounds of the students
but also about those of their parents, making it possible to identify students with
mixed parentage without ambiguity.14

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

These data demonstrate that, among students with Hispanic ancestry, those
with a White parent were more likely to enter a four-year college and much more
likely to enter the selective tier of higher education. (A similar pattern, but on a
more modest scale, appears for Black students.) The advantage in beginning col-
lege becomes apparent when the ratio of Hispanic-only to Anglo-Hispanic stu-
dents among freshmen at four-year colleges is compared with its equivalent in
an appropriate birth cohort. The closest birth cohort is that in the 1980 census,
when there were 2.5 Hispanic-only infants for every Anglo-Hispanic infant. Alguno
twenty-plus years later, among first-year college students, Había 1.8 Hispano-
only freshmen for every Anglo-Hispanic freshman–the smaller ratio indicates a
disadvantage at that time for Hispanic-only youth in attending college.

More strikingly, students from mixed Hispanic-White families were distribut-
ed across the tiers of the four-year college universe similarly to White students. En
the early 2000s, more than half (54 por ciento) of students with two White parents
attended colleges that HERI views as more selective, compared with one-quarter
(27 por ciento) of students with two Black parents and one-third (31 por ciento) of stu-
dents with two Hispanic parents. Sin embargo, for students with one White and one
Hispanic parent, the fraction in the more selective tier was, en 53 por ciento, no dif-
ferent from that of Whites. It made no difference whether the Hispanic parent
was the father or the mother. Además, a White parent was a huge advantage for
a student with Hispanic ancestry in gaining access to elite schools, the public and
private universities classified by HERI as very selective. Acerca de 9 percent of the
White-only freshmen attended elite schools in the early 2000s, compared with
5 percent of Black-only students and 6 percent of Hispanic-only students. Cómo-
alguna vez, 11 percent of mixed White-Hispanic students attended elite schools. Teniendo
a White parent was also an asset in this respect for students with a Black parent.

To understand the social location of mixed Americans, we also need to know
about the social milieus with which they typically affiliate: the kinds of friends
ellos tienen, the neighborhoods where they reside, and the families they form. El
Pew Surveys of Multiracial Americans and on Hispanic Identity, which avoid the
selectivity problem by ancestry tracing, are informative in this respect.15

One indicator is feeling accepted by Whites, the dominant majority. Sixty-two
percent of Asian-Whites feel “very” accepted by Whites, comparado con 47 por-
cent who say they feel very accepted by Asians; y 72 percent of Anglo-Hispanics
feel very accepted by the White majority, comparado con 49 percent by Hispan-
circuitos integrados. The perceptions of Black-White adults are very different. Only one-quarter
of them feel very accepted by Whites, but nearly 60 percent feel very accepted by
Blacks.16

Most individuals from mixed minority-White backgrounds, with the promi-
nent exception of those of Black-White parentage, appear to be involved in social
milieus that, while varying in their diversity, contain numerous Whites. Nearly

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

half of Asian-Whites say that most or all of their friends are Whites, comparado
with just 7 percent who say this about Asians. Near two-thirds say that all or most
of their neighbors are Whites. The social milieus of Anglo-Hispanics also tilt
Blanco, but not as much: half say that all or most of their friends are Whites, mientras
one-quarter say this of Hispanics; and the figures are very similar concerning their
neighbors. Individuals who are White and Black are located in quite different so-
cial spaces. Half of them say that all or most of their friends are Black. Sin embargo,
just one-third claim to live in mostly Black neighborhoods; this group is outnum-
bered by the more than 40 percent who live in mostly White neighborhoods.17

Most tellingly, individuals from mixed minority and White family backgrounds
appear mostly to marry Whites, on the one hand supporting the notion that Whites
make up disproportionate shares of their social milieus and, en el otro, ensur-
ing that the next generation, their children, will grow up in heavily White, if still
mezclado, family contexts. Romantic partners typically are chosen from the people
encountered in everyday social environments, such as school or work. High prob-
abilities of marrying Whites indicate that these milieus are preponderantly White,
although we cannot discount the possibility that some mixed individuals seek out
a White partner because of Whites’ status at the top of the ethnoracial hierarchy.

Based on the expanded definitions of mixed minority-White categories, tabu-
lations from the 2017 American Community Survey, restricted to individuals un-
der the age of forty to capture recent marriage patterns, reveal the tendency to
choose White partners. More than 70 percent of Asian-White women are mar-
ried to White men, and few, solo 10 por ciento, chose Asian-only or Asian-White
hombres. The figures are a bit different for Asian-White men, but not greatly so:
64 percent of them have White partners and less than 20 percent have partners
with some Asian parentage. The tendency to marry Whites is not as strong for
Anglo-Hispanics, but the majority have White spouses: 60 percent of women and
57 percent of men. Acerca de 30 percent in each case are married to someone of whole
or part Hispanic heritage.

For those of Black and White parentage, marriage to Whites is–unsurprisingly
–less common. But it is much more frequent than is true for individuals from
Black-only backgrounds. Más que 40 percent of Black-White men have White
partners; this figure is higher than the percentage with spouses who are Black only
or Black-White. Somewhat more than one-third of Black-White women are mar-
ried to Whites, a percentage about equal to the fraction with Black-only partners.
The expansion of the category through the ancestry data substantially lowers
the intermarriage percentage because it brings in many individuals who classify
themselves as only Black on the race question. These are individuals who, es ap-
pears, are in heavily African American social milieus.

In addition to socioeconomic advancement, as reflected in improved educa-
tional life chances, and frequent integration into social milieus containing many

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

Whites, as indicated by high rates of marriage to Whites, one other characteristic
of Americans from mixed minority-White backgrounds stands out: the fluidity of
their ethnoracial identities. This fluidity, which entails presenting oneself some-
times as mixed and at other times in terms of a single part of one’s background, may
also imply contingency: eso es, identifying oneself in a way that fits the situation
of the moment. But we do not have sufficient evidence at this point to confirm this.
The evidence we have of fluidity is compelling and shows that mixed individu-
als do not present consistently in terms of the broad ethnoracial categories of the
census. One study, based on a match of individuals between the 2000 y 2010
censuses, provides a powerful demonstration.18 Overall, 6 percent of individuals
presented inconsistent ethnoracial reports, but for those who indicated mixed or-
igins on one or both censuses, the rate was much higher. Of those who are Asian
and White by race on one of the censuses, por ejemplo, barely more than one-third
(34.5 por ciento) are consistent on the other. Of the nearly two-thirds who are incon-
sistent, the great majority report as single-race Asian or White on the other cen-
sus, with White responses outnumbering Asian ones by 60 por ciento. The inconsis-
tency pattern among individuals who are Black and White on one census is rather
similar, except that Black-only responses outnumber White-only ones on the oth-
er census by a two-to-one margin.

Another study that makes use of matched census data (over three time points)
reveals fluidity in the identities of individuals who are part Hispanic and part
something else.19 This analysis found that 14 percent of individuals with discern-
able Hispanic ancestry did not report consistently as Hispanic. This figure is de-
ceptively low because the base for the percentage includes the large population
of Latin American immigrants, for whom the rate of inconsistency is very low.
Among those who appear consistently as Hispanic, the percentage having some
non-Hispanic ancestry is small, acerca de 5 por ciento. Among those who are inconsis-
tent, the percentage is roughly ten times higher.

For Hispanics, we have additional evidence that mixed family backgrounds are
connected to a weakening of Hispanic identity. Confirmation comes from the Pew
Survey of Hispanic Identity, which found that 11 percent of individuals with His-
panic ancestry did not identify as Hispanic; almost all of them came from mixed
family backgrounds. Among those from mixed backgrounds who did identify as
Hispano, más que 40 percent said that they most often described themselves as
“American,” a figure that was more than three times higher than that for unmixed
Hispanics.20

A widely believed narrative about the American future, anchored in demo-

graphic data and projections, holds that, within a few decades, Whites
will become a minority of the American population, outnumbered by
the aggregate of minority groups. This narrative has been dubbed the “majority-

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

minority society,” and it is generally presumed that this future demographic shift
will have profound consequences for the distribution of cultural, económico, y
political power among the nation’s ethnoracial groups.

But the surge of young Americans from mixed minority-White backgrounds
complicates this narrative, if it does not overturn it. One reason is that the public-
ly disseminated demographic data, which serve to justify the majority-minority
narrative, inadequately reflect mixed backgrounds. This inadequacy has to do
with problems in conventional ethnoracial classifications. For one thing, in pub-
licly presented data, the Census Bureau usually classifies all individuals who re-
port themselves as mixed on the race question in a separate “mixed race” category.
The members of this category are treated as non-Whites in interpretations of the
datos, although the great majority of them have a White parent. For another, el
measurement of ethnoracial origins in the current two-question format–one for
carrera, the other for Hispanic origin–leads to the classification of anyone who indi-
cates a Hispanic identity as non-White (because “Hispanics may be of any race,"
according to the standard demographic formulation). Sin embargo, we can now be
sure that a substantial minority of Hispanics comes from mixed Anglo-Hispanic
familias; these individuals are lost from view in conventional demographic eth-
noracial categories.

The problems with the majority-minority narrative are not just a matter of
data–they are also conceptual. The narrative envisions American society as frac-
tured into two separate, competing ethnoracial blocs, one of which is declining
while the other is ascending. These blocs are presumed to be distinct in numerous
ways having to do with the average social locations of their members, their typical
experiencias, their views, and above all their sense of relative status. It is widely be-
lieved that the ascent of the minority bloc to majority status, which is supposedly
driven by inevitable demographic processes, will overturn an established social
order in which Whites represent the dominant social group.

The rise of mixing in families between Whites and minorities and the surge of
young Americans from mixed minority-White backgrounds calls for new ways of
thinking about the social changes taking place as a result of increasing societal di-
versity. This mixing is not at all acknowledged in the majority-minority narrative,
a sign of the problematic conceptualization it entails. At the most fundamental
nivel, mixing is reducing the separateness of the ethnoracial blocs: the share of the
White bloc with a sense of membership in the minority bloc, along with deep con-
nections to minority individuals, will continue to grow in the near future; y el
same will be true for the shares of minority groups with a degree of membership in
and close relationships to individuals in the White bloc. For many, what is viewed
today as a bright divide in the majority-minority narrative will increasingly blur.

The limitations of the majority-minority narrative betray problems in social-
science theorizing about American society. En décadas recientes, thinking about race

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families

and ethnicity has been dominated by critical race theory, at whose core is a vision
of society as organized in terms of a rigid ethnoracial hierarchy, which is main-
tained for the benefit of the dominant group, Whites. Critical race theory has,
without question, generated many important insights into ethnoracial inequali-
corbatas. But the surge of young Americans with mixed family backgrounds, many of
whom appear to be integrating into the mainstream, where most Whites are also
located, demonstrates that current developments in the United States cannot be
understood solely on the basis of critical race theory.

We need another kind of idea, one that has been salient at various points in
American history and at whose core is the notion of assimilation. Assimilation
theorizing, like critical race theory, envisions society in terms of an ethnoracial
hierarchy, but with more fluidity. Its most important insights are focused on the
ways that individuals and even groups can improve their position in this hierar-
chy, even reaching parity and integrating with the dominant group. We have un-
deniable evidence that assimilation was the paramount process among the de-
scendants of early-twentieth-century immigrants from Southern and Eastern
Europa. The evidence about twenty-first-century mixing across the majority-
minority divide indicates that it is relevant to at least some descendants of post-
1965 immigrants. It is time for assimilation thinking to make a comeback.

Sobre el Autor

Richard Alba, miembro de la Academia Americana desde 2017, is Distinguished Pro-
fessor at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. His publications
include The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American
Mainstream (2020), The Next Generation: Immigrant Youth in a Comparative Perspective (co-
edited with Mary Waters, 2011), Blurring the Color Line: The New Chance for a More Inte-
grated America (2009), and Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contem-
porary Immigration (with Victor Nee, 2003).

notas finales

1 Richard Alba and Victor Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contempo-

rary Immigration (Cambridge, Masa.: Prensa de la Universidad de Harvard, 2003).

2 Carolyn Liebler, “Counting America’s First Peoples,” The ANNALS of the American Academy

of Political and Social Science 677 (1) (2018): 180–190.

3 Joel Perlmann and Mary C. Waters, editores., The New Race Question: How the Census Counts Multi-

racial Individuals (Nueva York: Fundación Russell Sage, 2002).

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150 (2) Spring 2021Richard Alba

4 For the argument in much greater depth, see Richard Alba, The Great Demographic Illusion:
Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream (Princeton, NUEVA JERSEY.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2020).

5 Gretchen Livingston and Anna Brown, Intermarriage in the U.S. 50 Years after Loving v. Virginia

(Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Pew Research Center, 2017).
6 The Pew study does not include same-sex marriages.

7 Because of the brevity of this essay, I do not discuss or present all of the official ethno-
racial categories. Cifra 1 does not include the very small Hawaiian and other Pacific
Islander group. In the text, I do not discuss American Indians, but concentrate on the
major minority populations: Blacks and Hispanics.

8 Richard Alba, “What Majority-Minority Society? A Critical Analysis of the Census
Bureau’s Population Projections,” Socius 4 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231187
96932.

9 Sean Reardon and Ann Owens, “60 Years after Brown: Trends and Consequences of School

Segregation,” Revista Anual de Sociología 40 (2014): 199–218.

10 These spatial divisions make use of geographic classifications developed by IPUMS based
on PUMA designations. Steven Ruggles, Sarah Flood, Ronald Goeken, et al., IPUMS
EE.UU: Versión 9.0 [conjunto de datos] (Mineápolis: IPUMS, 2019), http://doi.org/10.18128/D010
.V9.0.

11 Grace Kao, Kara Joyner, and Kelly Balistreri, Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships

from Adolescence to Adulthood (Nueva York: Fundación Russell Sage, 2019).

12 Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl, Multiracialism and Its Discontents: A Comparative Analysis of Asian-

White and Black-White Multiracials (Lanham, Maryland.: Lexington Books, 2016).

13 Carolyn Liebler, Sonya Porter, Leticia Fernandez, et al., “America’s Churning Races:
Race and Ethnicity Response Changes between Census 2000 y el 2010 Census,"
Demography 54 (2017): 259–284; and Leticia Fernández, Sonya Porter, Sharon Ennis,
and Renuka Bhaskar, “Factors that Influence Change in Hispanic Identification: Evi-
dence from Linked Decennial Census and American Community Survey Data,” report
CES 18-45 (Suitland, Maryland.: A NOSOTROS. Census Bureau, 2018).

14 The analysis reported here is mine. I am grateful to Nathaniel Kang of UCLA’s HERI for

sharing the parental data, not available in the online survey file, with me.

15 Pew Research Center, Multiracial in America: Proud, Diverse and Growing in Numbers (Lavar-
ington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Pew Research Center, 2015); and Mark Hugo Lopez, Ana Gonzalez-Bar-
rera, and Gustavo López, Latino Identity Fades across Generations as Immigrant Connections Fall
Away (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: Pew Research Center, 2017).

16 Pew Research Center, Multiracial in America, 14. The Anglo-Hispanic figures are my calcu-

lations from the database used for the report.

17 Ibídem., cap. 5.
18 Liebler et al., “America’s Churning Races.”
19 Fernández et al., “Factors that Influence a Change in Hispanic Identification.”
20 Lopez et al., Latino Identity Fades across Generations. I am grateful to Mark Hugo Lopez for

additional data in this paragraph.

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesThe Surge of Young Americans from Minority-White Mixed Families
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