More Racial & Ethnic Groups

Racial identity is far from a straightforward concept, and when multiple strands of identity come together this has the potential to increase the complexity.

To overcome the obstacles of measuring racial attitudes, Pew Research Center conducted an Implicit Association Test (IAT), a technique that psychologists say measures subconscious or “hidden” bias by tracking how quickly individuals associate good and bad words with specific racial groups.

To get a sense of how the country's racial demographics are changing, take a look at the differences between mixed-race Americans old and young.

The number of multiracial Americans is growing nationwide, but in Hawaii, it’s nothing new. The Rainbow state – with its history of attracting immigrants from Asia and other parts of the world to work as farm laborers – stands far above the rest, with nearly one-in-four residents (24%) identifying as multiracial.

Is race purely about the races in your family tree? Our new survey of multiracial adults suggests there’s more to racial identity that goes beyond one’s ancestry.

Interracial marriages have increased steadily since 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in 16 states.

Biracial adults who are white and American Indian are among the least likely of mixed-race adults to consider themselves multiracial (only 25% do). They are among the most likely to say their multiracial background has been neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.

We released our first report on American multiracial adults, a group that comprises an estimated 6.9% of the adult population, or nearly 17 million adults. The report looks at who they are demographically, their attitudes and experiences, and the spectrum of their racial identity.

Multiracial Americans are at the cutting edge of social and demographic change in the U.S.