One of the most public manifestations of race is the choice of one's partner or spouse. This very individual and personal aspect can sometimes produce a lot of public discussion. Studies consistently show that Asian Americans have some of the highest "intermarriage" (also known as "outmarriage") rates among racial/ethnic minorities -- marrying someone else outside of their own ethnic group. But as always, there's more to the story than just the headline.

The Public and Private Sides of Ethnicity

Whether it's dating or marrying someone of a different race, interracial relationships are not a new phenomenon among Asian Americans. When the first Filipino and Chinese workers came to the U.S. in the 1700 and 1800s, they were almost exclusively men. A few of them eventually married women in the U.S. who were not Asian. However, many people soon saw Asian intermarriage with Whites as a threat to American society. Therefore, anti-miscegenation laws were passed that prohibited Asians from marrying Whites.

Marriage Patterns for Six Largest Asian American Ethnic Groups (2006) (Updated Oct. 2007)
Asian Indians
Men
Asian Indian	91.9	73.3	56.7
Other Asian	0.9	2.7	2.8
White	5.5	18.5	31.3
Black	0.5	0.5	0.8
Hispanic/Latino	0.8	3.4	5.8
Multiracial & All Others	0.4	1.6	2.7
Population Size (x1000)	626.4	54.4	32.2
Women
Asian Indian	93.6	77.5	54.2
Other Asian	0.7	1.7	2.0
White	4.3	18.9	36.3
Black	0.5	1.4	2.8
Hispanic/Latino	0.4	1.4	2.7
Multiracial & All Others	0.5	0.9	1.9
Population Size (x1000)	580.8	60.0	31.3
Chinese
Men
Chinese	89.5	64.6	53.1
Other Asian	4.5	11.5	11.6
White	5.3	20.2	29.7
Black	0.1	0.3	0.5
Hispanic/Latino	0.7	2.1	3.0
Multiracial & All Others	0.4	1.4	2.0
Population Size (x1000)	665.8	127.7	86.6
Women
Chinese	81.5	54.0	44.6
Other Asian	2.7	7.3	7.8
White	13.9	32.8	40.4
Black	0.4	0.9	1.1
Hispanic/Latino	0.9	2.9	3.5
Multiracial & All Others	0.6	2.1	2.6
Population Size (x1000)	699.2	121.3	98.5
Filipinos
Men
Filipino	82.4	50.1	35.6
Other Asian	2.8	6.9	7.3
White	9.2	27.1	36.0
Black	0.3	1.2	1.3
Hispanic/Latino	2.9	8.3	11.1
Multiracial & All Others	2.3	6.3	8.4
Population Size (x1000)	426.0	104.0	78.4
Women
Filipino	61.1	37.6	28.4
Other Asian	2.8	6.4	6.9
White	27.2	40.0	46.2
Black	2.8	3.6	4.1
Hispanic/Latino	3.6	7.5	8.6
Multiracial & All Others	2.5	4.0	5.7
Population Size (x1000)	555.4	107.4	93.0
Japanese
Men
Japanese	63.9	55.0	53.7
Other Asian	9.9	12.4	9.4
White	19.7	24.0	27.2
Blacks	0.4	0.6	0.7
Hispanic/Latino	2.8	3.6	4.1
Multiracial & All Others	3.2	4.4	4.9
Population Size (x1000)	169.1	115.9	102.6
Women
Japanese	47.4	51.3	50.9
Other Asian	6.4	8.0	7.7
White	38.2	32.1	32.8
Black	1.6	0.7	0.8
Hispanic/Latino	2.8	3.0	3.1
Multiracial & All Others	3.7	4.8	4.9
Population Size (x1000)	221.1	107.9	105.7
Koreans
Men
Korean	90.7	60.7	39.5
Other Asian	2.6	9.6	12.5
White	5.5	24.9	40.3
Black	0.3	1.3	2.1
Hispanic/Latino	0.5	1.7	2.8
Multiracial & All Others	0.4	1.7	2.7
Population Size (x1000)	252.8	44.3	27.4
Women
Korean	69.4	35.3	22.5
Other Asian	3.7	9.4	8.9
White	23.7	48.9	60.8
Black	1.0	1.7	2.2
Hispanic/Latino	1.1	2.8	3.4
Multiracial & All Others	1.1	1.8	2.3
Population Size (x1000)	320.1	56.1	45.1
Vietnamese
Men
Vietnamese	92.3	76.9	71.0
Other Asian	2.9	7.0	5.8
White	2.9	10.5	15.0
Black	0.2	0.9	1.3
Hispanic/Latino	1.4	3.8	5.5
Multiracial & All Others	0.3	1.0	1.4
Population Size (x1000)	262.2	54.7	40.5
Women
Vietnamese	83.3	66.8	58.2
Other Asian	3.5	8.2	7.8
White	11.3	20.8	28.3
Black	0.5	1.7	2.4
Hispanic/Latino	0.7	1.3	1.7
Multiracial & All Others	0.7	1.2	1.6
Population Size (x1000)	279.4	61.4	45.2
USR = U.S.-Raised (1.5 generation or higher) FR = Foreign-Raised (1st generation) "USR + USR or FR" = Spouse 1 is USR while Spouse 2 can be USR or FR "USR + USR Only" = Both spouses are USR Methodology used to tabulate these statistics

History shows that these anti-miscegenation laws were very common in the U.S. They were first passed in the 1600s to prevent freed Black slaves from marrying Whites and the biracial children of White slave owners and African slaves from inheriting property. It was not until 1967, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Loving v. Virginia case that such laws were unconstitutional. At that time, 38 states in the U.S. had formal laws on their books that prohibited non-Whites from marrying Whites. As suc, one could argue that it's only been in recent years that interracial marriages have become common in American society.

Of course, anti-miscegenation laws were part of a larger anti-Asian movement that eventually led to the Page Law of 1875 that effectively almost eliminated Chinese women from immigrating ot the U.S., the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, and other restrictive regulations. These laws actually made the situation worse because Asian men were no longer able to bring their wives over to the U.S. So in a way, those who wanted to become married had no other choice but to socialize with non-Asians.

After World War II however, the gender dynamics of this interracial process flip-flopped. U.S. servicemen who fought and were stationed overseas in Asian countries began coming home with Asian "war brides." Data show that from 1945 into the 1970s, thousands of young women from China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and later Viet Nam came to the U.S. as war brides each year. Further, after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, many of these Asian war brides eventually helped to expand the Asian American community by sponsoring their family and other relatives to immigrate to the U.S.

These days, Asian Americans in interracial relationships are very common. One of the best research articles on this topic is a study conducted by Shinagawa and Pang entitled "Asian American Panethnicity and Intermarriage," reprinted in the highly recommended Asian Americans: Experiences and Perspectives. Similar in structure to their study, my colleague J.J. Huang and I have analyzed 2006 data from the U.S. Census Bureau to construct the following table on marriage patterns among Asian Americans.

How to Read and Understand the Table

Using data from the 2006 Census (updated Oct. 2007), the table shows the percentage of the six largest Asian ethnic groups who are married either endogamously (within their ethnic group), to another Asian (outside their ethnic group), or to someone who is White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, or someone who is Multiracial, by husbands and wives. The other major component of the table is that it presents different numbers depending on which statistical model is used.

That is, the specific numbers for each ethnic group vary depending on how you measure "intermarriage." The different models are:

• All Spouses: This model include all marriages that involve at least one Asian American. The benefit of this approach is that you get a complete picture of all marriages involving Asian Americans. The drawback is that since most married Asian Americans are immigrants, many of them got married in their home countries before immigrating to the U.S. -- i.e., they came to the U.S. already married.
• USR + USR or FR: USR stands for "U.S.-Raised," or those who are either born in the U.S. (the 2nd generation or higher) or came to the U.S. at age 13 or younger (the '1.5 generation'), while FR stands for "Foreign-Raised," the 1st generation (those who came to the U.S. at age 14 or older). In this model, the 'subject' spouse (either the man or the woman) is USR, but his/her spouse can be either USR or FR. This model narrows down the sample somewhat by trying to exclude those who were already married when they arrived in the U.S.
• USR + USR Only: This model includes only marriages in which both spouses are U.S.-raised. This has the advantage of including only those who were raised and socialized within American society and its racial dynamics. It is this U.S.-raised population that best represents young Asian Americans, since they are the ones who have the most exposure to prevailing American cultural images and media. The drawback of this model is that by focusing exclusively on the U.S.-raised (who only represent about one quarter of all marriages involving Asian Americans), it may overemphasize and "over-highlight" instances of outmarriage among Asian Americans.

I present these three models to give you, the reader, the opportunity to decide for yourself which model best represents the "true" picture of marriage among Asian Americans. You should understand that each model has its strengths and weaknesses and as you can see, each produces some very different numbers. If you would like to read about the exact procedure J.J. Huang and I used to calculate these numbers, visit the Statistical Methodology page.

Patterns of Marriage Among Asian Americans

These are certainly a lot of numbers to consider and as I mentioned above, each model presents a different proportion. Nonetheless, what these stats tell us is that generally speaking, across all three models (calculated by using the admittedly unscientific method of averaging the proportions across all three models to emphasize the last two models), these are the Asian ethnic groups are most or least likely to have each kind of spouse:

Men/Husbands -- Most / Least Likely to Have a(n) __ Wife:

• Endogamous -- Most: Vietnamese / Least: Filipinos
• Other Asian (Pan-Asian) -- Most: Japanese / Least: Asian Indian
• White -- Most: Filipinos / Least: Vietnamese
• Black -- Most: Koreans / Least: Chinese
• Hispanic/Latino -- Most: Filipinos / Least: Koreans
• Multiracial or Other -- Most: Filipinos / Least: Vietnamese

Women/Wives -- Most / Least Likely to Have a(n) __ Husband:

• Endogamous -- Most: Asian Indian / Least: Filipinos/Koreans
• Other Asian (Pan-Asian) -- Most: Japanese/Koreans / Least: Asian Indians
• White -- Most: Korean / Least: Asian Indian
• Black -- Most: Filipinos / Least: Chinese
• Hispanic/Latino -- Most: Filipinos / Least: Vietnamese
• Multiracial or Other -- Most: Japanese / Least: Asian Indian

These results can be considered in combination with the Shinagawa and Pang article, which points out that for all Asian ethnic groups and both husbands and wives, the percentage who are intermarrying with Whites has increased in recent decades, with the one exception of Japanese American wives. However, their study also finds that with the exception of U.S.-raised Korean women, all other Asian ethnic groups and husbands and wives are also more likely to marry another Asian (either within their own ethnic group or some other Asian ethnic group) than to marry a White person.

Nonetheless, intermarriage is making its mark in the Asian American community. The chart from the Census Bureau chart below reports that among the six major Asian American ethnic groups in 2000, Japanese Americans had the highest proportion of their total population that are in combination with at least one more Asian ethnic group (i.e., Japanese-Chinese) or with at least one other race (i.e., Japanese-White) at over 30%.

Conversely, Vietnamese Americans have the lowest such rates, which makes sense because they are the most recently arrived Asian ethnic group and it is likely to take more time for them to become 'maritally assimilated.' In fact, demographers predict that by the year 2020, almost 20% of all Asian Americans will be multiracial and that figure will climb to 36% by the year 2050.

Now that we have a general picture of what the marriage rates are for all members of each of these six Asian American ethnic groups, on the next page we will take a more specific look at only those Asian Americans who grew up in the U.S. and are therefore most likely to have been socialized within the context of American intergroup relations -- the U.S.-born and those who immigrated to the U.S. as children.

CONTINUED
1 | 2 | Next >>

Author Citation

Copyright © 2001- by C.N. Le. Some rights reserved.

Suggested reference: Le, C.N. . "Interracial Dating & Marriage" Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. <http://www.asian-nation.org/interracial.shtml> ().

Related Articles and Blog Posts

• Asian Cultural Icons -- Hot or Not?
• Multiracial/Hapa Asian Americans
• Socioeconomic Statistics & Demographics
• Asian Intermarriage Patterns in Britain
• Asian American Interracial Relationships Today
• Interracial Couples Invest More in Their Kids

Rules for Comments

All submitted comments are first reviewed before appearing on the site. Constructive disagreement and intelligent debate are fine and encouraged. Comments that contain personal attacks, excessive profanity, spam or are blatantly offensive, slanderous, threatening, racist, or irrelevant to the topic are not and will be edited out or deleted.

Home | About & FAQs | Blog | Contact | Culture | History | Issues | Links | Viet Nam | Site Map