Mixed-race marriages have quadrupled over the last twenty years, reaching 1.2 million, or more than 2 percent of all marriages. They make up an even larger fraction of the marriages taking place today. As the children of these unions grow up, get married, and have their own children, the mixture will prove an even greater jumble. The question of who is black or white, Asian or Hispanic, will grow increasingly irrelevant. In 1940, sociologists noted that only 16 percent of Catholics and 6 percent of Jews married outside their religious group.
Nobody speaks of it anymore, however.
Marriages between Catholics and Protestants are now common, and about half of all Jews now marry non-Jewish spouses. The new wall surrounding race will probably collapse as easily. Half of all Japanese Americans today marry somebody who is not Japanese. In 1989, there were 39 percent more births to exogamous couples consisting of one Japanese and one white parent than to endogamous couples of two Japanese American parents. We can observe similar trends among other Asian groups, as well as Hispanics.