February 7, 2007

Interracial marriage rates falling for Asians and Hispanics due to massive immigration

Back in 2000, I wrote an article for VDARE.com entitled "Immigration Is Retarding Interracial Marriage." That's visible in Southern California, where Asians used to be widely dispersed all over the suburbs, and thus tended to marry the whites around them. Now, however, Asians tend to cluster in the San Gabriel Valley, and you see a higher proportion of Asian-Asian couples than you did a quarter of a century ago. This has implications for assimilation.


Now, a new study of Census data fro 1990 and 2000 confirms that trend:


Immigration played a key role in unprecedented declines in interracial and inter-ethnic marriage in the United States during the 1990s, according to a new sociological study. The findings, published in “Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Interpreting Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage,” suggest that the growing number of Hispanic and Asian immigrants to the United States has led to more marriages within these groups, and fewer marriages between members of these groups and whites.

“These declines in intermarriages are a significant departure from past trends,” said Zhenchao Qian, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University. “The decline reflects the growth in the immigrant population during the 90s; more native-born Asian Americans and Hispanics are marrying their foreign-born counterparts.”

The study also found that interracial marriages involving African Americans increased significantly during the 1990s, but still continued to lag far behind other minorities. Qian conducted the study with Daniel Lichter, a professor at Cornell University. Their results appear in the February 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review, published by the 101-year- old American Sociological Association.

The researchers studied U.S. census data from 1990 and 2000. … But the rate of intermarriages began declining in the 1990s, particularly those involving whites and Asian Americans or Hispanics. This study was designed in part to find out why. … “If you look at changes in the 1990s, the bigger picture is really immigration, especially for Asian Americans and Hispanics. Those are the groups that had the largest influx of immigrants during the 90s.”

The study suggests Hispanic and Asian immigrants are likely to marry among themselves. In addition, more native-born minorities are selecting marriage partners from the growing pool of immigrants.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think another factor in California is the outmigration of middle class whites. I wonder if you looked at the median age for whites in California versus the media age for Hispanics or Asian-American if you would find that there are just not that many (relative to other groups) whites in the prime marrying ages in California.

Anonymous said...

In California, I think what you'll find is still a growing number of interracial marriages wit the percentage going down. Here in New York , I saw at least 15 interracial couples in one day. And this was all around the same place, the museum of modern art. And in the suburbs, I have seen interracial couples basically all the time I go out. Its a very disturbing trend and with increased immigration, it will eventually get worse even though for a short time the percentages decrease.

Anonymous said...

Gaurev Ahuja, I for one do not find interracial marriage disturbing. What I find disturbing is the slowing down (halt?) of assimilation that a simultaneous rise in non-whites plus a drop in interracial marriage rates possibly portends.

Anonymous said...

it's time to stop using "hispanic" or "latino" like they mean anything. especially on this site. the term once had a specific meaning. now it has degenerated into something loose and meaningless. people that speak spanish are not a race. period.

africans that speak english and have english names are not "anglo". how are africans and american indians that speak spanish "latino"? they aren't.

using "hispanic" on this site is like referencing freud in a modern science journal.

Steve Sailer said...

The Census says "Hispanic" is an ethnicity, not a race. I've created definitions of the two words to fit how the Census uses them:

A racial group is a partly inbred biological extended family.

An ethnic group shares traits that are often passed down within biological families, but don't have to be -- e.g., language, religion, names, cuisine, sense of identity, etc.

Anonymous said...

the census categories are wrong and, increasingly, irrelevant. remember we are dealing with a federal government that counts mexicans as white in FBI crime statistics.

blacks that speak english aren't anglos. how are blacks and american indians that speak spanish latinos? as we descend into idiocracy, america has created a completely stupid "hispanic tranfer rule":

"latinoism" transfers immediately to anybody of any race that speaks spanish or has a spanish name. "angloism", on the other hand, cannot be transfered this way.

for instance. force a mayan indian to call himself jose ortiz. jose jumps the border and starts working in colorado. he later helps his pregnant wife jump the border, and she delivers a brand new american at the local hospital. a few kids later and these new americans are going to public school in colorado and learning english and meeting other americans. the oldest son marries, moves to illinois and has kids of his own. the kids, dillon and jennifer, enter public school in illinois, grow up as native english speakers, and are assimilated completely into mainstream culture in america.

incredibly, even though jose had not a drop of hispanic blood, even though dillon and jennifer are monolingual english speakers, even though dillon and jennifer are submerged completely into american idol and NFL football, they're STILL hispanic, without qualification. these two are full blooded latinos folks. that's the magic of the ortiz name!

contrast that story with the story of dave smith, an english-american living in virginia, practicing law, and married to his black girlfriend jessica jones, who he met at UVA. dave and jessica have two kids together, james and sarah, and they go to the local private school where they learn to speak perfect english without even a southern drawl.

even though they're genetically half english, speak perfect english, and are 9th generation americans, jim and sarah smith are not anglos! oh no, definitely not anglo-americans, these two. angloism does not transfer that way. in fact, just being genetically anglo, and being completely submerged in anglo culture won't do. this is angloism we're talking about after all. surely the most dominant culture in the history of the world can't transfer so easily. certainly not as easily as the mighty latino culture can transer itself, in any case.

BUT, let's say dillon garcia meets sarah smith on a business trip to virginia and they fall for each other. LOOK OUT FOLKS! if this relationship works out, we could be looking at a couple beautiful new latinos in the future. the garcia family could grow!

LOL. the hispanic transfer rule. it's so stupid, i'm ashamed to be an american.

Anonymous said...

oops, i'm a retard. obviously i meant dillon ortiz, not dillon garcia.

not that there won't be lots of dillon garcias running around soon. my last girlfriend was mexican, and she was dead set on naming her first daughter devon.

Anonymous said...

"LOL. the hispanic transfer rule. it's so stupid, i'm ashamed to be an american."

You are so f**king stupid. The Hispanic transfer rule was designed for affirmative action and political purposes. So, I guess the rule is great if you can get yourself labeled "Hispanic".

Cameron Diaz is Hispanic, even though she is blond and looks like a stereotypical "white girl". Hispanic has nothing to do with race since most Hispanic people are actually mixed-race people.

Like I said, the rule is great if you can somehow get yourself classified as Hispanic.

Anonymous said...

Thankyou for your blog.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing wrong with interacial couples. I think it is the cutest thing to see two people love each other even though they are of different races. In the end we are all human! I think there should be more interacial couples. It would make the world a better place by making RACE less of an issue.

Anonymous said...

I sure is easy to type "there is nothing wrong with..", but the reality is that it's very intense and hard, and results in more suffering for the people and children than average. Fact. But type whatever you what.