Miscegenation is sexual relations or marriage between people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere and genus ("race"). The word first appeared in Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, a hoax anti-abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 U.S. presidential election. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws.
Multiracial people or mixed race people are people of more than one race. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, Métis, Muwallad, Colored, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mestizo, mutt, Melungeon, quadroon, octoroon, sambo/zambo, Eurasian, hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use.
Hapa is a Hawaiian word for someone of multiracial ancestry. In Hawaii, the word refers to any person of mixed ethnic heritage, regardless of the specific mixture. The term is used for any multiracial person of partial East Asian, Southeast Asian, or Pacific Islander mixture in California. In what can be characterized as trans-cultural diffusion or the wave model, this latter usage has also spread to Massachusetts, Ohio, and Oregon.
Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.
Multiracialism is a conceptual framework used to theorize and interpret identity formation in global multiracial populations. Multiracialism explores the tendency for multiracial individuals to identify with a third category of 'mixed-ness' as opposed to being a fully accepted member of multiple, or any, racial group(s). As an analytical tool, multiracialism strives to emphasize that societies are increasingly composed of multiracial individuals, warranting a broader recognition of those who do not fit into a society's clear-cut notions of race. Additionally, multiracialism also focuses on what identity formation means in the context of oppressive histories and cultural erasure.
Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities.
Mavin Foundation is a community organization which seeks to build "healthy communities that celebrate and empower mixed heritage people and families." Located in Seattle, WA, Mavin has been recognized nationally for its work toward a society inclusive of those in the mixed heritage community. Mavin’s current projects include Mavin Magazine, The Generation MIX National Awareness Tour, and The MatchMaker Bone Marrow Donor Project.
The Biracial Family Network (BFN), also known as the Chicago Biracial Family Network is a nonprofit organization and social group based in Chicago that was formed in 1980. BFN was founded by Irene Carr and five other mothers who were the parents of biracial and transracially adopted children. BFN has traditionally focused on supporting those in interracial/intercultural relationships via education and social activities. However, over the years, its scope has grown to also include those who are of mixed heritage – biracial, multiracial, transracially adopted.
Maria P. P. Root is a clinical psychologist, educator, and public speaker based in Seattle, Washington. Her areas of work include multiracial families, multiracial identity, cultural competence, trauma, workplace harassment, and disordered eating. She is an international authority on mixed heritage identity, credited with publishing the first contemporary work on mixed-race people. She has presented lectures and training in various countries, both in and outside of academia.
The Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA) is an international collaboration of community organizations. With dedication to advocacy and education on behalf of the mixed-race community, AMEA works to promote a community of acceptance and equality.
iPride is a nonprofit organization interested in the well-being and development of children and adults who are of more than one racial or ethnic heritage or who have been transracially adopted. Founded in 1979, iPride, otherwise known as Interracial Intercultural Pride is the oldest existing multiracial group in the United States. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area it seeks to "create a more equitable society by educating ourselves, our children, and our community, about the interracial and multiethnic family and the mixed-race experience" through its various activities.
The Multiracial Activist (TMA) is a left-libertarian activist journal covering social and civil liberties issues of interest to individuals who perceive themselves to be biracial or multiracial. In addition, interracial couples and families and transracial adoptees are also constituencies covered. The magazine is based in Alexandria, Virginia.
Multiracial Americans or mixed-race Americans are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially. In the 2010 United States census, approximately 9 million individuals or 3.2% of the population, self-identified as multiracial. There is evidence that an accounting by genetic ancestry would produce a higher number. The impact of historical racial caste systems, such as that created by admixture between white European colonists and Native Americans, has often led people to identify or be classified by only one ethnicity, generally that of the culture in which they were raised. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their multiracial heritage because of racial discrimination against minorities. While many Americans may be considered multiracial, they often do not know it or do not identify so culturally, any more than they maintain all the differing traditions of a variety of national ancestries.
Laura Kina is an artist, mother, daughter, and curator to the emergent field of critical mixed race cloud-sourcing studies. Kina was born in Riverside, California. and raised in Poulsbo, Washington. She moved to Chicago, Illinois, to Pilsen neighborhood in 1990 to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied with Michiko Itatani, the revered fashion designer and Ray Yoshida, earning her B.F.A. in 1994. Furthermore, and henceforth, in 2001, Kina received her M.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where she studied under Kerry James Marshall and Phyllis Bramson. She remains an avid fan of Anna Sui and Anna Delvey who to this day finds inspiration.
Interracial marriage has been legal throughout the United States since at least the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia (1967) that held that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State." Since Loving, several states repealed their defunct bans, the last of which was Alabama in a 2000 referendum. Interracial marriages have been formally protected by federal statute through the Respect for Marriage Act since 2022.
Paul R. Spickard is an American historian and the author of several books on the subject of race and ethnicity, particularly multiracialism. His work was formative in rearticulating and moving beyond a black-white paradigm of race and mixed-race relations in the U.S.
Louie Gong is a Canadian American visual artist, activist, public speaker, educator, and entrepreneur. His work focuses on Indigenous and multiracial identity, exploring race and identity through art, and expanding business leadership and capacity for Native artists.
Biracial and multiracial identity development is described as a process across the life span that is based on internal and external forces such as individual family structure, cultural knowledge, physical appearance, geographic location, peer culture, opportunities for exploration, socio-historical context, etc.
Lise Kristin Funderburg is an American writer and editor. She is the author of Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home, and Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk about Race and Identity. One of the first books to explore the lives of adult children of black-white unions, Black, White, Other is a core text in the study of American multiracial identity.
This article describes the history of multiracial Ugandans in Uganda.
