Explanation: About the Multiracial Data and Results

 Census 2000 was the first to enable respondents to select more than one racial category as their self identification. For detailed explanation see Section 3 of our new guide to race and Hispanic origin in census 2000, titled Overlap.

Nationwide, 2.4% identified as multiracial. Within specific racial groups higher or lower proportions claimed multiracial status. For these calculations, we define the racial groups by their “maximum” definition, i.e., including all persons who selected a given race alone or in combination with other races. Thus, among all persons claiming African American racial heritage, 95.2% were black alone (monoracial) and 4.8% were multiracial. The exhibit shows similar calculations for each race and also details the specific biracial combinations making up the multiracials within each group [US/summary tables/multiracial prevalence] (PDF file).

The share of blacks or other racial groups who are multiracial differs by state. Refer to the four graphs under the United States section that are laid out in a west-to-east pattern, with states sorted from lowest to highest percent multiracial within each region. Observe what a low proportion of blacks and whites in Mississippi are considered multiracial, illustrating a very sharp color line. In general, states with the smallest populations of a race are most likely to have residents in that race who are multiracial (e.g. blacks in Vermont). 

Among larger states, observe the 10% multiracial among blacks in California, versus 7% in New York, and 3% in Illinois [US/% of blacks who are multiracial] (PDF file).

The overall prevalence of multiracial residents is shown in [US/% of total who are multiracial] (PDF file). Hawaii is “off the chart” at 21.4% multiracial, followed by Alaska at 4.9%, California at 4.7%, and Oklahoma at 4.5%. other states are considerably lower. Hawaii is so unusual that, unlike the typical pattern, more of its residents claim 3 or more races (16.7%) than claim only 2 races (4.7%). In the rest of the US, only 1/10 of multiracial residents claim more than 2 races.

Within California and Los Angeles, still more detailed graphs and maps are provided.

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