The 2010 U.S. census reignited the question of racial identity among multi-racial residents. “I can’t fit in a single box on the census form” was the typical refrain among the fastest growing segment of the US population. According to The New York Times in February, 2011, "when it comes to keeping racial statistics, the nation is in transition, moving, often without uniformity, from the old “mark one box” limit to allowing citizens to check as many boxes as their backgrounds demand." The number of mixed-race Americans was at the time rising rapidly, largely on account of increases in immigration and intermarriage. In 2010, for example, one in seven new marriages was interracial. Politically, some racial interest groups believed that the use of a catch-all category marginalized minority races in particular. As a result, the Census Bureau created 63 categories of possible racial combinations (a typical bureaucratic solution to a political problem).
The full essay is at "Nature's Racial Melting-Pot."
Susan Saulny, “Counting by Race Can Throw Off Some Numbers,” The New York Times, February 9, 2011.
