Checking More Than One Box: A Growing Multiracial Nation : Code Switch : NPR: ...For the first time in modern history, the 2000 Census allowed us to check off more than one box for race.
The last Census showed 9 million people, about 3 percent of the population, reporting more than one race. That's an increase of one-third from the decade before.
"The youngest age group, kids under 5 [years old], 7 percent are identified as having more than one race group," says Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. "If we look at the elderly, over 65, it's only 1 percent."
That means more people are choosing spouses outside their own race. The change, Passel says, comes from evolving attitudes. Over the past few decades, he says more people have simply come to view intermarriage as no big deal.
