Africa East Africa In
East Africa, specifically
Uganda,
Kenya and
Tanzania (including portions of the
East African Community), people of mixed race are called
half-castes (in English) or
chotara (singular, in
Swahili),
wachotara (plural in Swahili).
Madagascar Madagascar was settled between the first and ninth centuries AD by two groups:
Austronesian peoples who arrived on
outrigger canoes from across the Indian Ocean, and
Bantu peoples who crossed the
Mozambique Channel from mainland Africa. These two groups intermixed, forming the modern Malagasy people; later migrants from Arabia, Somalia, and India added to the genetic mixture. Virtually all Malagasy people are of some degree of mixed descent; however, the amount of mixture varies greatly between regions of Madagascar, despite all Malagasy people sharing a common language and similar cultural elements. The Malagasy of the central highlands of Madagascar have predominantly Austronesian ancestry, the Malagasy of the west coast and the south of the island have predominantly Bantu ancestry, and Malagasy of the island's east coast are of roughly equal degrees Bantu and Austronesian ancestry. The average Malagasy person's genetic makeup includes a roughly equal blend of Southeast Asian and of East African genes.
North Africa North Africa has numerous mixed-race communities, reflecting a history of both extensive Mediterranean trade around the region and later colonization and migration by African groups. Among these are the
Haratin, oasis-dwellers of Saharan southern
Morocco,
Algeria, and
Mauritania. They are believed to be an ethnicity composed of
Sub-Saharan African and
Berber ancestry. They constitute a socially and ethnically distinct group within the Maghreb. For centuries,
Arab slave traders sold sub-Saharan Africans as slaves in cumulatively large numbers throughout the
Persian Gulf,
Anatolia,
Central Asia and the
Arab world. Communities descended from these slaves and local peoples can be found throughout these regions. Cape Verde, in west Africa, has one of the most mixed-race populations (around 75% of the population) on the planet.
South Africa family from
South Africa. In
South Africa, the
Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between white Europeans (people of European descent) and non-Whites (being classified as African, Asian and Coloured). This followed centuries of interaction and unions resulting in mixed-race children. This law was repealed in 1985. Mixed-race South Africans are commonly referred to as
Coloureds. According to the 2016 South African Census, they are the second-largest ethnic group (8.8%), behind
Native Africans, or Native African Bantu peoples, who constitute (80.8%) of the current population.
European South Africans make up 8.1%. This option is normally chosen by people who consider themselves mixed race. The
Mixed Race Day (), on 27 June, is an official event in the states of Amazonas, Roraima, and Paraíba and a holiday in two cities. Other than pardo, people who are mixed race also have other names to refer to themselves such as ,
caboclo,
mestiço and
mulatto. Those terms are not considered offensive and focus more on skin color than ethnicity (they are seen as comparable to other human characteristics, such as being short or tall). ,
Brazilian writer whose father was mulatto and whose mother was
Portuguese. Most Brazilians of mixed race are usually tri-racial, with Amerindian, European, and African origins. Other common mixed-race groups are between
European and
African (
mulatto) and
Amerindian and European (
caboclo or
mameluco). But there are also African and Amerindian (
cafuzo) and
East Asian (mostly Japanese) and European/other (
ainoko or more recently,
hāfu). These groups are found throughout the country to varying degrees. Since mixed-race relations in Brazilian society have occurred for many generations, some people find it difficult to trace their own ethnic ancestry. Today a majority of mixed-race Brazilians do not really know their ethnic ancestry, but they are aware that their ancestors were probably Portuguese, African and Amerindian. Additionally, a very large number of Italians (Brazil has the largest Italian population outside Italy), Japanese (the largest Japanese population outside Japan), Lebanese (the largest Lebanese population outside Lebanon), Germans, Poles, Russians and others contributed to Brazil's racial makeup. A high percentage of Brazilians is also of Jewish descent, perhaps hundreds of thousands, mostly found in the northeast of the country who cannot be sure of their ancestry as they descend from the so-called "Crypto-Jews" (Jews who practiced Judaism in secret but outwardly pretended to be Catholics), also called Marranos or New Christians, often considered Portuguese. According to some sources, one third of families arrived from Portugal during colonization were of Jewish origin.
Canada is of
English,
Native Hawaiian,
Irish,
Portuguese and
Chinese descent. Mixed-race Canadians in 2006 officially totaled 1.5% of the population, up from 1.2% in 2001. The official mixed-race population grew by 25% since the previous census. Of these, the most frequent combinations were
multiple visible minorities (for example, people of mixed black and South Asian heritage form the majority, specifically in
Toronto), followed closely by
white-black,
white-Chinese,
white-Arab and many other smaller mixes. During the time of
slavery in the United States, a very large but unknown number of African slaves escaped to Canada, where
slavery was made illegal in 1834, via the
Underground Railroad. Many of these people married in with European Canadian and Native Canadian populations, although their precise numbers and the numbers of their descendants are not known. ,
Barbadian singer and businesswoman of
Sub-Saharan African,
English,
Irish and
Scottish descent. Another 1.2% of Canadians officially are
Métis (descendants of a historical population who were partially
Aboriginal—also called "Indian" or "Native"—and
European, particularly
English,
Scottish,
Irish and
French ethnic groups). Although the term "Métis" stems from the Latin verb , "to mix", the Métis people are a distinct ethnic group within Canada.
Caribbean 's mother is of African descent and his father is of European ancestry. 's mother is of
English and
Chinese Jamaican descent; his paternal grandmother was
Afro-Caribbean and his paternal grandfather was a
Sephardic Jew from
Portugal. The term "
Mulatto" historically referred to individuals of mixed African and European ancestry. , born to an
Indo-Trinidadian father and
Afro-Trinidadian mother. , born to an
Dougla-Trinidadian (
Afro and
Indo mixed) father and
Afro-Trinidadian mother.
Colonialism throughout the
Caribbean has created diverse populations on many islands and countries, including people of mixed-racial identities. A highly notable blend is the mixture of
Afro-Caribbean people descended from enslaved Africans, and
Indo-Caribbean settlers, descendants of East Indian
indentured laborers.
Trinidad,
Guyana, and
Suriname have the highest mixed populations of such individuals, often regarded as
douglas. In addition to this, prominent mixtures may include
Mulatto,
Zambo,
Panyol,
Anglo-Indian, and
Chindian.
Hispanophone America ,
Peruvian priest and first Mixed-race
Catholic saint, of
Spanish father and freed black mother. "
Mestizo" is the common word for mixed-race people in Hispanophone America, especially people with
Native American and
Spanish or other European ancestry. Mestizos make up a large portion of Hispanophone Americans, comprising a majority in many countries. In Central and South America, racial mixture was officially acknowledged from colonial times. There was official nomenclature for every conceivable mixture present in the various countries. Initially, this classification was used as a type of caste system, where rights and privileges were accorded depending on one's official racial classification. Official caste distinctions were abolished in many countries of the
Spanish-speaking
Americas as they became independent of Spain. Several terms have remained in common usage. Race and racial mixture have played a significant role in the politics of many Hispanophone American countries. In most countries, for example
Mexico,
Colombia,
Dominican Republic and
Panama, a majority of the population can be described as biracial or mixed race (depending on the country). In
Mexico, over 80% of the population is
mestizo to some degree. The Mexican philosopher and educator
José Vasconcelos authored an essay on the subject, "
La Raza Cósmica", celebrating racial mixture.
Venezuelan ex-president
Hugo Chávez, of Spanish, Indigenous and African ancestry, made positive references to the mixed-race ancestry of most Hispanophone Americans from time to time.
United States In the
United States, the 2000 census was the first in the history of the country to offer respondents the option of identifying themselves as belonging to more than one race. This mixed-race option was considered a necessary adaptation to the demographic and cultural changes that the United States has been undergoing. Mixed-race
Americans officially numbered 6.1 million in 2006, or 2.0% of the population. There is considerable evidence that an accurate number would be much higher. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their mixed-race heritage. The development of
binary thinking about race meant that African Americans, a high proportion of whom have also had European ancestry, were classified as black. Some are now reclaiming additional ancestries. Some Americans may be multiracial without being aware of it. According to the Census Bureau, as of 2002, 75% of all
African Americans had mixed ancestries, usually European and Native American. In 2010, the number of Americans who checked both "black" and "white" on their census forms was 134 percent higher than it had been a decade earlier. In 2012, those choosing 'Two or more races' on the census were 2.4% of the total. According to
James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, by some calculations in the 2000 Census, the mixed-race population that is part white is as follows: • White/Native American and
Alaskan Native: 7,015,017 • White/African American: 737,492 • White/Asian: 727,197 and • White/Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander: 125,628. The stigma of mixed-race heritage, associated with racial discrimination among numerous racial groups, has decreased significantly in the United States. People of mixed-race heritage can identify themselves in the U.S. Census by any combination of races, whereas before Americans were required to select only one category. For example, in 2010, they were offered choices of one or more racial categories from the following list: • European • African • American Indian or Alaska Native • Asian Indian • Chinese • Filipino • Japanese • Korean • Vietnamese • Native Hawaiian • Guamanian or Chamorro • Samoan • Other Asian [specify] • Other Pacific Islander [specify] • Some Other Race [specify] , the first mixed-race
President of the United States The US has a growing mixed-race identity movement, reflective of a desire by people to claim their full identities.
Interracial marriage, most notably between whites and blacks, was historically deemed immoral and illegal in most states in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century because of its long association of blacks with the slave caste.
California and the
Western United States had similar laws to prohibit European-Asian marriages, which was associated with discrimination against Chinese and Japanese on the West Coast. Many states eventually repealed such laws and a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court (
Loving v. Virginia) overturned all remaining US
anti-miscegenation laws. The United States is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world. Americans are mostly mixed ethnic descendants of various immigrant nationalities culturally distinct in their former countries.
Assimilation and
integration took place unevenly across different historical periods, depending on the American region. The "Americanization" of foreign ethnic groups and the inter-racial diversity of Americans has been a fundamental part of its history, especially on frontiers where different groups of people came together. On January 20, 2009,
Barack Obama was sworn in as the first mixed-race president of the United States, as he is the son of a
European American mother of mostly
English descent and a
Luo father from
Kenya. He acknowledges both parents. His official
White House biography describes him as
African American. In Hawaiʻi, the U.S. state in which he was born, he would be called "
hapa", a
Hawaiian word meaning "mixed race".
Asia China India Ancient India The people of the
Indian subcontinent have a diverse genetic pool, being composed of South Asian hunter-gatherers, Neolithic Iranians, and
Western Steppe Herders. This makes up the genome of modern-day Indians and varies from caste and region.
Modern India Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, a radical thinker and educator, was of Indian and European background. Prior to colonization, the peoples of India had a long history of trade and other interaction with other peoples. More recently a Eurasian mix developed during the Colonial period, beginning with the French, Dutch, Portuguese and other European traders and merchants, including British. Such interaction continued during the
British Rule in India, although it lessened as British families settled in the country. The estimated population of Anglo-Indians, the term for these Eurasians, is 600,000 worldwide, with the majority living in India and the UK. Article 366(2) of the
Indian Constitution defines
Anglo-Indian as: (2) an Anglo-Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only;
Indonesia Japan Myanmar (Burma) Myanmar (formerly Burma) was a British colony from 1826 until 1948. Other European nationals were active in the country before the British arrived. Intermarriage and relationships took place among such settlers and merchants with the local Burmese population, and subsequently between British colonists and the Burmese. The local Eurasian population is known as the
Anglo-Burmese. This group dominated colonial society and through the early years of independence. After Burma gained independence in 1948, many
Anglo-Burmese left the country; the diaspora resides primarily in
Australia,
New Zealand and the
UK. An estimated 52,000 Anglo-Burmese live in Burma.
Philippines '', 1734. The
Philippines was a
Spanish colony for almost four centuries, or 333 years. The United States took it over after the Spanish-American War, ruling for 46 years. Many Filipinos are mixed
Spanish Filipino, and according to
Fedor Jagor, one-third of Luzon which holds half the Philippine population, has Spanish or Spanish American admxiture. And it also has Philippine-American descent. After the defeat of Spain during the
Spanish–American War in 1898, the Philippines and other remaining
Spanish colonies were ceded to the United States in the
Treaty of Paris. The Philippines was under U.S.
sovereignty until 1946, though occupied by Japan during World War II. In 1946, in the
Treaty of Manila, the U.S. recognized the Republic of the Philippines as an independent nation. Even after 1946, the U.S. maintained a strong military presence in the Philippines, with as many as 21 U.S. military bases and 100,000 U.S. military personnel stationed there as defense in Asia and during the Vietnam War. After the bases closed in 1992, American troops left, often abandoning partners and their
Amerasian children. The Pearl S. Buck International foundation estimates there are 52,000 Amerasians in the Philippines, with 5,000 in the Clark area of
Angeles City. An academic research paper presented in the U.S. (in 2012) by an Angeles, Pampanga, Philippines Amerasian college research study unit suggests that the number could be a lot more, possibly reaching 250,000. This is also partially due to the fact that almost all Amerasians intermarried with other Amerasians and Filipino natives. The newer Amerasians from the United States would add to the already older settlement of peoples from other countries in the Americas that happened when the Philippines was under Spanish rule, as the Philippines once received immigrants from Spanish occupied Panama, Peru, and Mexico. In the United States, intermarriage between Filipinos and other ethnicities is common. They have the highest number of
interracial marriages among Asian immigrant groups, as documented in California. Some 21.8% of Philippine-Americans are of mixed ancestry.
Singapore and Malaysia According to government statistics, the population of
Singapore as of September 2007 was 4.68 million. Mixed-race people, including
Chindians and
Eurasians, formed 2.4%. In Singapore and
Malaysia, the majority of inter-ethnic marriages are between
Chinese and
Indians. The offspring of such marriages are informally known as "
Chindian". The Malaysian government classifies them only by their father's ethnicity. As the majority of these intermarriages usually involve an Indian groom and Chinese bride, the majority of Chindians in Malaysia are usually classified as "
Indian" by the government. As for the
Malays, who are predominantly
Muslim, legal restrictions in Malaysia make it uncommon for them to intermarry with either the Indians, who are predominantly
Hindu, or the Chinese, who are predominantly
Buddhist and
Taoist. But Indian Muslims and
Arabs in Singapore and Malaysia often take local Malay wives, because of their common
Islamic faith. The
Chitty people, in Singapore and the
Malacca state of Malaysia, are
Tamils with considerable Malay ancestry. The early Tamil settlers took local wives, as they had not brought their own women at that time. In the East Malaysian states of
Sabah and
Sarawak, intermarriage has been common between
Chinese and native tribespeople, such as the
Murut and
Dusun in Sabah, and the
Iban and
Bisaya in Sarawak. A mixture of cultures has resulted in both states. The offspring of these marriages are called "Sino-(name of tribe)", e.g. Sino-Dusun. Normally, children are strongly affected by the father's ethnicity and culture, being raised in his culture. These
Sino-natives usually become fluent in both
Malay and
English. A smaller number are able to speak Chinese dialects and
Mandarin, especially those who have received education in vernacular Chinese schools.
Sri Lanka Due to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, the island of
Sri Lanka has been a confluence for settlers from various parts of the world. There are several mixed-race ethnicities in the island. The most notable mixed-race group is the
Sri Lankan Moors, who trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled on the island and intermarried with local women. Today, the Sri Lankan Moors live primarily in urban communities. They preserve Arab-Islamic cultural heritage while adopting many Southern Asian customs. The
Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group. They are descendants through paternal lines of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries (mostly Portuguese, Dutch, German and British) and with maternal ancestry among local women. Other European minorities in such admixtures include Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish. The
Sri Lanka Kaffirs are an ethnic group partially descended from 16th-century Portuguese traders and their enslaved Africans. The Kaffirs spoke a distinctive creole based on Portuguese, the Sri Lanka Kaffir language, which is now extinct. Their cultural heritage includes the dance styles Kaffringna and Manja, as well as the Portuguese Sinhalese, Creole, Afro-Sinhalese varieties.
Vietnam Under terms of the
Geneva Accords of 1954, departing French troops took thousands of Vietnamese wives and children with them after the
First Indochina War. Some Eurasians stayed in Vietnam, after independence from French rule.
West Asia Ottoman slave traders sold slaves in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries throughout the
Persian Gulf,
Anatolia,
Central Asia and the
Arab world and communities descended from these slaves can be found throughout these regions.
United Kingdom In 1991 an analysis of the census showed that 50% of Mixed Caribbean men born in the UK have native British partners, and the 2011 BBC documentary
Mixed Britannia noted that 1 in 10 British children are growing up in mixed households. In 2000,
The Sunday Times reported that "Britain has the highest rate of interracial relationships in the world" and certainly the UK has the highest rate in the
European Union. The 2001 census showed the population of England to be 1.4% mixed-race, compared with 2.7% in Canada and 1.4% in the U.S. (estimate from 2002), although this U.S. figure did not include mixed-race people who had a parent with African Ancestry. Both the US and UK have fewer people identifying as mixed race, however, than Canada. In the United Kingdom, many mixed-race people have
Caribbean,
African or
Asian heritage. For example, supermodel
Naomi Campbell has
Jamaican,
African and
Asian roots. Some, like seven time
Formula One World Champion
Lewis Hamilton, are referred to or describe themselves as '
mixed'. The
2001 UK Census included a section entitled 'Mixed', to which 1.4% (1.6% by 2005 estimates) of people responded, which was split further into
White and Black Caribbean,
White and Asian,
White and Native African and
Other Mixed. In the 2011 census, 2.2% chose 'Mixed' for the question on ethnicity, increasing to 2.9% in 2021.
Oceania , the first and currently only recipient of
Victoria Cross for New Zealand, is the son of
European and
Māori New Zealanders.
Fiji Fiji has long been a multi-ethnic country, with a vast majority of people being mixed race even if they do not self-identify in that manner. The indigenous Fijians are of mixed Melanesian and Polynesian ancestry, resulting from years of migration of islanders from various places mixing with each other. Fiji Islanders from the Lau group have intermarried with
Tongans and other Polynesians over the years. The overwhelming majority of the rest of the indigenous Fijians, though, can be genetically traced to having mixed Polynesian/Melanesian ancestry. The Indo-Fijian population is also a hodge-podge of South Asian immigrants (called Girmits in Fiji), who came as indentured labourers beginning in 1879. While a few of these labourers managed to bring wives, many of them either took or were given wives once they arrived in Fiji. The Girmits, who are classified as simply "Indians" to this day, came from many parts of the Indian subcontinent of present-day
India,
Pakistan and to a lesser degree
Bangladesh and
Myanmar. It is easy to recognize the Indian mixtures present in Fiji and see obvious traces of Southern and Northern Indians and other groups who have been categorised together. More of this phenomenon would have likely happened if the religious groups represented (primarily Hindu, Muslim and
Sikh) had not resisted to some degree marriage between religious groups, which tended to be from more similar parts of the Indian subcontinent. Over the years, particularly in the
sugar cane-growing regions of Western
Viti Levu and parts of
Vanua Levu, Indo-Fijians and Indigenous Fijians have mixed. Others have Chinese/Fijian ancestry, Indo-Fijian/
Samoan or Rotuman ancestry and European/Fijian ancestry (often called "part Fijians"). The latter are often descendants of shipwrecked sailors and settlers who came during the colonial period. Migration from a dozen or more different Pacific countries (
Tuvalu,
Solomon Islands,
Vanuatu, Samoa and
Wallis and Futuna being the most prevalent) have added to the various ethnicities and intermarriages.
New Zealand Ethnic intermarriage has historically been viewed with tolerance in New Zealand. According to a 2006 study, Māori have on average roughly 43% European ancestry, and rates are rising. However, the notion of being "mixed-race" has always been uncommon. An informal
one-drop rule is often used for Māori; most Māori believe any degree of Māori ancestry is enough to identify as Māori. == See also ==