Multiracial American facts for kids

Multiracial Americans are Americans who have mixed ancestry.

History

For more details, see Jim Crow laws, Miscegenation, Mulatto, Colored, and Interracial marriage in the United States

Early United States history

19th century: American Civil War, emancipation, Reconstruction and Jim Crow

20th century

Demographics

For more details, see Racial and ethnic demographics of the United States

Multiracial American identity

For more details, see Biracial and multiracial identity development and Multiracialism

Political history

Multiracial families and identity issues

Native American identity

See also: Boricua, Chicano, Cherokee, Choctaw, Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Haliwa-Saponi, Lumbee, and Houma people

Native Americans lineage and admixture in Black and African-Americans

See also: Black Indians in the United States, Black Seminoles, Brass Ankles, Cherokee Freedman, Choctaw Freedmen, Louisiana Creole people, Mardi Gras Indians, We-Sorts, Redbone (ethnicity), and hypodescent

Native Americans lineage and admixture in White and European-Americans

See also: Boricua, Chicano, Métis in the United States, hyperdescent, and Slavery among Native Americans in the United States

Black and African-American identity

See also: Atlantic Creole, Brass Ankles, Chesnut Ridge people, Free people of color, High yellow, Hypodescent, Louisiana Creole people, Melungeon, Mulatto, Redbone (ethnicity), and We-Sorts

Admixture

Main pages: Admixture in the United Stares, Miscegenation, One-drop rule, and African Americans

Definition of African-American

White and European-American identity

See also: Admixture in the United States, Race and genetics, White Hispanic and Latino Americans, Amerasian, and hyperdescent

Racial passing and ambiguity

Main page: Passing (racial identity

Hispanic and Latino American identity

For more details, see Garifuna Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Black Hispanic and Latino Americans, Mestizos in the United States, and Casta

Pacific Islander American identity

See also: Demographics of American Samoa, History of Guam, and Pacific Islander

Eurasian-American identity

Main pages: Eurasian (mixed ancestry) and Hapa

Afro-Asian-American identity

Main page: Afro-Asians

In fiction

Images for kids

Olaudah Equiano
US Census reporting of Two or Mixed Races 2010 - 2017
Auliʻi Cravalho is of Hawaiian, Irish, Puerto Rican, Portuguese and Chinese descent.
Keanu Reeves has an English mother and a father of English, Hawaiian, Irish, Portuguese and Chinese descent.
Charles Mingus was born to a mother of English and Chinese descent and a father of African-American and Swedish descent.
Barack Obama's mother was of mostly English ancestry and his father was from Kenya.
Jennifer Beals was born to an Irish-American mother and an African-American father.
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California to a Tamil Indian mother and a Afro-Jamaican father.
Tiger Woods was born to an Asian American mother and African American father.
Steve Jobs was born to a Syrian father and an American mother of German descent.
Martin Sheen was born to a Spanish father and an Irish mother.
Bill John Baker, who is 3.13% Cherokee, was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 2011 to 2019.
Seminole elder Billy Bowlegs III was also of Muscogee, African-American and Scottish descent through his maternal grandfather Osceola.
Radmilla Cody is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and of African-American descent.
Charles Curtis was a Native American, born to a Kaw, Osage, a Potawatomi and French mother and an English, Scots and Welsh father.
Deb Haaland is from the Laguna Pueblo people and is the first Native American identified Congresswoman to represent New Mexico. Her father is Norwegian-American.
Maria Tallchief was a member of the Osage Nation and of Ulster-Scots descent.
Redd Foxx's mother was half Seminole and his father was African-American.
Jimi Hendrix was born to a Cherokee mother and was part English, African-American, Irish and German.
Edmonia Lewis was of Mississauga Ojibwe, African-American and Haitian descent.
Claudia McNeil was born to an Apache mother and an African-American father.
Rosa Parks was of Cherokee-Creek, African-American and Scots-Irish descent.
Della Reese was born to a mother of Cherokee descent and an African-American father.
James Earl Jones has said in interviews that his parents were both of mixed African-American, Irish and Native American ancestry.
Ben Campbell was born to an Azorian mother and father of Northern Cheyenne, Apache and Pueblo Indian descent.
Faunceway Baptiste was a multi-racial Native American of Choctaw and Euro-American heritage. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Civil War.
Ruth Gordon's ancestor Parthena was an African mistress of Joseph Pendarvis a member of the notable, Native American descended, Landgrave family of South Carolina.
Rebecca Hall was born to a mother of Sioux, African-American, Scottish and Dutch extraction and an English father.
Heather Locklear is of Lumbee descent.
Tia Mowry Her father is of English and Irish ancestry, and her mother is of Afro-Bahamian descent.
James Brown was of Apache, African-American and Asian descent.
Muhammad Ali was of English, African-American and Irish descent.
Whitney Houston was part Native American, African-American and Dutch.
Martin Luther King Jr. was of Irish and African extraction.
John Mercer Langston was of English, Native American and African descent.
Oprah Winfrey is 89% sub-Saharan African, 8% Native American and 3% East Asian.
Carol Channing was born to a white mother and a half African-American and German father. She passed for white during the height of her career and later publicly acknowledged her mixed race origins.
Robert Purvis was born to a part Moorish, German Jewish and Sephardic Jewish free woman of color and an English father. He identified as black and worked to serve his community.
Imitation of Life star Fredi Washington portrayed a woman who passed in the famous film, but was against passing in her own life.
Daniel Hale Williams was of African-American and Scots-Irish ancestry. Although members of his family passed as white, he exclusively served and identified with African-Americans.
Harry Shum Jr. was born in Limón, Costa Rica, the son of Chinese immigrants. His mother is a native of Hong Kong and his father is from Guangzhou, China.
Stacey Dash is the daughter of a Mexican-American mother Linda Dash (née Lopez; d. 2017) and Dennis Dash, an African American.
Geraldo Rivera is half Puerto Rican and Ashkenazi Russian Jew.
Adrian Grenier father was English, German, Scottish and Irish ancestry. His mother was Mexican (Indigenous, Spanish) and some French.
Chita Rivera's father was Puerto Rican, and her mother was of Scottish and Italian descent.
Rosa Salazar is of Peruvian and French descent.
John H. Sununu was born to an American father of Palestinian and Lebanese descent and a Salvadoran mother of Lebanese descent.
According to DNA testing, Eva Longoria's Mexican-American ancestry consists of 70% European, 27% Asian and Indigenous, and 3% African origin.
Princess Kaʻiulani was of Indigenous Hawaiian and Scots-American descent.
Queen Emma of Hawaii was of Hawaiian Nobility and Scots-British ancestry.
Actor Dwayne Johnson's mother is Samoan and his father is Black Nova Scotian.
Jason Momoa was born to a mother of Native American, Irish and German ancestry and a father of Indigenous Hawaiian ancestry.
Lou Diamond Phillips is of Cherokee, Hawaiian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Scotch-Irish American ancestry.
Olivia Munn father is of German, Irish, and English ancestry, while her mother is from Vietnam.
Jennifer Tilly is part Native American, Irish, Finnish and Chinese.
Tia Carrere is part Spanish, Chinese and Filipino.
Kip Fulbeck is part English, Welsh, Irish and Cantonese.
Moon Bloodgood is part Irish, Dutch and Korean.
Sean Lennon is the son of Japanese Yoko Ono and English and Irish descended John Lennon.
Nicki Minaj is part Afro-Trinidadian and East Indian.
Ne-Yo is part African-American and Chinese.
Bobby Scott is of African-American and Filipino (maternal grandfather) descent.
Sonja Sohn is part African-American and Korean.
Jero is part African-American and Japanese.
Tommy Pham is an American baseball player whose mother is black and his father was born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and an African-American father.