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7.8: Intermarriage and Assimilation

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    324900
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    The rate of interracial marriage is often seen as a key indicator of assimilation (Gordon 1964). These rates have risen dramatically since Loving v. Virginia (1967), with over one-in-ten married people having a spouse of a different race or ethnicity (Livingston and Brown 2017). However, patterns are not random. Asian Americans and Latinos have the highest rates of out-marriage, particularly for the U.S.-born, while Black out-marriage rates remain the lowest. This reflects a racial hierarchy in the marriage market, where proximity to Whiteness influences desirability (Fryer 2007). Furthermore, the gender pattern in Asian intermarriage—where Asian women marry out far more frequently than Asian men—reveals the persistence of gendered racial stereotypes (Nemoto 2006).


    7.8: Intermarriage and Assimilation is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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