Multiracial Americans officially numbered 6.1 million in 2006, or 2.0% of the population.[5][6] There is considerable evidence that an accurate number would be much higher. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their multiracial 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. Many Americans today are multi-racial without knowing it.
Many mixed-raced Americans use the term biracial. The U.S. has a growing multiracial 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, due to its long association of blacks with the slave caste. California and the western US 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 Many states eventually repealed such laws, and a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court (Loving v. Virginia) overturned all remaininganti-miscegenation laws in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiracial#United_States
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