Multiracial politics

Mixed feelings about race

By William Wetherall

First posted 10 March 2006
Last updated 5 February 2007


How many "multiracial people" are there in the world?

Japanese law has no tradition of racializing people, and Japanese census forms do not solicit information about race or ethnicity. There is a box for "honseki" (principal register), which is tantamount ot "kokuseki" (nationality) for people who are not members of family registers affiliated with Japan. One is classified as a registrant of a prefefecture in Japan (Japanese), or of Kankoku, Thailand, Russia, Nigeria, the United States, whatever, or of no state (foreigners). Respondants are not asked to identify their putative race or ethnicity.

In sharp contrast, census taking in the United States today is a highly racialist operation. US laws were conceived on the assumption that race exists and should "count", whereas Japanese laws have assumed that race, if it exists, is a private matter. Until the latter half of the 20th century, race was a qualification for obtaining US nationality (and citizenship) through naturalization. However, race or ethnicity have never been requisites of Japanese nationality.

The earliest racial divide in the US census was "white" and "non-white" or "colored". Today, every advocacy organization that claims to represent the interests of a putative ethnic or racial "group" vies to get its own "label" on the official list of categories so that its potential political constituency can be counted and otherwise "empowered" by official demographic statistics.

2000 US census figures on Asian ethnicity

Since the 2000 census, people have been allowed to check secondary race boxes after first checking a primary racial/ethnic affiliation. All such checking is voluntary, and more people are opting not to racialize themselves.

The 2000 breakdown for "Asian Americans" is as follows.

Table 1: Largest Asian American Ethnic Groups, 2000 Census

             Asian alone             Asian and
                        Two or more  at least
                        Asian        one other   Total
                        ethnicities  race        population,
                        (i.e.,       (i.e.,      alone
Ethnic      Single      Chinese-     Filipino-   or in any
group       ethnicity   Vietnamese)  White)      combination

Chinese      2,314,537     130,826    289,478    2,734,841
Filipino     1,850,314      57,811    456,690    2,364,815
Asian Indian 1,678,765      40,013    180,821    1,899,599
Korean       1,076,872      22,550    129,005    1,228,427
Vietnamese   1,122,528      47,144     54,064    1,223,736
Japanese       796,700      55,537    296,695    1,148,932
Cambodian      171,937      11,832     22,283      206,052
Pakistani      153,533      11,095     39,681      204,309
Laotian        168,707      10,396     19,100      198,203
Hmong          169,428       5,284     11,598      186,310
Thai           112,989       7,929     29,365      150,293
Taiwanese      118,048      14,096     12,651      144,795
Indonesian      39,757       4,429     18,887       63,073
Bangladeshi     41,280       5,625     10,507       57,412

Table 2: Percents of components of total population

Chinese           84.6         4.8       10.6        100.0
Filipino          78.2         2.4       19.3        100.0
Asian Indian      88.4         2.1        9.5        100.0
Korean            87.7         1.8       10.5        100.0
Vietnamese        91.7         3.9        4.4        100.0
Japanese          69.3         4.8       25.8        100.0
Cambodian         83.4         5.7       10.8        100.0
Pakistani         75.1         5.4       19.4        100.0
Laotian           85.1         5.2        9.6        100.0
Hmong             90.9         2.8        6.2        100.0
Thai              75.2         5.3       19.5        100.0
Taiwanese         81.5         9.7        8.7        100.0
Indonesian        63.0         7.0       29.9        100.0
Bangladeshi       71.9         9.8       18.3        100.0

Table 1 source:
Author: Le, C.N.
Title: "Population Statistics & Demographics"
Website: Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America
URL: http://www.asian-nation.org/population.shtml
Last updated 2006, accessed 8 March 2006

Table 2 source:
Computed by William Wetherall from Table 1 figures

Although the title of the source table says "Asian Americans", I have not yet confirmed that the figures exclude non-Americans. If the figures include aliens, then the "Japanese" will include not only Americans, but Japanese and other nationalities who consider themselves to be of "Japanese" ethnicity or raciality.

Mixture in "Japanese" population

At face value, though, the "Japanese" population includes a higher percentage of self-styled multiethnic/multiracial individuals than all other "ethnic groups" except "Indonesians".

To be continued.