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multiracial
Also written: biracial, mixed-race, mixed race, two or more races, multiethnic, polyethnic, mixed
self-id-requiredumbrella-termrising-populationevolving-usage
At a glance
Source-by-source
“For nouns: African American, Asian American, black, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, non-Hispanic white, white (do not use Caucasian).”
Casey 2013 does not list multiracial or biracial in the approved-nouns list. Notable absence: the rapid growth of the multiracial US population through the 2010s — Census 2020 found that multiracial Americans grew 276% over the prior decade — makes Casey's list feel incomplete by 2026 standards. The omission is a date marker, not an objection.
2023 · entry updated 2021-02-01 VERIFIED
“Biracial refers to people of two races; multiracial refers to people of two or more racial backgrounds. Preferred terms include multiracial, biracial, multiethnic, polyethnic. Use mixed and mixed-race with caution as some people find these terms offensive; however, others embrace them.”
DSG ranks the cluster: multiracial, biracial, multiethnic, polyethnic are all preferred. Mixed and mixed-race are use-with-care — some people embrace them as self-identification, others find them offensive. Biracial specifically denotes two races; multiracial covers two or more.
Context data
US Census 2020 multiracial growth
The 2020 US Census found that the multiracial population grew from 9.0 million (2010) to 33.8 million (2020) — a 276% increase. This was the fastest-growing US racial category.
The growth context makes the multiracial cluster increasingly central to current R&E terminology. Pre-2010 style guides (Casey 2013, AAJA earlier editions) often treated multiracial as a niche edge case; current usage treats it as a primary category. Some of the growth reflects changes in Census methodology that allowed multiple-race selection more easily; some reflects genuine demographic change; both expand the population for which the multiracial terminology applies.
View source → Sub-cluster identifiers
Specific intersectional sub-identities — Afro-Latino, Blasian (Black + Asian), Hapa (originally Native Hawaiian + non-Hawaiian, now broader Asian-mixed), Mestizo (Indigenous + European, especially in Latin American contexts) — often fit individual self-identification better than the multiracial umbrella.
Same specificity preference as the rest of the R&E cluster — the multiracial umbrella works as a collective frame and as a self-identification for people who don't choose a more specific term, but specific intersectional identifiers often communicate better.
Audience notes
- Self-identification
- Same primary rule as the rest of the R&E corpus — use the form the person uses. Multiracial, biracial, mixed, mixed-race, multiethnic, and specific intersectional identifiers (Blasian, Afro-Latina, etc.) all serve as self-identifications for some people; others prefer to identify by a single racial identity even when their ancestry is multiracial.
- Mixed vs. mixed-race
- DSG flags both as use-with-care. Some people embrace 'mixed' as self-identification (the 2010s 'mixed' movement); others find it dismissive or animal-husbandry-adjacent. Defer to individual self-identification; don't default to it as the umbrella for unknown-preference contexts.
- Multiple identifications
- Many multiracial people identify with multiple racial categories simultaneously rather than as 'multiracial' singularly. 'She's Black and Korean,' 'they're Filipina and Mexican' may fit better than 'she's multiracial' for individual identification. The umbrella is most useful for collective references where individual identity isn't named.
- Federal data context
- US Census allows 'two or more races' as a category, and the 2020 Census data uses this construction. When citing Census data, match the source's terminology; 'multiracial' is generally acceptable in narrative writing about the same population.
- Hyphenation
- Biracial and multiracial are written without hyphens. Mixed-race takes a hyphen when used as an adjective ('mixed-race family') and typically also as a noun ('mixed-race'). DSG and most contemporary US guides converge on this.
Synthesis
The multiracial cluster is the R&E category that has grown fastest in active institutional importance since the 2013 baseline. Casey 2013’s omission of multiracial from its approved-nouns list is a date marker — when Casey was written, the US multiracial population was 9 million and treated as a small edge case. By 2020 the Census counted 33.8 million; the umbrella now applies to a population larger than several individual racial categories.
DSG’s ranking is the cleanest operational guidance: multiracial, biracial, multiethnic, polyethnic are all preferred; mixed and mixed-race are use-with-care. Biracial denotes two races specifically; multiracial covers two or more. ‘Mixed’ and ‘mixed-race’ have a real constituency that embraces them as self-identification (the 2010s ‘mixed’ movement, several mixed-identity organizations), and a real constituency that finds them dismissive — so both are acceptable when someone self-identifies that way, but neither is the safe default for unknown-preference contexts.
Specific intersectional identifiers often fit better than the umbrella: Afro-Latino, Blasian, Hapa, Mestizo, and many compound national-origin identifications (Filipina-Mexican, Black-Korean, Indigenous-European) often communicate someone’s identity more accurately than ‘multiracial’ as a generic. Same specificity-preference rule that applies across the R&E corpus.
The ‘identify with multiple categories’ vs. ‘identify as multiracial’ distinction matters. Many multiracial people identify with multiple racial categories simultaneously, not as ‘multiracial’ as a unified identity — ‘She’s Black and Korean’ is often the right framing rather than ‘She’s multiracial.’ The umbrella works for collective references; individual identification often calls for the constituent identities.
The hyphenation is settled (biracial, multiracial, multiethnic = no hyphen; mixed-race = hyphenated when used as adjective).
Cross-references
History note
US Census methodology changed in 2000 to allow respondents to select more than one race; the multiracial category as a federally-measured population dates to that change. The 2010 Census counted 9.0 million; the 2020 Census counted 33.8 million — a combination of genuine demographic change, methodological change, and shifts in racial self-identification. Most major style guides added or expanded multiracial entries in the 2010s and 2020s in response to the growing population and the corresponding rise in self-identification across multiple categories. The Mixed identity movement, the rise of organizations like the Mixed Marrow advocacy network and the Mixed in America Project, and the 2008–2024 visibility of multiracial public figures all contributed to the current institutional uptake.
Related terms