Multiracial American facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

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

Native Americans lineage and admixture in Black and African-Americans

Native Americans lineage and admixture in White and European-Americans

Black and African-American identity

Admixture

Definition of African-American

White and European-American identity

Racial passing and ambiguity

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

Eurasian-American identity

Afro-Asian-American identity

In fiction

Images for kids

Olaudah Equiano
Charley Taylor holding an American flag. Charley was the son of Alexander Withers and one of Withers's slaves. Withers sold Charley to a slave dealer and he was sold again in New Orleans.
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 an Afro-Jamaican father.
Tiger Woods was born to an Asian-American mother and African-American father.
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 Cabinet Secretary as Secretary of Interior. 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.
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.
Will Rogers was born in the Cherokee Nation to mixed race parents of Cherokee and English descent.
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 mother is of Afro-Bahamian descent and her father is of English and Irish ancestry.
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 descent.
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.
George Herriman, who was born into a Creole family, wore a hat to conceal his hair texture. His death certificate identified him as Caucasian.
Patrick Francis Healy was born to an Irish-American plantation owner and his biracial slave. He and his siblings identified as white in their formative years and most made careers in the Catholic Church in the North.
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.
Mary Ellen Pleasant, born to a slave and the youngest son of James Pleasants, contributed to advancing the abolitionist movement.
G. K. Butterfield was born to two mixed race black identified parents of Portuguese and African descent from the Azores.
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.
Walter Francis White belonged to a middle-class hyperdescent African-American chattel slave descended family who remained negro or black-identified.
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 mother is Mexican (Spanish, Indigenous) and some French. His father is of English, Scottish, Irish and German ancestry.
Chita Rivera's mother was of Scottish and Italian descent and her father was Puerto Rican.
Rosa Salazar is of French and Peruvian descent.
John H. Sununu was born to a Salvadoran mother of Lebanese descent and an American father of Palestinian and 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 Scottish 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.
Chloe Bennet; mother is Caucasian and her father is Chinese.
Moon Bloodgood is part Irish, Dutch, and Korean.
Tia Carrere is part Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino.
Kip Fulbeck is part English, Welsh, Irish, and Cantonese.
Norah Jones was born in Brooklyn, New York to an English-American mother and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar of Bengali descent.
Sean Lennon is the son of Japanese multimedia artist Yoko Ono, and English and Irish descended John Lennon.
Olivia Munn; father is of English, Irish, and German ancestry, while her mother is from Vietnam.
Jennifer Tilly is part Native American, Irish, Finnish, and Chinese.
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.

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Multiracial American Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.