A Hierarchy of Boundaries: Interethnic and Interracial Marriage in Asian America

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Who do Asian Americans marry? Nearly 24 million people in the United States identified as Asian alone or in combination in 2020 (7.2%), representing extraordinary diversity in ethnic origin, nativity, education, and immigration history, yet sharing common experiences of racialization and discrimination. Using the American Community Survey (2008–2023), we examine ethnic and racial assortative mating among six major groups — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Southeast Asian, and South Asian Americans — applying log-linear and conditional logit models that account for ethnic origin, multiracial identification, education, nativity, and marriage and cohabiting histories. We find that marriage across Asian ethnic lines is considerably more common than marriage across racial boundaries, revealing a clear hierarchy of boundaries: ethnic boundaries that are often treated as impermeable within Asian societies prove more crossable in the United States than the racial boundary separating Asians from other groups. These patterns illuminate how intimate partnerships both reflect and reproduce the social hierarchies of Asian America.

Authors

• Zhenchao Qian, Brown University

• Yifei Huang, Brown University