New figures released by the U.S. government from last year's population count show the number of Americans who identify themselves as multiracial grew during the last decade.
The Census Bureau says the number of Americans who described themselves as partly white and partly black grew to 1.8 million between 2000 and 2010, more than doubling the figures from the 2000 census. The bureau says every state saw its mixed white-black population increase by at least eight percent, with the largest increases found in southern states such as South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi.
The number of Hispanics describing themselves as white increased by over 50 percent in 2010, reflecting the Census Bureau's decision to change the nature of Hispanic as an ethnicity, not a race.
The percentage of whites in the total U.S. population is 72 percent, but the number of non-Hispanic whites dropped from 69 percent in 2000 to 64 percent in 2010.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
