THE BLENDING OF THE UNITED STATES

For years, Jorge kid Inflatable Rabbit Jumpers DelPinal's job as assistant chief of the Census Bureau's Population Division was to fit people into neat, distinct racial and ethnic boxes: white, black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American. As the son of an Anglo mother and a Hispanic father, however, he knew all along that the task was not always possible. "My identity sale Inflatable Snowmen has evolved as being Hispanic, although I'm only half-and-half," he explained. He said he thus understood the frustration of interracial couples who have always been expected to assign just one race to their children when they fill out government forms. "They're saying, 'Why should we have to choose between the parents?'" the Census Bureau official said. For the 2000 decennial census, that will no longer be the case. For the first time, the census forms will allow people to check off as many races as apply. As a result, the Census Bureau should obtain a better picture of the extent of intermarriage in the United States. In the absence of such a direct method, a few years ago veteran demographer Barry Edmonston used sophisticated mathematical modeling techniques to calculate how intermarriage is changing the face of the United States as part of an immigration study he directed for the National Research Council of the American Academy of Sciences. His research was summarized in a report entitled The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. But as the Canadian-born, white husband of sociologist Sharon Lee, a Chinese-American, Edmonston really needed no computer to understand the transformation under way in this society. He and his family are living, breathing participants.