If we include Hispanic as a separate racial/ethnic group, we find that interracial marriage percentages are higher, here 8% in the US in 2010 compared to 6% in the previous graph when Hispanics were ignored. The US Census first asked respondents whether they were Hispanic in 1970.

In order to figure out how many interracial couples there are, one must first divide people into separate and mutually exclusive racial/ethnic categories. In dividing people into mutually exclusive racial/ethnic categories, one immediately confronts a series of definition problems that have no unique solution.

The fact is that race exists in America only because we Americans believe in race and invest the categories with meaning.