Multiracial, Biracial, Mixed DNA
I’m more Native American than Senator Elizabeth Warren, but anyway…
Disclaimer: Just assume that everything is a direct quote or paraphrased during the course of a literature review.
Table of Contents (click to Fast Travel)
· Interracial Marriage Was Legal Between Minorities Long Before Loving v Virginia in 1967
∘ ∘ Love is Not Colorblind (Mykel Rodriguez et al., 2021-PrePrint)
· DNA: Hybrid Offspring — Heterosis— Admixture— Marital Distance
· Native American Monoracials, Biracials, & Triracials
∘ Offspring Survivorship
· Marital Distance (Zhu et al., 2018)
∘ Diversity is associated with our evolution.
Looking for research on interminority marriage? Best of luck to you lols
Given that interminority marriages are more likely to be interreligious, increased research on these unions may provide insights into how the couples & (especially) their offspring negotiate their personal religious identities & dyadic or familial religious identity.
Research on the multiracial dividend effect reveals that monoracials have a romantic preference for multiracials that is only matched by their preference for someone of the same race (Curington et al., 2015; Mykel et al., 2021-PrePrint).
Love is Not Colorblind (Mykel Rodriguez et al., 2021-PrePrint)
We found (in addition to replicating the multiracial dividend effect) that monoracials are more open to dating biracials than they are to dating any non-coethnic monoracial group, and biracials are more open to interracially dating other monoracial groups than monoracials are to interracially dating each other.
DNA: Hybrid Offspring — Heterosis— Admixture— Marital Distance
- Also known as hybrid vigour or heterozygote advantage of mixed individuals.
- A genetic phenomenon in which offspring from parents of significantly different backgrounds are genetically fitter than their parents and exhibit improved phenotypic characteristics (Chen, 2013; Lippman & Zamir, 2007).
- The tendency of an admixed organism to have qualities superior to those of either parent. Offspring of parents of different genetic backgrounds will have greater resistance to a broader spectrum of potential health dangers.
- Offspring of mixed marriages may exhibit better genetic fitness in terms of intelligence, height, or physical attractiveness (Prokosch et al., 2005; Lewis, 2010).
- Multiracials’ better growth and development outcomes may be attributed to a higher level of heterozygosity (and predicted superiority over homozygotes) of offspring whose parents’ places of birth were far apart from each other (Crow, 1998; Kozieł et al., 2011; Wright, 1977).
- MultiRacials exhibit greater appreciation and empathy for cultural diversity (Shih & Sanchez, 2009). They’re more willing than monoracials to interact with people who are different from themselves.
- Khan (2011): noted that the more dissimilar parents are, the taller and stronger the offspring.
- “Another significant advantage of genetic diversity within a group is increased parasite and disease resistance (Schmid‐Hempel & Crozier, 1999). If we think of interacting individuals as superorganisms (Oster & Wilson, 1978; Wilson & Sober, 1989), then their relative immune function would result from the collective properties of each individual’s parasite resistance capabilities.
- Phenomena, such as niche overlap reduction, skill pools and enhanced parasite resistance, are benefits that are more likely to accrue in genetically diverse populations.
- Social heterosis is a potentially powerful agent of natural selection for maintaining genetic diversity. Its key element is the positive effect of genetic diversity across individuals to the mutualistic benefit of all.”
- If there was no effect of heterosis in humans, then kids born from incestuous sibling conceptions would be just as healthy as kids born from unrelated parents. Basically, the genetic differences between the two unrelated parents provides their offspring an advantage over kids born from inbreeding of a brother & sister. Heterosis/ multiracial encoding/ admixture/ etc is simply an extension of that advantage.
- Nations with high levels of inbreeding are less likely to be Democratic (Woodley & Bell, 2013). …so that’s a thing. #smh
Migration is Costly
People who successfully migrate may possess traits associated with adaptation to a new environment (Fix 1999; Mascie-Taylor & Little 2004). As such, the offspring between a migrant & a resident of the new country would likely produce offspring with unique & advantageous characteristics that their monoracial peers would not possess.
Native American Monoracials, Biracials, & Triracials
Logan, 2011: “Admixture with African-Americans conferred reproductive advantages to monoracial Native American women. Monoracial Native American women lagged far behind the #multiracial women in the tribes in all areas pertaining to fertility.
Biracial women in the tribes averaged 5.1 children compared to only 4.5 for monoracial Native American women.
Tri-Racial women (mixed White-Black-Native American) (n=63) had the most of all: 5.5 children.
Offspring Survivorship
1. “Nearly 30% of the 14,469 offspring produced by monoracial Native American parents had died at the time of the survey. The percentage for White and biracial (White & Native American) couples, in contrast, was 17%, the lowest rate of mortality recorded in the 1910 Census.
2. Parents of mixed Native American & Black ancestry ranked closely behind at 20%.
3. Lactose Intolerance
- Most monoracial Native Americans (80%+) cannot successfully metabolize cow’s milk (Swagerty et al., 2002). They do not produce sufficient amounts of lactase, an enzyme needed to break down a sugar in cow’s milk known as lactose, and this leads to digestive discomfort (McCracken, 1971).
- However, lactose intolerance is only affects 2–15% of Whites (Durham, 1991). Lactose intolerance is far more common in Blacks at rates of 60–80% (Swagerty et al., 2002), though that’s still lower than for Native Americans.
- Multiracial Native Americans, especially those who were half White, were protected against malnutrition thanks to their ability to consume milk. This partially explains why the childhood mortality rate for monoracial Native Americans was higher than the rate for multiracials.
4. The lower infant-childhood death rates recorded for admixed couples, when coupled with variations in fertility, help to explain why the multiracial population grew so rapidly in comparison to monoracial Native American during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.”
5. Quiggins (1990) found that multiracial Cherokee are at lower risk of developing type-2 diabetes than monoracial Cherokee.
6. In short,
the genetic admixture results suggest that interracial unions “carried a sizeable, though most likely unrecognized, reproductive reward for those who broke from long-standing norms of tribal endogamy”
Logan, M. H. (2011). American Indians with African Ancestry: Differential Fertility and the Complexities of Social Identity. Human ecology, 39(6), 727–742. https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.springer-91ab83da-0c04-3b7e-8739-0f539b5cc956
Marital Distance (Zhu et al., 2018)
In Zhu et al (2018) study on China’s 56 ethnic groups, offspring of hybrid marriages are .88 centimeters taller than those of within-province marriages. They also tend to have greater educational attainment. Both effects are stronger for hybrid men than for hybrid women.
In short, as boundaries of geography & boundaries of prejudice lose their influence in the marketplace of intimacy, the benefits of heterosis will have an increasingly profound influence on our development as a species.
Diversity is associated with our evolution.
Zhu et al. (2018) continued → “Classical sexual selection theory provides a well-supported conceptual framework which predicts that, compared with females, males usually evolve to develop greater characters/traits (e.g. taller and stronger) due to their need for competition over mates (Andersson and Iwasa, 1996; Campbell, 1972). Sexual selection would therefore lead to the evolution of several male-biased phenotypic characters such as height. The current results are consistent with such predictions in evolutionary biology.”
California is the most integrated and interracial state. However, white-Asian segregation is much less pronounced compared to white-black segregation.
Google Ngram analysis of books from 1800 to 2000 that use “mixed-race”, “biracial”, and “multiracial” finds their mention has increased over 250, 450, and 800 per cent, respectively (Google 2014).
MultiRacial in America
Among Americans under age 15, only 49.9% of them are White (2018 U.S. Census Bureau estimates). White children under 15 are a plurality but — for the first time — are no longer a majority.
Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, multiracials/mixed, and other racial groups combined to form the majority (50.1%) of those under age 15.
Minorities are at least 40% of the residents in 25 states.
Among all Americans, “Whites now comprise only slightly more than three-fifths (60.4%) of all residents” (2018). This phenomenon, which is projected to continue, emphasizes the need for institutions that focus on children and young families to proactively accommodate the interests of more racially diverse populations, as the latter will be key players in the country’s demographic and economic future.”
“As the world’s population becomes increasingly mixed, some genetic disorders will become less and less common. Nationalism and xenophobia threaten to decrease genetic exchange between populations, stifling our ability to continue evolving and adapting.
They are enemies of our species’ evolution.”
Disclosure: I’m a faculty advisor for the Mixed Student Union at UC San Diego. I posit that we are the most diverse & (in all likelihood) the most inclusive group/organization. We are a group in which everyone is different from everyone else. In contrast, that Elf Union guild in Final Fantasy 14 that only allows Elf avatars to join is (by definition) far less diverse & far less inclusive than the guild I joined (and we have better magic).
Anywhoooooooo… here’s to hoping we can begin Post-Life & have in-person lectures again sometime in Summer or Autumn 2021
1/5/2021 Update
Extraversion is linked with higher self-reported codeswitching (Dewaele and Wei, 2014).
Mixed women are more extraverted than monoracial women (Johnson & Nagoshi, 1986).
Fryer, Kahn, Levitt, & Spenkuch (2008) [The Marginal Man Hypothesis]: found interracial adolescents to be involved in more risky and anti-social behavior. Suggested that interracial offspring take part in riskier activities in order to become accepted by peers if they feel they lack natural peer groups of their own.
Interracial Fitness: a significant advantage of genetic diversity within a group is increased parasite and disease resistance (Schmid‐Hempel & Crozier, 1999). Multiracials’ genetic diversity is akin to having an extra channel on your television: you may not always watch it but it provides you with unique flexibility in case something unique ever pops up like covid.
1/7/2021 Update
Heterozygosity is associated with enhanced resistance to infectious diseases (Carrington et al., 1999; Penn, 2002; Penn et al., 2002). Multilocus heterozygosity is associated with fitness at both individual and population levels (Britten 1996; Hansson and Westerberg 2002; Mitton 1993; Reed and Frankham 2003) & with fitness of offspring in a fluctuating environment (Charlesworth, 1988).
Thus, individuals with high levels of heterozygosity may be healthier than their peers.
Incest & Inbreeding Depression
Low levels of heterozygosity (with inbreeding depression from incest being the worst case scenario) are associated with increased childhood mortality and morbidity (Bittles & Neel, 1994; Grant and Bittles, 1997; Hussain et al., 2001; Reddy et al., 2001; Sudhakaran & Vijayavalli, 1997).
Penton-Voak et al. (1999) found that a preference for average faces was stronger than any preference for faces that resemble one’s self.
The greater the marital distance, the higher the birth weight and length in both sexes (Koziel et al., 2017) (though the effect ends starting with the 4th born child)
4th child = Rob Kardashian (Kourtney is best & everyone should accept that)
A 2005 study led by psychologist Craig Roberts at Scotland’s University of Stirling supports the hybrid vigor hypothesis — that genetic diversity makes people more attractive by virtue of their “apparent healthiness.”