Richard Curtis' birth certificate says "Caucasian," but his father is American Indian and his mother is Irish.

When he was young, his family moved around and a lot of his classmates were of different races, he says.

"Most of my life people thought I was Mexican. Mexicans knew you weren't," he said. "When you're in school, there's always someone who wants to know what you are."

Curtis is open about his heritage and says he has noticed more and more people becoming open about theirs as well.

Curtis, of Roy, is one of 47,195 Utahns who is multicultural, according to 2000 Census data released last week.

In 1990, someone like Curtis would have to choose either white or American Indian, but the 2000 Census form allowed people to select both. A 1997 ruling by the federal Office of Management and Budget prompted the Census Bureau to rephrase the race question so that residents could pick more than one category of race.

"Some people have four or five different races in their bloodline," Curtis says. "I think it's a good thing."

Only a handful of people in Utah say they are a blend of six races — the most race choices possible on the 2000 Census form.

Five Utahns declared they were white, black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander and other in the 2000 count. It was the first time in history that the Census Bureau allowed people to check off more than one race, giving citizens a total of 63 race choices compared with 1990's five choices.

The most common combination of two or more races in the state is "white and other," with 15,994 fitting into that category.

The Census Bureau believes that the majority of those who checked "other race" are Hispanic. Hispanic was not a race choice but is considered by the federal government to be an ethnicity. The form asked every respondent to check whether or not they were of Hispanic origin, so Hispanics are distributed among the 63 race choices.

Second to "white and other" was "white and American Indian or Alaska native," with a population of 7,917 Utahns. The third most prevalent group of two or more races was "white and Asian" with 7,550. Fourth was "white and black" with 4,188; fifth was "white and Pacific Islander" with 3,316.

Nationally, 6.8 million people declared they were two or more races.

When Moon Ji of the state Asian Affairs Office heard the recently released numbers for the Asian population, he immediately cried "undercount."

But he also said that Asians are likely to be dispersed throughout the 63 race categories since many Asians in Utah marry people of other races.

Some minority leaders, both locally and nationally, have feared their numbers would be thinned out because of the additional categories. Others have said the presence of so many multicultural individuals could bridge racial gaps and paint a more accurate picture of the population.

Because 2000 was the first year in which residents had an opportunity to declare one or more races, there is no way to compare how the multicultural population has grown. But the figures show the majority of those who are multiracial are children. In Utah, about 53 percent of those who are a blend of races are under 17.

View Comments

Areas with the largest percentages of multicultural residents are Salt Lake, Tooele, Duchesne and Carbon counties, where at least 2.1 percent of the residents selected more than one race. In Salt Lake City, 3.5 percent of the population is of more than one race. West Valley also had 3.5 percent, Clearfield 3.7 percent and South Salt Lake had 4.3 percent.

While the majority of residents picked only one race, Curtis points out that even many whites have ancestry from different parts of Europe. The Census Bureau will release detailed ancestry information this summer.

"There are some people who think they are pure blood and they actually might not be," he said. "We only know them as white."


E-MAIL: ehayes@desnews.com

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.