Majority of Indian-American weddings are now interracial

A majority of Indian-Americans are no longer interested in marrying within the community. According to a new report, almost 80 percent of Indian-American marriages are today interracial or interfaith, as most Indian-Americans want to marry someone they met at school or college.

Although there is no official data available on how these marriages are doing, Shobha Shastry, founder and CEO of Alankar Event Planners and Decorators, told India New England News there's greater acceptance of Indian-Americans into American households.

This is one of the main reasons why interracial or interfaith marriages among the Indian-American community has doubled in the last one decade.

“Only about 40 percent of the Indian-Americans weddings were interracial 10 years ago. Now they are almost 80 percent,” Shastry said. “Twenty years ago, only 15 percent Indian-American marriages were interracial or interfaith.”

“There has been a great awareness of Indian culture, religion and values among the non-Indian communities and there is now much more acceptance of Indian-Americans into the American families and vice versa,” Shastry said. “In the medical profession, the interracial marriage is the most common.”

Interestingly, the number of interracial, intercultural or interfaith marriages as a whole has increased in the United States.

According to a 2017 report, interracial marriage was the highest it has ever been in the United States, up 14 percent compared with what it was in 1967 when multicultural love was not encouraged.

In 2015, about 17 percent of newlyweds in the United States had a spouse from a different racial background, revealed the US Census Bureau data, according to a new report by the Pew Research Centre. More than 29 percent of Asian newlyweds and 27 percent Latino newlyweds were found to have married someone from a different race or ethnicity. Those rates were found to be higher for those born in the United States of America.

The report also found that Democrats were more likely to approve of interracial marriages than Republicans.