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“Ethnic Variations in Characteristics of First Unions” 187
gender. The findings show that Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, and
Korean Americans have the highest rates of exogamous marriages
(69.3%, 62.5%, 56.4%, and 54% respectively). In contrast, Asian
Indian, Vietnamese, and other Asian Americans have much lower
rates of inter-racial/ethnic marriages than their East Asian and
Filipino counterparts. Such a strong regional pattern emerged
because Native-born Indians and Vietnamese Americans maintain
strong family ties and attachment to their own heritages, both
culturally and linguistically (Min & Kim, 2009). Moreover, their
study also revealed the much higher rates of intermarriages to other
racial minority groups among Filipino and Japanese Americans
than among other East Asian or Asian Indian Americans. More
social contacts with other minority groups among the Filipino
Americans and higher generational status among Japanese Americans
were argued as two major factors leading to such ethnic differentials.
Taken together, although Asian Indians have a relatively more
advantageous socioeconomic profile in U.S. society, they have been
shown to have much lower intermarriage rates with other racial
groups (Liang & Ito, 1999; Min & Kim, 2009). Native-born Asian
Indian Americans are much more likely to marry first or
1.5-generation Asian Indians and the proportions marrying whites
are much closer to other South Asian Americans than to East Asian
coethnics (Min & Kim, 2009). Two potential explanations to this
deviation from other Asian ethnic groups’ intermarriage patterns
have been suggested in previous research
—
religious identification
(Sheth, 1995) and the practice of arranged marriage in the Indian
immigrant communities (Foner, 1997; Min & Kim, 2009).
Religion plays a central role in marital choices because it is linked
with core values and cultural practices, which are often barriers to
intermarriage (Kalmijn & van Tubergen, 2010). In addition,
religious intermarriage is often linked with higher risk of union
dissolution (Lehrer & Chiswick, 1993). Hence, it is not surprising
to find that a recent study reported that Hindu/Buddhist groups are
more endogamous than Protestant groups in the United States