the Guardian: What's behind the rise of interracial marriage in the US? February 21, 201 Attitudes, migration patterns, availability of partners and education are all factors of interracial and interethnic marriages
For my (first) visualization technique, I’m focusing on Mona Chalabi’s data visualization from February of this year, titled ”What's behind the rise of interracial marriage in the US?”. First and foremost, I chose this because I’m a regular of Mona’s. I am inspired by how she visualizes data so realistically yet creatively, and provides context of the data set from her illustrations.
I find her general approach effective, and especially this visualization, because its imagery, delivery, and intention is visually clear to me. The visualization is a bar graph with two axes: the year on the x axis and the percentage on the y axis. There are six bars that comprise this data set, each corresponding to an interracial or interethnic pair. Each bar is a shade of purple, decreasing in darkness going up the y axis, that serves as part of the bride’s veil in the illustration. The typography is handwritten, which I find shows Mona’s personal relationship or position to this topic.
The story of the data visualization is apparent through the illustration of the veil. The data points thereby inform this format because as the number (years and percentages) increase, they reach the bride’s veil. It is clear that there has been the most increase in “other interracial” relationships from this data set - without necessarily having to read the axes.
This data visualization is relevant for me because my parents are an interracial and interethnic marriage: my mother is non-White Hispanic and my father is white (the second bar from the top in this graph). I am mostly trusting of this data visualization, with the exception of the vagueness is defining “other interracial” and “white” vs “non-white Hispanic”. I believe those terms are too uncertain and cover too vast of a population for me to really understand what that means, where it occurs, who is is speaking about, and how those terms of been defined. I believe the author recognizes the creative license in this work and that is a reason why I respect this work so deeply. Additionally, I find that these definitions likely did not come from the author herself, instead it could have been directly from the Census Bureau and or the Guardian - both credible sources of news, data, and information.
To conclude, this data visualization for me serves as a reminder that interracial marriages have increased annually since becoming legal in the United States. This trend is positive as a data set, and I believe it is positive as a socio-cultural, economic, and political indication of how our American communities are progressing. Moreover, I think there are still many opportunities to raise questions about race, and about how multiple groups may be impacted by socio, cultural, and economic boundaries and influences regarding marriage.
I would improve this visualization by making the definitions and categories of “other interracial” and “white” vs “non-white Hispanic”more specific, adding the data source to the picture, and the year this was taken from.
the Guardian: Interracial Marriages in the U.S.: [http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/21/whats-behind-the-rise-of-interracial-marriage-in-the-us]