Kamala Harris’ swearing in as the Vice President of the United States was a watershed for several reasons when it comes to the demographic makeup of America.

Vice President Harris is the first female vice president, as well as the first person from black and first Asian-American backgrounds to hold that office.

Her appointment hold up a mirror to the US and how demographic trends have reshaped the country and it comes as a new report from the think tank, the Pew Research Center examines trends that have been unfolding gradually over recent decades.

Ms Harris has a multiracial background with her mother born in India and her a black Jamaican.

The Pew research says Americans who identify as two or more races are one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic groups in the country, along with Asians.

“Roughly 6.3 million American adults – 2.5 per cent of the adult population – identified as being more than one race in 2019. The number has grown significantly since the census first allowed people to choose more than one racial category to describe themselves in 2000. Among adults who identify as more than one race, relatively few (2.1 per cent) are black and Asian,” the Pew report said.

As evidenced by Vice President Harris, the US has seen growing waves of immigrants from Asia and the Caribbean.

The proportion of migrants from Asia living in the US has risen in recent decades.

In 2018, Asians made up 28 per cent of the US foreign-born population, up from 4 per cent in 1960. And starting as early as 2010, Asian immigrants outnumbered Hispanic immigrants among new arrivals.

Harris’ father migrated from Jamaica 1961. There were around 125,000 black immigrants in the US at that time, but their numbers have grown steadily, particularly in the last two decades.

By 2019, ten per cent of black people living in the US were foreign born. That same year, Jamaica was the top birthplace for black immigrants.

“As a second-generation American, Harris is among the roughly 25 million US adults who are children of immigrants. This group represents about 10 per cent of the adult population,” the Pew report said.

The report also identified the rise of inter-racial marriage.

“Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is white, which makes them – as a couple – part of a growing group of intermarried couples. In 2019, 11 per cent of all married US adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3 per cent in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19 per cent) were intermarried,” the Pew report said.

“The rise of intermarriage was driven initially by legal changes: The 1967 US Supreme Court decision in Loving v Virginia ruled that marriage across racial lines was legal throughout the country. Demographic trends have contributed as well – in particular, the growing share of the population that is Asian or Hispanic, as these groups are more likely than others to marry someone of another race or ethnicity,” it said.

“As of 2015, the largest share of intermarried couples include one Hispanic and one White spouse. Some 15 per cent are white and Asian, 12 per cent are white and multiracial and 11 per cent are white and black,” the report said.

The US public has become more accepting of mixed marriages. In 2017, 39 per cent of all adults said the growing number of people marrying someone of a different race was a good thing, up from 24 per cent in 2010.

Vice President Harris and Mr Emhoff are among a growing proportion of married American adults whose spouse is of a different religion.

Ms Harris is Christian and attends a Baptist church, and Mr Emhoff is Jewish.

“While most married adults in the US have a spouse who is the same religion as them, that has become less common in recent decades,” the Pew report says.

“Among adults who were married before 1960 (and are still married), only 19 per cent have a spouse who does not share their religion. For those married in the 1980s and ’90s, 30 per cent are in an interfaith marriage. The share has continued to rise: 39 per cent of adults who were married between 2010 and 2014 have a spouse who identifies with a different religious group than their own,” the report said.

The most common interfaith marriages involve Christians who are either married to a spouse from a different Christian tradition or Christians who are married to an unaffiliated spouse. The share who are married to someone from a different faith – such as Vice President Harris and Mr Emhoff – is smaller but still growing, the Pew Center says.