Commerce's U.S. Census Bureau released today a 2010 Census brief, The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Population: 2010 (PDF), that shows more than half (56 percent) of this population, or 685,000 people, reported being Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander in combination with one or more other races. This multiracial group grew by 44 percent from 2000 to 2010.

Overall, 1.2 million people, or 0.4 percent of all people in the United States, identified as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI), either alone or in combination with one or more races. This population grew by 40 percent from 2000 to 2010. Those who reported being Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone totaled 540,000, an increase of 35 percent from 2000 to 2010. The multiple-race Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population, as well as both the alone and alone-or-in-combination populations, all grew at a faster rate than the total U.S. population, which increased by 9.7 percent from 2000 to 2010.  Census press release