I found out the other day that I can claim minority status as an Hispanic. My great-grandmother was native Mexican, my great-grandfather was native Spanish. As a result my grandmother is mixed, yet quite obviously Latino. As for me, my other three grandparents are of Irish descent. What does this mean to me? I’m white as the driven snow except for tanning, when I get darker than your average person.
I was thinking about the repercussions of this. Officially, according to my mother, I am entitled to claim minority status on job applications, college applications, anything that gives some advantage, however minor, to minorities. Yet, if I apply for a Latino scholarship, for example, and I walk into the room, they’re gonna think I’m nuts, I’ll almost certainly be rejected, and then I have a case for discrimination. This, to me, is surreal.
Truth is, based on that criteria, I could claim African-American tomorrow. What are they gonna do, research my genealogy to disprove my claims? Then I can sue them for invasion of privacy, slander, and a bunch of other stuff, and the ludicrousness mounts. Ultimeately, it comes down to “You’re just going to have to take my word for it”, and that just plain sucks. It becomes somewhat akin to the Shannon Faulkner situation at the Citadel a few years ago.
So, what’s the real criteria for claiming minority status? Is it the old “one drop” rule, or is there something more tangible? If not, then the whole argument falls apart, and we have to start from square one.
What do you think?