I wonder what nationality Lynch is. He reminds me of Dobby - is house-elf a recognized nationality in NH? 
I leave it blank unless it’s absolutely required. They want you to check one thing, and that doesn’t cover a lot of us mutts.
Every time I fill in one of these, I’m tempted to check “Native American”. After all, I was born here; that makes me a “native” American.
But I usually either check “White/Caucasian” or leave it blank.
I mark it. I have no strong feelings for or against doing so.
It does raise an interesting question though. If you’re multi-ethnic how do you identify and why?
My husband is 1/2 Italian and 1/2 Hispanic. You could argue that he should check the hispanic box on those forms but he’s always checked caucasian. That’s just how his mother taught him and that’s how he identifies.
It really seems so pointless to classify people by ethnicity or ancestry. My ancestors have been in this country for several generations. My mother raised us to believe that we were Irish-american but in reality we’re no more irish than French, British and Lithuanian.
I sometimes wonder if we just stopped with the racial demographics what would happen.
I wonder that too. I think that it’s one of the things that tends to maintain these arbitrary and frankly stupid divisions. Like the OP, I used to check it but I’ve come to think it’s pointless, so I usually use the “Other” box now.
This is where I’ve gotten to. I used to check all the boxes years ago thinking it was doing a modicum of good. Heh, left that notion at the door. For a few years I’d check the other box and write in Euro-American. I have as much Scot blood as I do German, Irish and Russian. White didn’t seem to cover it since someone from Johannesburg, Cairo or Accra would be African.
So I started marking Native, since I was born here (US). I’ve never been a citizen of any country other than America. I’m American, that’s my pedigree. I haven’t had a blood relative born outside the US in 4 generations.
It’s not that I’m trying to be a dick about the issue. It’s just that it’s such a worthless stat to track that it’s become it’s own joke. If race isn’t supposed to be an issue, why are so many asked to identify themselves by a subset?
I do clerical work for a college which has an ethnicity section on its enrolment forms. As I think Misnomer was saying, this is more in the pursuit of equal opportunities than to rudely pry, so it may be counter-productive to refuse the question - if you’re a fan of equal opportunity drives.
I did notice that out of the hundreds of forms that have passed over my desk, the only two people who ticked ‘Prefer not to say’, were Americans…
Well, let’s see… my great great great great great great grandfather on my father’s father’s fathers’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s side came over to the Virginia Territory from Scotland. His son married my great great great great great grandmother, we don’t know about her ancestry, to be honest. Meanwhile my great great great great great great great grandfather on my father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s mother’s side is unknown, we haven’t traced that branch that far back yet. In fact, of the 256 people who were my ancestors of that generation, the only one I know anything about is my great great great great great great grandfather. So I guess you could put me down as 1/256th Scotland.
But the clan history records indicate that the land grant of 1423 that first mentioned the family of his ancestry describe them as affiliated with the Norman contingent that came across with William. So strike what you put, let’s say I’m 1/4096th Norman. And clan tradition has it that he, the recipient of the land grant, married a Pictish girl from the old families there, so 1/4096th Pictish.
OK, now, the Pictish tribes are thought to have originated…