Thoughts on putting down Hispanic when from Spain?

[Anonymous]

I don’t know how anyone can do more than guess about whether ties to Spain helped people get admitted to colleges. Having worked in a few bureaucracies, I can say that most people are not above cutting a few moral corners to keep their superiors off their backs, especially when it comes to touchy topics like race & ethnicity.

I live in an area where there are lots & lots of engineers from India. Years ago I heard a rumor that some of their employers were not above counting at least some of them as African American to meet diversity goals. I have no confirmed knowledge of this, but who knows?

Whenever you have a rule you can expect someone to try to get around it. Look what Sen. Warren did, & everybody is apparently just fine with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems wrong for descendants of colonizers to gain some advantage.

If OP is from Spain he's less likely to be descended from colonizers than a Hispanic from Latin America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the previous poster who emailed the UVA admissions office to find out if my kids having a Spanish mother meant they could be Hispanic. Nobody can know for sure whether their Hispanic status helped their applications. It’s easy to imagine that would depend on how desperate the school was to increase its Hispanic %. Also conceivable that some admissions offices would consider it to be irrelevant.

We felt justified in claiming a connection to Spain, as the kids spoke fluent Spanish, preferred Spanish food, & spent every summer in Spain with relatives. But the opportunity was/is certainly there for people to claim to be Hispanic even with the faintest connections with Spain. If they claim to “identify” as Spanish, that’s enough to satisfy the letter of the law. We thought that was a ridiculously low bar at the time, & now that that standard also allows people to change genders, and even species, it seems even more questionable. Subjective reality is trumping objective reality.

Also, it seems so arbitrary that of all the languages on the planet, the only one which plays a big role in qualifying you for widespread special treatment in the US is Spanish.

THIS BLOWS MY MIND????? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE if you had an Italian mother and spent every summer in Italy with your Italian relatives.

When did European countries/nationalities become a URM?????

Goodness. Stop hyperventilating. You are going to pass out. If this is actually blowing your mind, you’ve clearly led a shockingly safe and protected life. Breathe.

White Hispanic is not getting an admissions advantage. Certainly not now, but also rarely in the past (I can’t speak for all schools). The stats typically break those out.

Signed,
Used to work in admissions

Most Hispanics in the US check the white box. (Of course, the boxes won't be viewed this year.)

That is wrong because on the Common App, Hispanic and Latino are shared, and most Latinos do not select white.

However, white Hispanic is not conferring any advantages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the previous poster who emailed the UVA admissions office to find out if my kids having a Spanish mother meant they could be Hispanic. Nobody can know for sure whether their Hispanic status helped their applications. It’s easy to imagine that would depend on how desperate the school was to increase its Hispanic %. Also conceivable that some admissions offices would consider it to be irrelevant.

We felt justified in claiming a connection to Spain, as the kids spoke fluent Spanish, preferred Spanish food, & spent every summer in Spain with relatives. But the opportunity was/is certainly there for people to claim to be Hispanic even with the faintest connections with Spain. If they claim to “identify” as Spanish, that’s enough to satisfy the letter of the law. We thought that was a ridiculously low bar at the time, & now that that standard also allows people to change genders, and even species, it seems even more questionable. Subjective reality is trumping objective reality.

Also, it seems so arbitrary that of all the languages on the planet, the only one which plays a big role in qualifying you for widespread special treatment in the US is Spanish.

THIS BLOWS MY MIND????? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE if you had an Italian mother and spent every summer in Italy with your Italian relatives.

When did European countries/nationalities become a URM?????

Goodness. Stop hyperventilating. You are going to pass out. If this is actually blowing your mind, you’ve clearly led a shockingly safe and protected life. Breathe.

White Hispanic is not getting an admissions advantage. Certainly not now, but also rarely in the past (I can’t speak for all schools). The stats typically break those out.

Signed,
Used to work in admissions

Most Hispanics in the US check the white box. (Of course, the boxes won't be viewed this year.)

That is wrong because on the Common App, Hispanic and Latino are shared, and most Latinos do not select white.

However, white Hispanic is not conferring any advantages.

What do Latinos select?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the previous poster who emailed the UVA admissions office to find out if my kids having a Spanish mother meant they could be Hispanic. Nobody can know for sure whether their Hispanic status helped their applications. It’s easy to imagine that would depend on how desperate the school was to increase its Hispanic %. Also conceivable that some admissions offices would consider it to be irrelevant.

We felt justified in claiming a connection to Spain, as the kids spoke fluent Spanish, preferred Spanish food, & spent every summer in Spain with relatives. But the opportunity was/is certainly there for people to claim to be Hispanic even with the faintest connections with Spain. If they claim to “identify” as Spanish, that’s enough to satisfy the letter of the law. We thought that was a ridiculously low bar at the time, & now that that standard also allows people to change genders, and even species, it seems even more questionable. Subjective reality is trumping objective reality.

Also, it seems so arbitrary that of all the languages on the planet, the only one which plays a big role in qualifying you for widespread special treatment in the US is Spanish.

THIS BLOWS MY MIND????? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE if you had an Italian mother and spent every summer in Italy with your Italian relatives.

When did European countries/nationalities become a URM?????

Goodness. Stop hyperventilating. You are going to pass out. If this is actually blowing your mind, you’ve clearly led a shockingly safe and protected life. Breathe.

White Hispanic is not getting an admissions advantage. Certainly not now, but also rarely in the past (I can’t speak for all schools). The stats typically break those out.

Signed,
Used to work in admissions

Most Hispanics in the US check the white box. (Of course, the boxes won't be viewed this year.)

That is wrong because on the Common App, Hispanic and Latino are shared, and most Latinos do not select white.

However, white Hispanic is not conferring any advantages.

What do Latinos select?

Most Latinos also select white for the race question, or don't answer the race question. For Mestizo, there is no other relevant race box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the previous poster who emailed the UVA admissions office to find out if my kids having a Spanish mother meant they could be Hispanic. Nobody can know for sure whether their Hispanic status helped their applications. It’s easy to imagine that would depend on how desperate the school was to increase its Hispanic %. Also conceivable that some admissions offices would consider it to be irrelevant.

We felt justified in claiming a connection to Spain, as the kids spoke fluent Spanish, preferred Spanish food, & spent every summer in Spain with relatives. But the opportunity was/is certainly there for people to claim to be Hispanic even with the faintest connections with Spain. If they claim to “identify” as Spanish, that’s enough to satisfy the letter of the law. We thought that was a ridiculously low bar at the time, & now that that standard also allows people to change genders, and even species, it seems even more questionable. Subjective reality is trumping objective reality.

Also, it seems so arbitrary that of all the languages on the planet, the only one which plays a big role in qualifying you for widespread special treatment in the US is Spanish.

So you think the ability to claim your race is based on how much of the things associated with the race’s culture, you do (language, geographic location, foos, etc)?

Compared to your kids, Someone else also with a Spanish mother, who prefers Chinese food, has never been to Spain and took French in high school can’t check off Hispanic like your kids can? I get your point about self selecting any identity, but the rest of what you said isn’t right.

Is an African American kid raised by a black family more black than his twin who was adopted by a white family, simply because of the different experiences each had while growing up?

[Anonymous]

I think you are wrong. Black is considered a race, and isn’t supposed depend on what you identify as (though those of mixed race sometimes pick one rather than “mixed”).

Hispanic isn’t a race; it is all about what you identify as. So your language, food, customs are supposed to be relevant (though in reality nobody is going to check up on you to verify what you are identifying as).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course.

It is telling the truth.

It’s not. Hispanic is not supposed to include people from Spain or Portugal, only those from Latin American countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems wrong for descendants of colonizers to gain some advantage.

You can solve the problem by completely eliminating any kind of consideration of race as the basis for college admission.

“Hispanic” isn’t race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure thr Spaniards refer to themselves as Europeans and not Hispanics, but whatevs

Exactly but in the U.S. Spaniards are generally considered Hispanics (but not Latinos). Antonio Banderas was forced to identify as Hispanic when applying for a visa (decades ago) even though he initially refused and insisted that he was not Hispanic. I am European (50% Spanish) and when I applied to U.S. grad schools, some schools provided explicit definitions and stated that the country of Spain applied to the Hispanic category.

[Anonymous]

In the US hispanic/latino means with ancestry from latin america. I wish they would get rid of the term and just flat out say latin america to avoid confusion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the US hispanic/latino means with ancestry from latin america. I wish they would get rid of the term and just flat out say latin america to avoid confusion.

WHY are you bumping this old thread?

[Anonymous]

Do you think Hilaria Baldwin will tell her kids to check the Hispanic box when they're old enough to apply to colleges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the US hispanic/latino means with ancestry from latin america. I wish they would get rid of the term and just flat out say latin america to avoid confusion.

Not true

[Anonymous]

Hispanic means Spanish speaking.