Reply to Are Rohingya/Hmong/uyghur URM?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Slightly OT, but this URM designation has always puzzled me.  Does the designation encompass both URM and low income? Or is URM sufficient?

For example, if a kid has a parent born in a Latin American country, who immigrated to the U.S. after graduating from a US college, didn't have refugee status or need political asylum, but instead came for  education and job prospects, currently lives a solid middle class lifestyle, has STEM job and decent salary, an American spouse - does their kid have URM advantage simply by checking the box, even though their life on the whole has been more than comfortable? Are they allowed to check the box if one parent is American ?[/quote]

Yeah. My oldest (post-college) has a friend who is from Venezuela and went to private school there k-12. Friend came to U.S. for college and got URM internships. Kid is as white as an be.[/quote]

I am not talking about the kid being born in another country. I'm talking about the parent of a kid born in another country and the parent immigrated to the US and built a life here.  Does this kid have a URM advantage even though they lived in the US and had a comfortable life? [b]So, again, is it URM + low income or URM?[/b]

I guess another question is how much does the parent's narrative/background hold weight with regard to the kid's personal narrative? Certainly someone who moved to this country (whether for political reasons or not) did face some obstacles by leaving family, friends, home country to make a better life, though very obviously not on that same scale. And the kid of that person may as well have been affected in some way by this transition - for example, not knowing their family in the home country, the parent perhaps having different values, habits, customs that made the kid a bit of an outsider. [/quote]

I think you are conflating two things.

Scholarships and internships for [b]URMs are not just meant to give a "leg up" to kids who are disadvantaged. They are also meant to bring new perspectives to a program or an employer. So, a middle class kid who grew up in a Mexican-American community, speaking Spanish, and having those specific cultural experiences is actually going to bring something different to the classroom/job and there's value in that perspective. [/b]

[/quote]

Ok, yes, I get that.

But what I'm asking, and I guess I'm not being super clear: If a kid grew up  in a regular boring suburb, speaks English as their first language, but maybe they understand a little of their immigrant parent's first language (but are in no way fluent), their parents' income affords them a lifestyle rich with opportunities such as, club sports, music lessons, expensive sleepaway camps, family vacations, etc -- you know all the stuff that a typical white middle class+ suburban kid enjoys - will that kid get a leg up as URM if the only thing that distinguishes them from other regular middle class suburban kids, is that they have one parent who was born in Argentina (or wherever), has an ethnic sounding name, but has essentially integrated into typical middle class+ American culture by way of their parent's decision to move to the US 20 years ago so that they can get meaningful work and enjoy a better lifestyle than they could in their own country.

To be clear: I am in no way disparaging the attempts by colleges to include low income, URM kids, refugees, asylum seekers, and otherwise disadvantaged kids into their student bodies - in fact, I think it's not done to the extent it should be. I'm just wondering where the line is drawn between being a URM  student/candidate vs. a student/candidate who is basically a typical suburban American kid, but for their last name and their parent's fairly recent immigration, motivation and success.[/quote]

If the kid is part Hispanic just check Hispanic. [/quote]

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