Reply to SO: How do you fit into a poor or primarily minority public school

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[quote=Anonymous]PP,

You can't even play this game b/c your kids are Hispanic.  They are viewed differently and placed in a different category (aka Check the race box.) altogether.  I applaud your last line - and certainly support it. But your kids would be welcomed more warmly in a very diverse setting than mine would be - who are both blonde, green-eyed, fair-skinned kids.

Kids see color - mainly b/c of whom they're around all day.

And to add to this, while my kids are fair (and clearly not "ethnic" looking at all), my cousins who "kept it in the family" by marrying Italians have kids with olive complexions.  (I just never got the "olive" gene.)  People think they're Hispanic, and in fact, one of the kids was immediately placed in an ESOL class b/c her Italian father (who has an accent) registered her.

So people DO see skin color - and immediately start to categorize others.  I don't care HOW supportive parents are.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]One thing seems a trend to me (as an upper middle income non-white person), it's liberal guilt whites who seem to see 'value' in sending their kids to majority or near- majority low income schools. I think you'd be hard pressed to find upper middle income minority families attempting the same thing. I think the only thing such an attempt would do to my little brown kid is reinforce the already pervasive notion that brown means to be poor and uneducated[b]. I think it is important to empathize and try to alleviate poverty,speaking as someone with ample prior exposure to poverty both personally and professionally. [b]What I don't understand is the desire of certain rich white folk to emulate it in their children's educations.[/b] [/quote]

I have no idea what you mean by this.  I'm white, my DH is Hispanic (but of the "Spanish" class as my MIL emphatically states).  Our kids are a little darker than me but much more fair than my DH.  Our kids go to school at the same elementary school my DH went only now it is a majority minority school.  The majority are Central American, whites/blacks are similar percentages and Asians are a clear minority.  It's now a Title 1 school.

We are far more affluent than most students but had no agenda in sending our kids to that school.  We bought our home before were married and well before we even thought of having kids.  It's our neighborhood school.  I know that not every parent at that school are as invested in their child's education as we are but I don't believe that has any impact on our kids (the oldest is in 6th grade, the youngest is in 2nd). The biggest influence on our kids' education is my DH and me.  
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