As the title says, I’m Hispanic (yes, central american) and Polish. My mother is El Salvadorian, and my dad is Polish. How should I go about identifying myself on the Common App? Someone told me I could identify solely as Hispanic but is this ethically/legally permissible? Just a bit confused.
You would be considered mixed-race, but you could probably list Hispanic if you want.
is that an actual option? I don’t see it
As opposed to…?
Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race. So if you identify as Hispanic, you could answer the questions on the Common App as follows:
Of course, that is just an example, and you can choose to answer all/some/none of them.
What race does it say on your birth certificate? My son is biracial (half Hispanic of Puerto Rican decent, half a mix of multiple races and ethnicities.) On his birth certificate, we listed his race as Hispanic and it’s how he’s always identified. This was before the US Census and other government forms put Hispanic as an ethnicity under White. (To this day it makes my husband mad. He has never, ever identified as White, and his race has always been Hispanic - Puerto Rican.) My son choose Other on the common app under White, and then listed Puerto Rican. It was what we felt was legally correct according to his birth certificate.
my birth certificate doesn’t specify race? I’m just kind of stuck at a moral crossroad because I want to identify as accurately as possible, but I also don’t want to compromise my chances of going to a good school.
Put Hispanic. You are fine morally.
Click more than one box: white & hispanic
I agree with @GMTplus7. Check both boxes. Common app is great because it lets you check as many as applies to you. I’m mixed too–I’m checking three boxes. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t match your birth certificate as long as it’s true and it’s how you identify.