I am currently a senior applying to very selective schools. Ethnically I am a mix of slavic ancestries, and my family is culturally Russian and moved to the US after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Recently my entire close family took DNA tests, and it turns out that I have 3% Sephardic Jew, and my mother has 6% Sephardic Jew in her. This would correlate with the fact that a few generations up our family had a name that occurred in both France and Spain, despite having absolutely no other Western European DNA. It seems possible that during the Inquisition a Sephardic Jew may have fled to a Slavic country and intermarried in my family tree.
So this leads me to the following: My entire life I have always been putting “White, no Hispanic”, and this will likely appear on my transcript if race does. Is it okay for me to put Hispanic? Would this count? And wouldn’t the transcript cause a discrepancy?
Would it help me out at all? And do I have to be culturally an active Sephardic Jew in order to be “Hispanic”?
Thanks.
Your family is culturally Russian and you have never self-identified as Hispanic up to this point. I assume you don’t speak Spanish as a heritage language or participate actively in Hispanic culture. So even if you were a practicing Sephardic Jew so, no, I don’t think you should call yourself Hispanic.
Your family history is interesting. Why not go with that?
I am talking about the section where it asks about my Ethnicity with checkboxes.
For some essays I do actually talk about my family history, however that is not something that would give me any sort of boost in the application process since I am just “white”. Thanks for the input!
According to College Board’s criteria for National Hispanic Scholarships, in order to qualify as Hispanic one needs to be at least 1/4 Hispanic…meaning that at least one grandparent needs to be from a Hispanic country.
My daughter, also white and Jewish, had a grandparent who was born and grew up in Argentina. Their family was in Argentina for many years, but my husband was born in NY. When my D’s PSAT score qualified her for the Hispanic Scholarship, College Board needed guidance to sign off on her ethnicity. We showed guidance my husband’s birth certificate that shows that his mother was born in Argentina.
Colleges, census reports and job applications allow you to self-report ethnicity, but being 3% Sephardic on a DNA test, does not come close to what is the accepted standard. Personally I’d only be comfortable going with College Board’s criteria.
But beyond that, my children had an Argentinian grandmother, great grandmother and uncles. My husband grew up in a household with a Jewish woman who went to Catholic schools in a Spanish speaking country from a different hemisphere. Spanish was her native tongue; she cooked Spanish dishes. Her years in Argentina shaped who she was. All of this was reflected in my husband’s upbringing.
Keep in mind, also, that being Hispanic has to do with country of origin, not race. Hispanics can be of any race. Most Sephardic jews are white, even if their grandparents are from Hispanic countries.
Thanks for clarifying. I will just write “white, non-hispanic” as I have been doing.
This is a 10/10 t-roll post, it’s got to be.
Do you self-identify as Hispanic or Latino outside of college applications or similar check boxes?
Do others commonly tend to identify you as Hispanic or Latino?
If neither of the above answers is “yes”, then it would not seem to be very “honest” to say that you are Hispanic or Latino.
" Is it okay for me to put Hispanic?"
No. Not okay. Don’t game the system. Just present the real you in the best light you can.
@ucbalumnus While I do not think the OP is Hispanic, your response does lead me to ask who sets the criteria for how we identify? Must one be fluent in Spanish because they have a Hispanic background? Should they live in urban centers? Be poor? Is there one Latino or Hispanic experience that one should have experienced to be “honestly” Hispanic? Do others need to decide for us how we identify? Because I can say that people in my community would line up in droves for a Russian or Polish scholarship, but did question our eligibility for a Hispanic one.
My D’s identify as New Yorkers. They are white and Jewish and were raised in an upper middle class suburb. Their grandparents or great grandparents came from Russia, Austria, Hungary and Argentina. Each grandparent colored their childhood with their own life experiences–the stories they told them, the songs they shared, the food they ate. Their grandparent’s experiences, culture and values effected how my husband and I grew up, who we became, and how we parent.
I, myself grappled with these issues. My older D who did not check the box for Hispanic when she applied to NYU, yet she was actually brought to task for NOT identifying herself as Hispanic during a scholar’s seminar there. The Dean who ran the seminar about identity questioned why she would not identify as Hispanic and said my D believed that Hispanics should be Spanish-speaking and non-white which was erroneous. The next day my D changed her ethnic background on her records.
When my younger D applied to college–actually NYU again–she identified as Hispanic. She had also scored well on her PSAT and was designated as a National Hispanic Scholar. I spent time on the phone with College Board double checking that we had met their designation. This led to a lengthy discussion in which they spelled out their definition and reassured me that my D met it despite our race, religion and socio-economic level.
" Must one be fluent in Spanish because they have a Hispanic background? Should they live in urban centers? Be poor?"
“my D met it despite our race, religion and socio-economic level.”
Of course not as being urban and poor doesn’t define being hispanic. Race, religion, and socio-economic level doesn’t factor in either. It is an ethnicity, not any of the prior.
But finding out from a DNA test you are 3% sephardic jew and being raised without any connection to hispanic or latino culture definitely doesn’t qualify you. That’s a real stretch, IMO.
@doschicos Totally agree with you about the OP. But a good number of people have different feelings about what the definition of Hispanic is, and often use the criteria I discussed.
Hispanic / Non Hispanic usually means Ethnicity, which generally means;
“An ethnic group or ethnicity is a population group whose members identify with each other on the basis of common nationality or shared cultural traditions.”
You have neither common nationality nor shared cultural traditions. So no. You are not Hispanic.
DNA, even if you had a lot more than 3%, defines Race. You don’t need it to become Hispanic. You can become a White Hispanic, which isn’t uncommon in South American countries.
For most part, it is on the honor system, although some specific programs (e.g. NHRP) have more detailed definitions.
The answers to all of these questions are “no”.
Some schools ask you to document it. As with the College Board, the requirement was a minimum of 25% provable heritage.
Once accepted, The University of Chicago asked to see a birth certificate. Don’t remember if Yale, Columbia, Harvard, Duke, USC, UCB, or Hopkins asked.
Ethnic misrepresentation to admissions is not a game. Or it shouldn’t be. Don’t be surprised if you aren’t taken at your word: You’re probably not the first to think of the scam.
However it would probably be easier to pass yourself off as light-skinned of African descent–probably just as accurately–since that is not documented on a birth certificate. That would be ethically equivalent to your proposal of applying as Latinx for 3% Sephardic, and just as disrespectful, unearned, dishonest, and racist or ethnically insensitive.
Your line of thought shows a flair for the fraudulent, and in action is likely illegal.
Somewhere along the line perhaps you’ll get caught in this scheme or another. Jail, then, would not only give you an authentic experience of life as an undesirable in America, but also give you the opportunity to re-apply through the loophole of “disadvantaged ex-con.”
Enjoy the full fruits of your cleverness.
I do not understand this logic at all. What is the connection between Sephardic Jewish and Hispanic? Hispanic refers to Latin Americans, as far as I am aware. I grew up in So Cal, eating burritos and tacos my whole life, and smashing pinatas at every birthday party. I learned how to say all the best Spanish swear words while working in restaurants. Does this make me hispanic, despite being totally Caucasian?
@Lindagaf Sephardic Jews have ethnic origins in Spain, as opposed to ashkenazi Jews, who orginate from Eastern Europe. I don’t think OP should be marking Hispanic, but that is the logic.
Spaniards are not classified as Hispanic, as far as I am aware. They are Caucasian. Anyway, there is a thread for race, and this isn’t it.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
We are getting off topic as to whether Spaniards count as Hispanic. That is not what the OP asked. If you want the discussion of What is Hispanic/Latin@, go/post on that thread:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/hispanic-students/641650-hispanic-latino-defined-aka-am-i-hispanic-p1.html
The answer to the OP’s question has been given, which is “no.” So closing thread.