So here’s the deal. My mother is Mexican and Argentinian, for as long as I have been around I have always thought of myself as Hispanic and European as my father is an immigrant to the US too. However it recently came to light that my mothers Father, who is passed away now, was actually unofficially adopted off of a Cherokee reservation in New Mexico. This story is supported by many family members and is supported, in a somewhat limited way, by legal documents. Now I am eligible to a certain extent to become a member of the Cherokee nation but not only does that take time, there remains the possibility of rejection because the legal documents support the story but do not irrefutably prove it.
How should I identify on College Apps? I want to be straight forward and complete but I do not want to give the impression of lying about my ethnicity or “Padding” my stats with a racial category, though be advised in answering this question that Native American is considered a Race not an ethnicity, meaning that marking it has nothing to do with how involved I am culturally.
I’m pretty sure that you have to be deeply involved within the Native American community to be considered Native American, but I might be wrong. I remember someone saying that just having bloodlines is not enough.
You have to be a part of a tribe or something and be involved in Native American heritage to be considered Native American for college.
I am applying to be part of my tribe, and I have all the necessary documentation to prove that I am 1/4 Cherokee. The thing is that this information will not be processed in anywhere near the kind of speed that would be necessary for it to be “provable” by a college application standard. I feel that if I am to be completely honest I cannot only mark Caucasian and Hispanic but I am told that the absence of a tribal registration number on your common app can have a negative impact on the way college admissions look at your application, as another would be Native American with 1/64 heritage in there somewhere.
If it was an ethnicity category I would not mark it. I have had very little interaction with Cherokee culture and do not pretend to but as a racial category I feel obligated to mark it as it is my race. You would not ask a black/bi-racial person not to mark black because they lived their whole lives in a predominantly white neighborhood or with very little connection to African American culture.
Do college admissions peeps really frown on this? I don’t want to be dishonest but I wonder if my honesty may actually give the impression of dishonesty.
College admissions are so picky these days that I am worried that any minor discrepancy can and will result in a rejection.
I am clear that it fits me, I did a lot of research today and found not only the adoption papers but also a petition by my grandfather to try and be reunited with his Native family. Forceful adoptions were very common back in the day to try and force white culture on Native peoples.
What I want to know is will the admissions committee be less clear on the matter and make a judgement on me as an applicant based on that simple fact?
Then by the same token, President Obama is most definitely white. He only had the opportunity to identify as black when he was in high school. Otherwise, he was raised 100% by whites (not counting his Asian stepfather).
From his book, per Wikipedia:
“His knowledge about his African father, who returned once for a brief visit in 1971, came mainly through family stories and photographs.[39] Of his early childhood, Obama writes: “That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind””
That’s kind of the idea here though, that race is not the same as ethnicity. I am ethnically Hispanic but racially “Mestizo”, White and Native American.
That being said, I am definitively and significantly racially Native which is something that most applicants cannot say. My worry is that without the registration number being available until long after, I might be looked down upon by an admissions committee for being dishonest about my heritage.
You should definitely list Native American, along with white, on your application as it is a racial designation. Hispanic is a cultural designation, and you can list it too. The adcoms can fulfill their diversity quote, and you will have a higher chance of admittance.
Proof if tribal membership is typically only required if you are applying for tuition wavers. As an example, Michigan gives a full tuition waiver to all Michigan public universities for Michigan residents who are members of any federally recognized tribe.
You definitely should not identify as ONLY Native American. You could identify as part Native American, but I doubt that it would help you without an enrollment number.
I’m 1/2 Native American (registered with a tribe but live away from the reservation). In my opinion, you might as well put down “Caucasian and Hispanic”, because that is how you’ve identified yourself up until this point. If you weren’t applying to colleges, would you still want to become a member of the Cherokee Nation? I think that is an important consideration.
@Argonian183 I had no intention of identifying as only Native, that’s only a quarter of my race I have actually started the process already of enrolling in the Cherokee nation and I have all the documents necessary to prove that my grandfather was coerced off of the reservation by a white adoptive family.
If I weren't applying to college this would still be of great importance to me. See my grandfather was adopted by a white family who turned out to be Mormon. These Mormons relocated to the Mormon facility in Mexico where he met my grandmother and they raised my mother in the Mormon religion. Then my mother and my father met, married and joined the compound style church that I had to run away from when I was 17. So almost all the struggles I have had in my life can be traced back to my grandfather being basically kidnapped from his Cherokee reservation and forced to assimilate to a new white culture.
As far as college admissions go, I am already Hispanic so the race "boost" if you will, is not that big of a deal to me and have enough confidence in my grades and test scores that I'm not relying on something like that to get me into school. On a side note anyone relying on something like that is probably going to come up short anyways. I had spent a lot of time hiding my ethnicity and in the church I went to me and my mother were treated horribly because they saw us as dirty. I am not inclined to hide anything about who I am or about how having Native ancestors who were forcefully assimilated impacted the entire course of my life. At this same time, I don't want to be penalized for it by colleges thinking of me as one of those people who claim Native status when the last Native ancestor they had was rumored back in the 1700's.
it’s not like you’re possibly 1/32 cherokee and trying to reap the benefits from it (which i have seen people do)
you actually have legitimate ties to this race and you have a substantial amount of native blood in you.
and technically you can identify however you want to on college apps. so do whatever you feel most comfortable with
Before you go any farther with this NA issue, why not find out if you can even get the Blood Papers in time for applications. The schools aren’t going to just take your word for it.
@mom2collegekids My is all together and I’m mailing on Monday but I’m all but assured it won’t be processed in time, I will probably just add that my tribal membership is pending
When you indicate that you are Native American on the Common App, it asks you which tribe and whether you are enrolled. You need to indicate “No” as the answer to the enrollment question if you do not get the appropriate paperwork back in time. If you wish to clarify, then you should indicate in the Additional Information Section that you have applied for tribal membership, but the application is still pending.
However, since there is no need to even fill out the demographics section, you don’t need to list your Native American heritage at all if you don’t want to. It would not be lying - it is information that is up to you as to what you choose to disclose.
I would caution you about implying that 1/32 Native Americans are not legitimate. Many tribes do not use a blood quantum to determine membership but instead use lineal descent. Native American nations determine who can enroll. It isn’t up to you to decide if someone is Native enough.
It seems to me that you are hoping that this new information changes your standing for acceptance at your colleges. You’ve not mentioned scores, tests nor ECs so you seem to be expecting this to change everything?
@“aunt bea” I haven’t mentioned them because I don’t think they are all that important. I’m not relying on my Mexican heritage to get me in either and anyone who relies on their “minority status” to get in is probably going to come up short. My ACT is on the high side of the 25th to 75th percentile at Yale, my top choice, and I have a 4.0 unweighted G.P.A. and I started a non profit that brings art education to inner city kids. Even without my heritage I have a unique story to tell and I am a very qualified applicant.
I have actually started the process already of enrolling in the Cherokee nation and I have all the documents necessary to prove that my grandfather was coerced off of the reservation by a white adoptive family.