<p>How do colleges know your race, other than your account of it (okay, I suppose there may be an interview?) Say you're pasty white and say on your Common App you're an African-American or Latino. With the multiracial heritage of the United States, who's to say you're not actually a Latino if one of your grandparents immigrated from Germany to Argentina to America? (This is just an example I know of a specific historical migration pattern in the 20th century.) Colleges aren't going to go researching your heritage or reject an applicant because "he looks white." I guess my question is - what is the downside to saying you're a race you actually aren't exactly it?</p>
<p>Although it is possible... if someone's last name is for example Lin, and they put their race as African-American (Maybe a Chinese born in Africa or something), that will raise some eye brows. Maybe, they'd ask you to confirm it or something like that.</p>
<p>I'm not too sure, just a theory. :)</p>
<p>I also had a question: What about White South Africans? They've been in Africa for hundreds of years, don't they deserve to be labeled as African-American?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58006-2004Aug11%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58006-2004Aug11</a>
"Another ad attacks Teresa Heinz Kerry, who, at the Democratic convention last month cited her birth and upbringing in Mozambique and who has described herself as African American. In the radio commercial, the announcer says: 'His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies.'"</p>
<p>I have a friend who is genuinely from Africa (well, at least one of her parents is) but both her mother and father look completely European.</p>
<p>Race is different from the country you are born in. Lots of blacks, Indians, and Arabs are born in Europe, but the are not White. A white person born in Africa is still White. A white person born in Asia is still White. A black person in China is still Black. A Korean born in Congo is still Asian. If not, then we would all be Native American.</p>
<p>hmm. i agree that of course, race is different than the county you were born in. however, personally, i believe that diversity of cultures and birthplaces are much more important than racial diverstiy. for example, i have to goodfriends, one white, one black. the black one is from a very rich family living in a very rich area with very rich friends, and has been well-to-do and in the US for a couple generations and leaves a very typical rich us person life. the white friend's family is from a poor part of africa, and she has visited there a lot and grown up with that culture. i think in the sense of being "african" the white person would actually bring more diversity to a campus and as an upper class white person myself, she has taught me about other cultures and ways of life and the black person has not.</p>