<p>swim2daend: The thing is, all of those experience are legitimate challenges - and if you mention them on your application (through essays or the "additional information" section) the admissions people will recognize that. </p>
<p>No one ever said just because you're white you can't have had challenges - it's just assumed that many URMs have a baseline set of challenges in their own lives that's larger than most middle class white kids'. Obviously there are always exceptions to this - like your case.</p>