SCOTUS doesn’t even know what percentage constitutes race grouping for college purposes from the 2014 affirmative action court case comments from justices were:
“Chief Justice John Roberts pushed Garre on the question of checking a race and ethnicity box, much like the ones on U.S. census forms. Roberts noted that though the University of Texas claims race is only one factor in admission, it is the only factor on the cover of an applicant’s file. He also asked Garre which box should be checked if a person is one-fourth or even one-eighth Hispanic. Justice Antonin Scalia chimed in: How about someone who is one-thirty-second Hispanic?”
I personally know someone (blonde hair blue eyes nonetheless) whose grandparents were from Spain and they checked hispanic and won NHMF $ and were accepted into and currently attend the USNA. IMO, this is so wrong but clearly the US Naval Academy had no problem with it.
It is 100% up to you and what you want to do in this matter.
“I personally know someone (blonde hair blue eyes nonetheless) whose grandparents were from Spain”
yes as you know Hispanic is not a race or ethnic background. so what is wrong with that?
younghoss…I see no problem if a game is being played to play the game to your advantage ! would you pass up admission to an ivy league or a big scholarship …because you only decided to play the game at the last minute. if it is available…it is silly to not do it.(probably most people see it that way) maybe it exposes the absurdity of what colleges do based on a box checked on an application.
I personally have an issue with it…but I do not feel like everyone needs to play by my rules. (it is not a question of legality just personal views of right and wrong/good and bad)
FWIW, I am blond/blue and my grandmother was born and raised in Argentina. While I chose not to check off the Hispanic box on my college application, I was well within my rights to do so. Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race. If you’ve ever been to the Southern Cone, you would know that having blond hair and blue eyes is not unique.
Gotcha! My bad. I apologize- I guess I just meant that when he went for his interview for the Naval Academy as a hispanic applicant no one remotely checked out “how hispanic” he was -I had always had the understanding that hispanic meant from Mexico Puerto Rico Latin America Central America South America etc as opposed to European spanish countries like Spain…
so in my mind a blond blue eyed kid that didn’t speak spanish would trigger someone asking what ethnicity his hispanic origins are from… (but they probably wouldn’t be allowed to do that by law anyway)
I was always under the impression hispanic for college purposes was not to mean Spain as the purposes in catorgorizing I thought were to offset the minority problems similar to affirmative action things… could be totally wrong about that
I used a bad example to tell the poster its really your call bc no one will check or dispute what your claim to hispanic status is…
^
But I think that they do–or can. A Hispanic person who looks distinctly indigenous is likely going be perceived differently in society than a Hispanic person who looks White. It goes back to the long-enduring conversation about “passing as White” and the relative privilege that that does or does not grant. It’s where a lot of this debate comes from, I think. In the US, we generally don’t consider people from Latin American indigenous backgrounds to fit into the Native American/American Indian racial category (which often requires proof of enrollment in a federal recognized tribe), so we class them as Hispanic based on ethnicity, only ethnicity isn’t race and Hispanic people can be of any race. It’s all a muddle.
So is Hispanic meant to be Spain and Portugal for college applications and NHRP etc? I guess so as
NHRP’s Definition of Hispanic/Latino
To be eligible, you must be at least one-quarter Hispanic/Latino. Hispanic/Latino is an ethnic category, not a racial category, so you can be of any race.
You must have ancestors from at least one of these countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, or Venezuela.
When I studied in Costa Rica, my host nephew had blonde hair (though brown eyes) and his mom was part of an Indigenous group called the Bribri- and they were all very dark.
With hundreds of years of colonization, you’re going to have skin tones, hair colors (and textures), and eye colors all over the spectrum.
That said, I do agree with psych. As a light skinned, blue eyed woman with a very not-Spanish name, I do not endure the discrimination that many other Hispanics (Latin@s, really) do. I, personally, choose not to check race on most non-necessary things because I don’t feel as though I fit comfortably into any one box. Those are just choices each person has to make.
psych…Hispanics who are white do not pass as white. They are white. the term Hispanic and Latino are silly. maybe a new term for people of Indian descent born south of the US/Mexican border should be coined. the concept of dumping so many varied people under on a blanket term is a uniquely American thing. it has been pushed and evolved for political reasons by interest groups over the last 1/2 century or so. a black person from dominican republic has no commonality to a white person from urugay or an indian from peru other than they are from former Spanish colonies. the issue the OP brought up is should she take advantage of special privileges by checking the box.
Agreed. However, the original question did not ask about societal views or “passing.”
The definition of “Hispanic” and “latin@” is almost as varied as there are people available to answer the question. It’s only recently that Brazilians were included in the NHRP definition. I don’t think that there are many definitions which include persons from Portugal, although in the grand scheme of things, with a relatively small population (10M), it’s certainly not going to tip the scales one way or the other anyway.
Looks have nothing to do with it, but heritage does. By the time you get to the second or third generation in this country I think it’s up to the individual how they want to identify. My kids are half because of my heritage (not Hispanic, generalizing here), but with their father’s umpteenth generation American pure-bred Mutt they don’t identify with anything except being an American and Caucasian. They are well aware of my “family” traditions and that my relatives don’t live in the US and they have relatives that don’t speak their language, but it doesn’t have meaning other than being somewhat unique to have to hit translate on some FB messages. I think if the kids are 1/4 Hispanic and they identify with that heritage and traditions enough to classify themselves that way, let them! If not, let it go. After the first generation born in this country people homogenize, so it really becomes more about self-identity than anything. And just in my opinion, the government classifications are so broad as to be almost meaningless these days.
People from Portugal are not considered Hispanic or Latino.
Strictly speaking, Hispanic and Latino are slightly different in that Hispanic does not include Brazilians but does include Spaniards since it refers to people who are from or descendant of someone from Spain or a former colony where Spanish is spoken. Latino refers to people who are Latin American-- so it includes Brazilians (since it is not as strictly defined by linguistic group, but rather by hemispheric geography) and excludes Spaniards. Note that there are other countries in the Americas which are excluded from both categories:Belize in Central America, Guyana, Suriname and the French-speaking islands of the Caribbean such as Martinique.
Based on our experience, my NRHP kids didn’t receive any advantages. Nope they didn’t receive a dime from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (all three tried but even for merit scholarships, we were denied!), nor anything from the NHRP. Nor, did they have much advantage in getting into their “first” choices.
Unless you are dead broke, live in a shack with 15 people, and are willing to go to one of those schools that needs “hispanic” students, there is really not much of an advantage. Oh, my DS did win NM and got a $2500 per year scholarship, but so did everyone else at his current university. DD2 got a merit $300 book stipend. DD1 got a full ride but it was MERIT and not a dime from anything culturally “Hispanic” related (she had been doing research on diabetic mice).
My children’s stats and EC’s got them in, not their Hispanic ethnicity.
“hispanic is a language grouping. it is not a race ,ethnic background or anything else.”
Really? This is no requirement that you speak Spanish or Portuguese or any ‘foreign’ language to be Hispanic. There are two questions on applications that ask, one is specifically race, one is specifically ethnicity (Hispanic? white or non-white). These are for federal records, so are asked even in California where they can’t consider the answers for public schools. There are no rules for checking the box as to ‘how much’ Hispanic you have to be. Private scholarship organizations can set any rules they want to.
Jeb Bush’s kids are Hispanic. They would be Hispanic even if they didn’t speak Spanish. They aren’t disadvantaged, aren’t poor, still Hispanic.
no you have to have an origin in a spamish speaking country…you need not speak the language. it really is a silly and unique concept. a french speaking black person from haiti, a french speaking tunisan arab and a white french person from france are not considered to be the same ethnicity. same with a white person from england and an indian from belize and a black person from jamaica are not considered the same. the hispanic thing was created for a purpose in the united states and is terribly misunderstood. and to make it more confusing in many jurisdictions even a metzitzo being booked in jail would be listed as white and the same for people who are black but have spanish surnames will also be booked as white too.
if you are the descendants of black slaves in domincan republic, an indian from peru and a white person from argentina…what is your ethnic connection?? none…it is the language…which actually should refer to the colonial power that dominated the country from which you or your parents/grandparents were born.
Thank you @usbalumnus for correcting my post. I was under that assumption because of a meeting with representative from Texas A&m for NMSF and NRHP and the only package they discussed was the $10,000. I assumed it applied to both. My daughter is NMSF and not interest in A&M so I did not research. I do wonder if that $3500 would also give the out of state tuition waiver making it worth a lot more money. Also in my research for merit money for NMF, many schools mention NHRP as well. Is there a separate posting for those scholarships?
maybe I misread the Op, but as I understood it, the Op considers these kids as 1/4 Hispanic. The uncertainty for the Op is not what country did her mother come from.
The uncertainty is that the grandmother wanted to “be American” after she immigrated here, wanted her daughter to “be American”(the OP) but now, suddenly, as college thoughts enter, the grandmother sees it may be convenient for her grandchildren to claim the Hispanic ancestry. The Op isn’t questioning if the kids are any part Hispanic, but rather if she should claim such on college apps given the absence of Hispanic culture in her home as a child, or these kids’ home now.
^^ FWIW, I consider my children as half Chinese because I am Chinese (DH is white) even though I speak absolutely no Chinese and there is little Chinese “culture” in our household. What do people expect regarding the culture thing? We can make dumplings and sometimes we eat with chopsticks but our life probably resembles lives of many Americans. That was true when I was growing up and that’s true for my chilisten.
I see where the grandmother is coming from - you just didn’t emphasize your heritage in the 60’s & 70’s, you encouraged your children to “blend in”, hence the melting pot. It’s just been in the last 25-30 years that speaking in the mother tongue is somehow expected.