<p>Am I going to get more attention on applications because of this ridiculous cultural label?</p>
<p>I'm of 100% recent Western European ancestry (English, Irish, French, Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish), but my mother is Mexican (French/Spanish, no Indian), so am I seriously going to get some anti-racist advantage or something even though I'm fully Anglicised and have no non-European ancestry?</p>
<p>Why is the term "Hispanic" anyway? "Hispanico/a" means "Spanish" in Iberian Spanish, not Latin American. Like "historia hisp</p>
<p>It's not just that either...</p>
<p>I mean, say I was a Lybian Berber. That is, a brown-haired, light-eyed, and morphologically fully Caucasoid person of no recent Sub-Saharan African ancestry. I'd right fully be entitled to the term "African", but not "African-American"? How's that make sense? Who's idea was it to name continents after races or ethnicities? Aren't there like hundreds of millions of North Africans who aren't black at all? Even Sub-Saharan Africans don't all belong to the same race.</p>
<p>... nobody else cares about this. Who cares if it doesn't make sense? It's accepted. It's a stupid system and if it were up to me affirmative action would burn to ashes (and there would be no pondering whether Lybian Berbers are rightfully African or not), but what can you do. It's not a big deal. </p>
<p>Or better yet, tell it to colleges. I'm sure they would change their entire system. I don't know, man. It just doesn't seem like anything to get enraged about.</p>
<p>I'm not enraged. Just hoping for some clarification. If it's supposed to be ridiculous, I didn't know.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Seems strange, stupid, and confusing. It's also ambiguously a racial, a cultural-linguistic term. The FBI to the local police for example use the term as a racial description--when that's ridiculous.
[/quote]
Sorry, man. Can't believe I misinterpreted you.</p>
<p>Honestly, I have no idea. People just mark down what they identify with, and if it's that confusing they ask the counselor (there was a kid from Spain who asked this in our school, but sadly I can't remember what he was told).</p>
<p>Well, thanks anyway.</p>
<p>Yes, you're justified in marking hispanic.</p>
<p>Yes, you will receive a huge admissions boost.</p>