Hypothetical situation: Mom and Dad from Japan. Both met in Peru and had a child. Child moves with family to USA at age 1.
Would that kid be considered Hispanic?
What if the Mom and Dad were Peruvians of Japanese descent. Immigrated to the US, and had their child there. Would that child check hispanic on college applications.
3rd situation: Mom and Dad are white professionals working in San Diego. They gave birth to child in Tijuana, Mexico. Child automatically has both US and Mexican citizenship.
4th scenario: Child born in US to white family. Moves/lives in Colombia for father’s job. Child applies as international to US schools.
A black child adopted by a white family , raised in a white culture is still black. Same if you reverse the colors. I’m not Asian just because I was born in Asia.
Why are you asking? And you have much to learn about what identity is. It’s not just living somewhere or being born in Mexico. You can look up the true definitions of Hispanic. Yes, it’s your choice what to put, but that doesn’t mean adcoms are easily fooled.
First, you have to distinguish between being Hispanic (= being from a majority Spanish speaking country) and color/race (most Hispanics are White, or mixed race between European and Native American, many are Black, and there’s indeed a specific Japanese-Peruvian population.) You can/should check both. Kid can be white and Hispanic, Asian and Hispanic, as long as was raised in Hispanic culture/has ties to Hispanic culture.
Latinx is also not a race nor a skin color, it just indicates your origin.
Hyphenated Peruvians are Peruvians so you’d definitely check Hispanic/Asian in case 2. Case 1, it all depends whether family kept Peruvian language &culture.
Case 4,kid would not be allowed to and would be stupid to apply as an international - they’re a US citizen and must be in that pool for best chances at Admission and financial aid. As for checking Hispanic it’d depend on how much of the language/culture they’ve acquired. If they’d lived there for most of their life, certainly. For 1-2 years? Probably not (or all American exchange students would suddenly become Hispanic). In that case that kid would be White/Hispanic or just White.
As part of a family that has many of those scenarios, we have been through the ‘who counts as what’ considerations several times. If you are talking about trying to game undergraduate admissions I will tell you that post-admission conversations with adcomms have indicated that while choosing to tick the ‘hispanic’ box might get the app shunted into the ‘hispanic’ pile for review, at review any ‘tip’ will come from seeing more evidence of ‘hispanic’ identity than just a ticked box.
As for applying as a US citizen from another country, as @MYOS1634 indicated it would be madness for a US citizen to apply as an international student given the admission disadvantages (even if there was a ‘tip’ for hispanic international students, which there isn’t- it only applies to domestic applicants). Moreover, you can’t actually apply as an international student if you are a US citizen: you have to put your citizenship(s) on your application (you do not have to put race / ethnicity)., and US Colleges will automatically put you in the domestic pile.
From another thread you have a relative who is Asian and is trying to figure out how to not face what you called the “Asian scourge” by claiming to be 6% Russian, on the presumption that a bit of “European” will make a difference in admissions. I think you are overweighting the importance of ethnicity in admissions: it is most likely to make a difference around the edges.
The “Asian scourge” meme overlooks a critical aspect of admissions: selective colleges are looking to build communities. One of the key elements that you hear over and over again here on CC is about standing out from the crowd- what distinguishes you as a potential member of the community. If there are 100 students who have ticked all the same boxes perfectly, but that is all they have done, adcomms will take some number of them- and then go pick other people. They don’t want 100 identikit students: the orchestra only needs so many violin players, and (aside from the famous tuba player example), they want people who bring a range of interests and abilities to the campus community. That principle applies whether the group is middle class white girls from the mid-Atlantic coast, Asians or anybody else.
I assume that your friend is American (otherwise he can’t be African American, right?). If his “ancestors” migrated and he was born and raised in Tanzania and then moved to America why is it unreasonable for him to put that he is A-A? This is part of why they have separated the ethnicity and race questions.
Finally, your swipe at somebody you call a friend - in essence you have accused him of cheating to get into a good school and accused Columbia of falling for his scam and taking him over other, more qualified, candidates- is unsavory and more likely than not wrong on the merits. You don’t know why your white friends did not get into comparable schools and you don’t know why your brown friend did. Go look at any of the results pages for hyper-selective colleges on CC and you will see plenty of high-stat applicants who were rejected- and plenty of (marginally) lower stat applicants who were accepted. Because at the super selectives it is never just about stats.
There is no check box on any application that says “Check here if you are international.” you fill in your citizenship information, and the college does the classification. But bottom line, a student with a US passport is not international.
On another note, I have moved this thread to the student cafe, where hypotheticals go to die, in order to free up the Hispanic students forum for real questions.
The “Asian scourge” meme really tugs at my heart, so many of my Asian friends swear by it; it is a given that highly selective colleges don’t want them and that it is because they are Asian. The irony is that the people who are most convinced of it are themselves attending (or, have attended) some of the most highly competitive colleges in the country.
I thought you were just accepted to law school. Is this a question for you or is it related to your thread about your nephew who was born in China but who’s part Russian?
I’d just make one change to “One of the key elements that you hear over and over again here on CC is about standing out from the crowd.” It’s really about standing out as a match. That’s what so many miss. Agree, there is no magic in simply noting Hispanic. And no one can say “weak ties” are sufficient. The whole app matters.
Yes, you need to be part of the culture. They aren’t looking for a check box, but the perspective you bring. I can’t imagine the chld of Japanese who just happen to be in Peru when he was born, move when he’s 1, has Hispanic identity. Nor did hs parents become ethnically Hispanic just because they lived in Peru. It gets more complicated.
^however there are a lot of Peruvians descended from the Japanese, from the late 19th/early 20th century, when Japan was very, very poor and Peru was attracting immigrants trying to better their life. There’s even a Peruvian form of sushi! So for a kid who’s been born in Peru from a Japanese Peruvian family who’s been in Peru for most of the 20th century, with that family fully integrated into Peruvian culture for generations and keeping a Japanese identity as well, that’d be very interesting for a college. Typically you have clues from where the parents graduated high school, for instance (you’re free not to indicate this on your application).
But a kid whose parents are Japanese from Japan or Japanese American, who happen to live in Peru when he’s born then return to the US and live as Japanese Americans, obviously it’s a totally different situation. That kid would be lying if they presented themselves as Hispanic and could thus be rescinded - all for very little since anyway it’d be unlikely to help (since kids have no control where they’ve been born, only control what they do with their circumstances.)
If that kid became an expert in Peruvian sushi and created a club about Peru, with actual actions taken and impact upon the community, it’d be WAY more important than being born in Peru or being Hispanic.
Yes. But OP skipped the details, including how long and how integrated they became,in Peru. It can be a great essay to show the interculturality, how it moved a kid forward, propelled him. But not just “I was born there” and if the family essentially functions as Americans or Japanese Americans, first and foremost.
On top of that, too many assume adcoms never doubt, based on the rest of the app.
The OP presented it as a hypothetical. Additionally, the OP is in college now so it’s moot for him. It’s really just a party game at this point. And personally, I just prefer a good game of beer pong.