MARITZA MESTRE
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Monday, Oct. 13, 2008

WHO DECIDES WHAT race is or whether or not someone’s a minority?

Last week I attended a talk at the Asian American Cultural Center on campus for background information on this year’s subbie oral history project.

I was shocked to learn that the 4,500 Asian American students here on campus are not considered a minority at the University of Illinois and are turned away from services offered to other ethnicities that are considered minorities.

One student shared a story about how he came to the University as a freshman was turned away when he went to the student services office for minorities. He was told he was not a minority. According to the University, the percentage of Asian Americans at the U of I (11 percent) is greater than that in the state of Illinois (3.4 percent), and Asian Americans are therefore well represented.

Well, just because the percentage of Asian Americans at the University is greater than that in the state does not mean that percentage isn't small enough to be a minority.

An alumna talked about how she came from a heavily Asian American-populated city in California where most people she knew were just like her. Coming to the U of I was a big change for her: "When you go into the grocery store and you look around, the people you see don't look like you." It was a huge culture shock for her.

At the time when this alumna was at the University there was no Asian American studies program or center, and therefore no time or place where she could meet with people like herself.

According to the speaker, the adjustment of Asian American students to college life often receives little attention because they do well on testing and it doesn’t appear as though they’re having a hard time getting along on campus. But, when surveyed, most Asian American students report feeling isolated from the rest of their peers. The alumna noted how thankful she is that there were activists who pushed for more recognition of this problem.

Because of the efforts of these people, the University gave the students a center and more programs. The alumna was overjoyed that students today have a place to congregate and talk about what they're going through with others who are dealing with the same issues.

A former dean who attended the talk explained that the University only counts Asian Americans as minorities when it benefits the establishment, but not when it benefits the students themselves. Am I the only one who’s upset by this? That does not sound fair or consistent to me at all.

I’ve found that statistics and surveys are not keeping up with how society’s view of race has changed. People aren’t just one race anymore, and forcing them to identify as only one race isn’t reflecting upon them as a person. The information collected is inaccurate and continues to encourage false notions of what the demographics and populations actually are.

This is something I’ve had to deal with ever since I was old enough to take standardized tests. At the beginning of the test booklet there's always the section where the test makers try to figure out "what kind of student is taking the test" by asking about things like gender, age, and race.

When I was younger my teachers always encouraged me to fill in as many bubbles applied as I wanted in the race section, and the test never specified that we couldn't. Now when I take tests the directions always prohibit selecting more than one race.

When I first saw this I thought, "OK, I can deal with that." So I looked through the options and came to the "White" bubble. About to fill it in, I saw in parenthesis not Hispanic. A little thrown back I continued down the list of races and didn’t see anything that I would describe myself as. The best answer was "Hispanic." Not "Hispanic-American," just "Hispanic."

Technically that's what the test makers would classify me as. I'm the daughter of an immigrant, my dad having moved to the U.S. from Cuba when he was young. But my mom is what I would call "White" or "Caucasian," and if you were to look at me I bet you anything you would say I am too.

Who's to tell me which race I should identify with more? Why should the Hispanic part of my heritage trump the Caucasian part?

I should be able to decide which race I identify with on my own, and I really shouldn't even have to decide. I'm not one or the other, I'm both, so why should I ignore part of who I am and where I come from in order to subscribe to the labels of race everyone seems to be preoccupied with?

Then there's the issue of whether a particular race or ethnicity should be considered a minority if it reaches a certain percentage of the population, as happened with Asian Americans at the U of I.

Even if those percentages are met, it doesn’t mean the discrimination those races have faced just goes away. If someone thinks they are underrepresented, that's probably because they've noticed it enough for it to be an issue. How can you tell someone, "You’re not a minority"?

Ideally, society would learn to change the ideas of race so that we no longer have to have come up with a finite label. Everyone should be able to decide who they are on their own; they shouldn’t be told.