Remember when we took those tests where we would have to bubble in what we were; White, Black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic/Latino, Pacific Islander, etc.? Well, not anymore.

Earlier this week I had to get fingerprinted for some community service that I was going to be doing. When they asked me to identify myself, I put Hispanic/Latino and White since I’m mixed. When I went to get the actual prints, the lady asked me to check if all of my information was correct in the system. I looked at the screen and noticed that she only selected White. I told her that I was mixed, and she said, “well, our system doesn’t really have that as an option. I had to select White otherwise you would be listed as unknown”. I asked her what she meant by that, and she said that the system only identified people as 4 things: White, Black, Asian, and unknown. At this point I was so confused. Was everything that I ever thought about myself a lie?

I went home and did some research, and it turns out that Hispanic/Latino is more of a culture than an actual race. Now, instead of having our own category, we are now going to be lumped into another – one that fits us the best by the color of our skin. After coming to understand that this is what it’s going to be like, I felt like I had lost my sense of identity; I never thought that a single phrase – “well, that would just make you unknown in the system” – could affect me so much. I never thought that my skin tone would feel like the only thing that defined me. I felt like I was an alien, and to be quite honest I was kind of offended by this, because I was taught all throughout all my years that Hispanic/Latino was a race; and now all of a sudden someone was going to strip me of everything that I ever thought and believed, and tell me that I am technically unknown in the system, and to make things easier she was just going to enter me as White. Although I am half White, I don’t like the fact that I feel like I am in a way “disowning” my dad’s side. I just wish that I could have been better educated in the past, that way I wouldn’t have to feel so confused as an adult.