Bizarre Request

[Rolos]

Hi guys, I need some help with something very stupid.
You see, I was filling some paperwork, since next year I'll be living in the US, and I found a question I simply could not answer, not because I didn't want to, but because I simply have no idea what to answer. They are asking for my race.
I have no idea what I am in terms of race, and I don't wanna screw up the questionnaire. As far as I know, if I get it wrong and they say "You are not X like the paperwork says"" I'm gonna have to stay here for a whole year, and that's really not an option.
In Chile the whole race thing has never being an issue, since it's a very homogeneous country. I would normally just say "Dunno, white?", but apparently it's more complicated than that.

http://www.evil-genius.us/forums/viewto ... start=1650

Help!

[Starnum]

I have no idea. You look white to me. What do you know about your lineage? Maybe ask your parents. Chile is a Spanish speaking country. For that reason I would guess that you might be Hispanic, but I'm not entirely sure. Without knowing more about your descent, it's hard to say. Don't wanna get you in trouble, so I'd seek out some other opinions first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic

Then again, White might be the best answer, because according to what that says, the majority of people in Chile are either White or White-Amerindian.

[War Machine]

I'm Hispanic with white skin. That's how I answer those anyway. Don't answer White though, unless they're asking for skin color only.

There's basically 3 wrong questions they can ask, and usually they ask all three because they're stupid: Nationality, race and ethnicity. Caucasian means you have White skin and are from Europe, US or Canada; Hispanic (sometimes they put Latino, or even worse, Chicano) means that you're from a country that used to be a Spanish colony from the American continent, Latino includes all the other countries from America; Black means dark skin, it doesn't really matter if you're from Australia or any other place; Asian means you're from an Eastern country and have slant eyes, Middle Eastern means you're from there; and Native American means you're from one of the cultures that used to live in the US before it was colonized. They expect you to answer where you come from or what you're skin color is or what your heritage is in the same question. It doesn't make any sense, I know...

Don't sweat it too much though, they only use that information for statistical purposes, not to screw people up, so you'll be fine no matter what you put in there. Often times you can opt out of answering those.

[dialdfordesi]

What are the choices? I would put Hispanic since you are Chilean. Latino only applies to central america really. If all else fails, you can try to contact USCIS.

[Rolos]

So it's not really that important?
Man, that's such a relief...I was sweating blood over here.
Mmmm...my last names are "Saavedra" and "Walker", so I guess I'm gonna go with white-amerindian.

PS: I may be wrong here....but aren't ethnicity and race completely different things? Your race is something purely genetic, while your ethnicity includes genetics, culture, geographical location, etc...

[Femto]

Hispanic is the correct answer.

[Starnum]

Hispanic is the correct answer.

Yeah, that's what I would think. Probably not a big deal though, that's what I'd go with. *shrugs*

[The Herald]

You're Hispanic. If they give you shit just say that you thought you were Hispanic. It's not like it has anything to do with legality, like you saying you're from Argentina or something like that. And honestly people's skin colors can change. This is an example of not sweating the small stuff.

[War Machine]

I was aplying for a university and this is one of the questions I got right at then end:



Sometimes they separate Hispanic and Latino like that, that's where I answer Yes to the first question and White for the second one.

I wouldn't say it's completely wrong to ask such questions, but it's this preoccupation with race in the US that keeps the discrimination prevalent in this society.