Blog: I’m Having a Race Crisis.

As y’all are aware of from Friday’s post, I have graduated high school, which means that it’s now imperative that I get a job. I have been searching for a job for three years but unfortunately was never able to find anyone wanting to hire me. I sent in my resume and applied to numerous places, and most of them never got back to me. Obviously, this isn’t ideal in any situation, but it especially wasn’t great since my choices were limited. I was too young to work in many places, including retail (I was turned down a cashier job at Home Depot because I wasn’t 18), and my various severe food allergies excluded me from working at many entry level jobs, such as fast food or grocery stores.

However, since I am now legally an adult, more job opportunities have become available and as I’ve been trying to find a job, I have become aware that my race is more complicated than I thought it was.

For those of you who don’t know, I am a melting pot of various ethnicities and races. Yes, quite a bit of my DNA is from Europe and it’s very apparent if you look at me, but I’m also Navajo, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Cherokee, Iroquois, and possibly some other stuff that I’m unaware of. And, no, with the exception of the Iroquois ancestry, this isn’t a super small part of my genetic makeup, either. We’re talking almost the entire maternal side of my family being a mix of Navajo, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, and some other things. The Cherokee blood came from my paternal great-grandmother.

Basically, I have a better claim to a job at some prestigious university based on my ancestry than Elizabeth Warren does.

That said, when filling out job applications, when they’re asking for my race or ethnicity, I typically laugh at it. However, when filling out my most recent application, when asked for my ethnicity, it asked if I was Hispanic/Latino or not.

Why there were only those two options available, I don’t know, but it gets worse.

When asked about my race, I had numerous options, including:

• Hispanic/Latino
• Caucasian (Not Hispanic/Latino)
• Black (Not Hispanic/Latino)
• Asian (Not Hispanic/Latino)
• Pacific Islander or Hawaiian Native (Not Hispanic/Latino)
• Native American or Alaskan Native (Not Hispanic/Latino)
• Mix of two or more races (Not Hispanic/Latino)

If you’re wondering why I have, in parenthesis, “Not Hispanic/Latino,” isn’t me trying to be super specific. This is how it was actually laid out on the application.

Now, this isn’t the first time I have seen this stupidity. The first time I saw it was on a government job application form when I was applying for a job as a toll booth attendant at a state park. I laughed at it, thought it was weird, but, what else can you expect from the government, especially in a blue state? But to see it on a job application for a private company? Why is this necessary? And why are Hispanics/Latinos excluded from every group except their own?

Seriously. For the groups that aren’t part of that category, I can understand it somewhat, though it should go without saying. But for people who are mixed race? I’m sorry, but are mestizos not a thing? Why are we excluding people who are part Hispanic/Latino, especially since White/Latino marriages are the most common interracial marriages in America? What’s going on here? And how are those of us who have one mixed race parent supposed to answer? Do we just go off of how we look or our actual ancestry?

Even worse were the definitions given to further specify who is actually part of a specific racial group. One example of this was their definition of who is White/Caucasian. According to the application, if you are from Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East, you count as white.

You read that correctly. If you’re from North Africa or the Middle East, you count as white. I wish I was kidding.

Another example of the application’s ridiculous definitions was what constitutes as Native American. Apparently, you can’t just be genetically Native American, from any number of tribes from North, Central, or South America. You have to still be affiliated with your tribe to count as Native American.

My Navajo great-grandmother would be offended.

Because of how these definitions work, I once again have to wonder where mestizos or those who have mestizo ancestry fit in. Do I go off of how I look when answering this, or do I go off my actual ancestry? How does that work if I’m related to Native Americans, but they don’t affiliate themselves with their tribe? None of this makes sense.

The simple solution to this problem is to stop asking people this question in the first place. Who cares about your race if you can do your job well? We shouldn’t have to feel pressure to answer this question lest we be discriminated against because we didn’t pick a race or we picked one that’s not desirable in today’s workplace DEI culture.

Until next time,

M.J.