melting pot

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A Bowl of Salad with too Many Spices: Memories of a College Student

I remember when affirmative action and my own racial identity first became important issues in my life. No doubt, affirmative action and race became constant weights on my mind as soon as I began to sort through stacks of college applications as a new student. On every application, I was forced to swear allegiance to one, and only one, racial identity. I searched through the boxes, desperately hoping to find one that might best describe my race and, of course, give me an advantage in the admissions process.

The first category to eliminate was a toss up between white and Native American. I thought to myself, genetically, I am at least 50 percent white since my father is white, but typically I am 100 percent Asian. White was one category I could side with, but I knew being "white" wasn't going to score me any points on my college application. Besides, when I looked in the mirror, I did not see the stereotypical image of a "white" person looking back at me.

I decided I appeared more Native American than white with my long dark hair, dark skin and strong cheekbones. But as I was aware that admissions boards could care less what I actually looked like, and

But I knew in my heart that college admissions boards would not be pleased if I checked off Hispanic, when neither of my parents was of Latin American origin. I was left with the Asian or South Pacific options. Now it started to get really tricky. I had to obliterate from my memory anything I learned in my ninth-grade geography class about the seven continents. Even though I was born with a French nationality, I realized that checking off "white" could land me in a lot of trouble with the college admissions boards. I was not the "white" they were looking for.

I use my personal confusions over deciding which box to check off on my college applications to illustrate the incredible complexity involved in racial categorization. The sort of a historical and a geographical classifications used on applications further distort the racial realities behind the boxes by forcing applicants to choose only one category and by creating incentives to side with one racial group over another.

The losers of the affirmative action race game, besides those whom the policy was originally intended to benefit, are all of us. We have been duped into believing that a system that offers us fast-food multiracial diversity can be as satisfying as a multiracial country that has taken centuries and spices from around the world to prepare.

Affirmative action gives us one kind of lettuce, one type of tomato and a single variety of Onions. It is standardized, mass-produced, cost-efficient and

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Approximate Word count = 995
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People