Hoopla Musing

So ... there's a lot of hoopla (most lately in Roger Hernandez's latest column) about how to classify the races of students and how unfair and ineffective it all is ... and his beef is with the classification of Hispanics.

I can understand ... if you're Hispanic, you're not just Hispanic. If you're black, you're not necessarily a descendant of Africa. If you're Asian, you're likely pretty particular about what part of Asia your family comes from. And that's fine. Classify and sub-classify and sub-sub-classify all you want.

But how come, when it comes to being white, I'm just ... white (and not even a capital "white" at that)? Folks, I hate to rain on your ethnic box-checking parade, but an Irish white is not the same as a Scandinavian white. I'd like to be able to sub-classify myself. If I were able to do this, I would make sure that everyone knows I'm not a) Canadian, b) Scandinavian or c) Russian, regardless of the fair skin. The "white" is a culmination of fiery Irish, rebellious Scots, prim and proper English and tognue-twisting Welsh. There's a bit of snobby French, probably some stodgy German in there, too, and -- though my proud Southern ancestors would likely not admit it with pride -- there's the possibility of some Cherokee thrown in the mix. And I'm not just a white girl from Wyoming, either. My mother's from Texas; my father from Minnesota. They lived in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado before getting permanently stranded on the Wyoming High Plains. My ancestors have lived in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri and points in between (and that's just on one side of the family ...).

So stop giving me one box -- "white" -- to check off on all those forms. I'm white, but there are so many shades of white to this Southern Yankee.