There is nothing that bothers me more than a question without an answer. That is how I feel when filling out my race on college applications.

As a Hispanic student college applications put me in an awkward place.

Most applications will ask this: “Are you Hispanic? Yes or No?” To that question I select yes. Then, the next question that follows is, “What is the applicant’s race?” The choices are American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African-American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and White.

Well, I do not belong to any of the aforementioned groups. It is like taking a multiple choice math test and getting the answer 24 to then come to find out that 24 is not an option. So what to do?

This issue starts with the government.

“Unfortunately this is the way the federal government tells us we must ask the question,” University of Missouri representative Jawaan Pollard said.

The U.S. Census also asks the question of race in a similar manner.

As far as federal statistics are concerned, Hispanic origin and race are in no way related.

Census.gov states, “People who are Hispanic may be of any race.”

Maybe if a person is Black and Hispanic, but if a person is just Hispanic do they say “I am ‘any race’?” No. I did not wake up this morning and say “Today I am Asian.”

Interestingly enough there is a somewhat common thought that Hispanics are to identify as white on federal forms.

Puzzling, because the news never seems to say “Today a white male committed theft…” when a Hispanic is caught stealing.

I do not feel as if I am White so why  must I identify that way? According to a NPR code switch article by Gene Demby, Hispanics identified as White because they felt like there was nothing else left.     

Shockingly, or not so shockingly, when the Census bureau administered a different form given to a random select few including Hispanic along with White, Black, etc., Hispanics strayed from White and just put Hispanic.

This is all brought on by the somewhat common thought that Hispanic is not a race, but instead an ethnicity. There is much confusion surrounding the difference.

According to dictionary.com, race is defined as “a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.” Dictionary.com defines ethnicity as “an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.”

It may be more simple to classify Polish people as belonging to an ethnicity due to the culture and language. The same cannot be as easily said for Hispanics though. Is Cuban culture the same as Spanish culture? Probably not.

As for language, both speak Spanish but due to dialects it is not the exact same Spanish. Ethnicity is too specific to encompass all Hispanics. Race is more general and fits Hispanic better.

In addition to my frustration about how to answer this, I also question why this question even exist on college applications? Last I checked the year was 2015, not 1957. Schools do not care what race you are. Maybe the government wants their demographics, but why? What does it matter?

Part of the problem is that people are trying to define something that is up to interpretation.

“There are no biological “races” among humans.  The things that make us different colors and with different hair textures are less than 1 percent of what make us human,” Mary Pattillo, a Harold Washington professor of sociology, said. “So we are all of the human race with lots of differences that don’t allow us to draw real boundaries between biological groups.”

If only one of the options for race was “human”.

At the end of the day some questions do not have answers, or the answers may not be clear. I guess this question must be handled at the applicant’s discretion.

“Finally, Hispanic students should try to express who they think they are as clearly as possible, either by checking one or more of the boxes, or by writing in what they think they are,” Patillo said.