Benefiting from White Privilege and Affirmative Action

During my senior year of high school I started working on my college applications.  My mom's friend's daughter, Chelsea, was helping me with my UC applications since she had recently graduated from UCLA.  She had been helping me work on my personal essay and she was talking to my mom about how I could improve my essay.  The next day when I went to her house to work on my essay she suddenly said out loud, "I was talking to your mom on the phone yesterday.  I never knew you were an orphan from Colombia! That's something you can write about in your essay".  I was pretty taken aback by her statement because I had never seen myself as an "orphan".  I always knew that I was adopted as a baby from a young age and it never really bothered me.  Race was never something that defined me or something that I had thought about.  My parents never brought it up either.  Looking back I realize that they may not have wanted me to feel like I was different from them.  When people meet me they often ask me what my race or ethnicity is because to many people I do not fit certain stereotypes of what a white person or Hispanic or Latina person might look like.  This is always a hard question to answer because the truth is I don't know the answer as I have never met my birth parents or family.  Colombia is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse countries in Latin America.  From learning about the way Colombians classify race I have learned that race and ethnicity are subjective and change depending on where you are in the world.  For instance, my adopted mom is also from Colombia and she identifies as white or Caucasian.  Many people are surprised to find out that she is Hispanic because of how light her skin is and how good her English is.  So when Chelsea reacted surprised about my background I caught me off guard.  I never realized that I may be considered Hispanic or Latina. 

I grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, which is a coastal city located in LA county.  Manhattan Beach is very affluent town.  According to statistics from the US Census website, the median household income in Manhattan Beach between 2008 and 2012 was $134,445 whereas the average in California was $61,400. In terms of the racial makeup of Manhattan Beach around 84.5% of people are white alone, 0.8% are black or African American, 0.2% are Native American, 8.6% are Native American or Alaskan Indian alone, 8.6% are Asian alone, 6.9% are Hispanic or Latino alone and 4.6% are two or more races.  According to Los Angeles Times California Schools Guide, Mira Costa High School, the high school I went to, is 59% white, 10% Asian, 15% Latino, 5% Black and 11% other.  Basically Manhattan Beach consists of mostly middle to upper middle class and even wealthy people who are mainly white.  Before I came to UC Merced I lived in an environment that was made up affluent white people.  Until now I never realized how white privilege affects me even though I do not identify as white myself.  My parents are white and were able to afford to live in Manhattan Beach.  The primary reason that we stayed in Manhattan Beach even when it became harder to afford to live here is because the public schools are well funded and supported by the community.  I have lived in three different houses in Manhattan Beach and all of them are in safe neighborhoods.  Despite financial struggles, my parents have been able to support me and send me to college.  Even though I may not truly know what my race or ethnicity I benefit from white privilege that my parents have received living in America.  

While I was filling out my college applications with Chelsea I started to learn more about how I could benefit from affirmative action policies.  Through the application process I became all these different things that I had never identified with before.  First I was Hispanic or a Latina because I was born in Colombia.  Then I was an orphan because I was adopted as a baby.  Finally, I was Jewish because my adopted dad is Jewish.  All these identities did not seem to resonate with me and I felt as though I was filling out an application for someone else.  I have now come to realize that one reason I felt this way is because I benefited from white privilege and was able to pass as white for the most part.  If I was more Hispanic looking I may have been considered to be different since I grew up in a mostly white environment.  In the end I do think I have benefited from affirmative action policies even though at the same time I have benefited from white privilege.  Although this seems paradoxical there is no clear way for me to explain my racial identity without explaining my life experiences and influences.  

Chapter 8 of Race & Racisms provides evidence of educational disparities experiences by racial minorities.  According to figure 8-2, 29.3% of white people have a bachelor's degree or higher, which is around 3% higher than the total population in the United States (Golash-Boza 217).  Since I do not have a strong racial identity it is hard to relate to these statistics.  However, since I do benefit from white privilege, this relates to how white people are more likely to graduate from college since cumulatively they have less disadvantages than people of color.  Without affirmative action policies, racial minorities will continue to be inhibited by structural and institutional racism in the education system.  

In terms of the Latino experience in the US,  the term Latino or Hispanic describes a very large group of people with many differences.  Within many Latin American countries like Colombia there are people of African descent, people with indigenous roots, people of mixed ethnicity and also immigrants from around the world.  If someone from Colombia like my mom or myself moves to the US the Latino experience means something different to us than to other Latinos from different countries.  Usually researchers group Latinos into one category when describing certain life outcomes and experiences such as average gpa or highest level of education.  However, these statistics gloss over the variety experiences of Latinos.  It would be interesting to find out how having lighter skin or a diverse ethnic background affects class status and educational attainment.  From my experience I do feel that I have certain privileges that other Hispanic and Latino people do not have.  If we were able to account for these differences it might be easier to address the issues faced by certain groups of Latinos in the US.
The idea of racism still persists even though many laws  no longer permit racism because racial ideologies have only changed to be more covertly racist.  For instance, affirmative action policies sometimes appear to be vague or do not exist at all because racism is institutionalized.  While I was able to use my diverse ethnic background to my benefit when applying to college as well as the many privileges I received growing up in a white community, without affirmative action policies many racial and ethnic minorities would find it more difficult to be accepted into college.  By identifying how laws and policies may be influenced by structural racism, people might be more informed on how racism still persists in the US today.