My interest initially was in what's legally mandated. But it sounds like a legal free-for-all to me. Since there's no Native American (meaning US Native American) blood in either of us we would not have deal with proving anything. And since a child of ours would have a Hispanic last name "proving" Hispanic origin would never come up I'm sure. I would probably shy away from using the term Chicano/a since it has so many negative undertones and seems to imply a specific type of (dare I say it) very uneducated culture. Seems like if we have a kid it can pretty much check whichever boxes would be advantageous at the time. The kid will be white in many senses...but could check the Hispanic box if that's where the advantage is. Thanks for all the responses.
Hi, RG, it turns out quite a bit of info is available, online, regarding some of these issues. Here's one you could start with, the U.S. Dept of Education- http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/raceadmissionpse.html This type of information doesn't help you decide how to respond on an application, but it does let you know what the current state of the law is regarding univ admissions, and what universities are permitted to do, as understood by the U.S. Government. On the more personally important issue, as what to do on the application, I'm in basic agreement with what Coby, and the others said about it. Universities appear to be putting inquiries regarding race and ethnicity in an "optional, for statistical purposes, only", category, which I take to mean you need not complete this part of the application if, for any reason, you prefer not to. (This same categorization appears in voter registration applications, in which "race" is marked, "optional".) Inquiring about race/ethnicity in a job application in the U.S. is simply illegal.
