I always hated filling out those profile sheets that would ask me what ethnicity I was. Black or White was always my options… but it always seemed like I was forced to pick one or the other.
Of course when I was younger, I always filled out white… but then when I got older and started to fill out college applications and apply for loans, I was told to put in black because it would give me “Minority” preference on things.
Finally, the No Child Left Behind act is getting something right and finally allowing kids of mixed ethnicity to be more precise about what race they are when they check off those “race” boxes. Now kids and their parents will be able to mark more then just one choice on their “Race” and the Native Hawaiian category has been put in Federally.
From Today’s Washington Post:
…Racial and ethnic information, collected when children register for school, can inform school board decisions on reading programs, discipline procedures or admissions policies for gifted classes. The government looks at test scores of minority groups to help determine whether schools make the grade under the No Child Left Behind law. In an increasingly data-driven culture, educators also scrutinize such test scores and enrollment figures to pick programs meant to narrow achievement gaps and equalize academic opportunity…
…Starting in 2010, under Education Department rules approved two years ago to comply with a government-wide policy shift, parents will be able to check all boxes that apply in a two-step questionnaire with reshaped categories. First, they will indicate whether a student is of Hispanic or Latino origin, or not. (The two terms will encompass one group.) Then they will identify a student as one or more of the following: American Indian or Alaska native; Asian; black or African American; native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; or white…
More Here
I was thinking about this… and I thought I had it bad choosing between just Black and White.
My son has more then 5 Races that he can trace his blood line to.
Black, White, Japanese, Hawaiian, Filipino… I’d have to ask the wife what the other parts are…
Can you believe that… race means so little to me now… That I don’t even know the full race of my own child?
Filed under: Education, Hawaiian, Kids, Something New? | Tagged: Hawaiian, No Child Left Behind |
Hawaii News and Island Information 
Some seem to be implementing this sooner – just filled out an app for my homeschooled son to take a community college course and the “choose race” section was extensive and included Hawaiian, Filipino, Pacific Islander, and more.
Yeah, no kidding.
As a kid, I used to be so aggravated by those “optional” racial surveys on school forms. They always said “Mark One Only.” Didn’t work for me, either.
And…what in the world were they doing with that info?
Finally, a small victory for the hapas and poi dogs in this world.