“Your Parents Must Be So Proud”: What Are Your Thoughts On Affirmative Action?
26 March 2008, 11:15 AM. By Daniel Mauser
Carmen Juri, a Cuban-American writer, has a bone to pick with the whole concept of affirmative action and vents her frustrations through a review of Joey Gonzalez, Great American. The book, by Puerto Rican-American author Tony Robles, talks of the discrimination one young Latino boy feels he faces because of affirmative action:
According toTony Robles, a Puerto Rican who grew up in New York, affirmative action has hurt many black and Hispanic children, who learn early on that they will never get the credit they deserve for working hard and trying to succeed on their own, so why bother?
The author writes, “My mother didn’t tell me I was a minority and so a victim, a second-class citizen who needed to be treated differently from everyone else. She taught me that learning and diligence were the keys that would free me from poverty, but affirmative action policies have seduced an entire generation of black and Hispanic kids into believing that special preferences are a necessity and a birthright.”
I couldn’t agree more. How can a society justify government-sanctioned discrimination against qualified applicants because they don’t fit a racial or ethnic profile?
We’ve always been hesitant to embrace affirmative action, mostly because, like Juri and Robles, we never grew up being told we were a minority. In our community we were, in fact, part of the majority much like, we’re willing to wager, a Cuban in New Jersey or a Puerto Rican growing up in New York. Additionally, because our “Latinoness” was always a given where we grew up, we identified, when asked to do so by SAT exams and the like, as White. But, then again, we realize more and more than claiming whiteness is not something every minority can face and, when we moved away from home, we discovered that, while we always took our whiteness for granted as something inherent and, thus, not noteworthy, to our identiy, a lot of people were quick to disagree with us. “You’re Hispanic? But you don’t look it.”
Why mention all this? Because we recognize that how we look and how we grew up has colored the way we feel about affirmative action. Regardless of how we feel about it on an intellectual or political level (yeah, those two are utterly mutually exclusive), our gut reaction as a result of experience and upbringing translates into something like: “Man. This feels pretty wrong.”
We’re kind of curious to know how you all feel about it, though. What do you think: Is affirmative action a positive method of ensuring minorities make it into better schools and jobs, or is it a discriminatory practice that, ultimately, hurts more than it helps? And what role do you think your own experience as a minority, whether you’ve always identified as one or have the term projected onto you by others, might have to do with your opinion?
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Affirmative action is not THE answer, but it is a answer. (or at least a place to begin) We don’t want to displace qualifies white students/applicants anymore than we want to get a job/scholarship simply because we’re browner than others. Taking hand outs will keep us from taking control.
That being said, how much harder is it for you to go to a university or work in an industry where there are no brown faces. If college is “not the Hispanic thing to do” like I’ve been told, then what motivation remains when the application process gets tough or you have to scrimp and save your money. I am lucky/unlucky enough to have an adopted last name that confuses people just enough to give me a fair shake, but when you can work in a large organization and personally know all the Hispanics that work there, something may not be right. Unfair as it may be, government-sanctioned segregationist as it may be, if Affirmative Action gives us a head start to changing the color scheme of Universities and Work places then I’m on board. It’s not a permanent solution, that’s not what we need. Just give us a hand up and we’ll take care of the rest.
Please excuse the horrible typos above. That’s what happens when you type at rant pace.
@Daniel Kanigan, I agree with you too.
I had a friend who was very much for minority rights, but didn’t like affirmative action policies because college and the workplace aren’t the places to start trying to make people equal. That is true. But education is not changing. People are working on alternatives, but for now it’s difficult to get anyone to agree.
I agree with you in that Affirmative Action may not be a permanent answer, but it works for now. There is still so much discrimination, even some not all people are aware they have.
This is a quiz highlighted in the book “Blink” about latent racism. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1
Until education is mostly equal for all, and not worse depending on your social economic level, or race, I believe in affirmative action.
Oh, I remember when I moved to the US at age 12, my first day in school included reading a story about affirmative action and “busing”. I had no idea what that was at all, boy, was I in for a shock. After I graduated from college I definitely learned that things I always regarded as accomplishments, like doing very well in High School and being accepted at a prestigious University, were referred to as a liability by a lot of, yes, White American people I encountered. When they found out what school I had attended, a couple I had just met said “Oh, and you had a scholarship right? A really smart friend of mine attended [much less prestigious] University and has over $100,000 in student loans.” Because surely I was the reason why this man had to attend a not-so-good school and borrow every penny of his tuition and room and board costs.
I hate the whole “You’re Hispanic? But you don’t look it” question, which for me is always followed up by some clueless generalizing comments like “people from your country are usually XYZ,” as if this person’s obviously limited knowledge of my native country supersedes my own experience. Apparently for these people I am anomaly they have to analyze because I don’t fit a ridiculous idea of what a Latin woman is, an idea forged through stereotyped images of Latinos in the media.
The race discussion on Guanabee always gives me the willies. It’s always about who’s white, and who’s brown, and who’s black, and who’s “from the wrong side of the tracks,” all very divisive and destructive. I am extremely light skinned, but I would never feel comfortable saying that I am “White” because In the US I am not considered as part of the White race and I have enough chocolate skinned relatives to render that classification pretty laughable. My family is pretty mixed and I feel that by saying I am White I am alienating or denying my darker relatives. Plus, I am very aware of how as a very White-looking person I am regarded differently than my darker skinned counterparts. I usually just refer to myself by my (native) nationality, I am an American citizen and I have spent half of my life abroad and half of my life here in the US so I feel comfortable being one of those hyphenated Americans, although I see how this doesn’t apply to Hispanic people who were born and raised in the states. I’ve always had a problem with using the terms Hispanic and Latino to identify myself, although it doesn’t really take away from the closeness I feel with other people of Latin American descent. It just seems like a catch-all term that doesn’t really take into consideration the many differences and nuances among the many Latin American nationalities… Man, this post is getting way too long…
Affirmative action, may land you a job, or place in your favorite university, but to guide your career or keep a 2.0 average to stay in school takes much more. I do suppurt affirmative action, rich white males can go cry me river….or take a long walk down the trail of tears that themselves have created….
am I being to harsh….
Excellent post! On the one hand, affirmative action is problematic for a number of reasons. Mainly, there are Hispanics who consider themselves White (see http://www.babalublog.com/). However, for some people (from really disadvantaged backgrounds), it may be a much needed ticket to success (not the only ticket, of course). Honestly, I think affirmative action programs are causing more harm than good. But this is obviously a very complicated issue. Also, for the record, I check the Hispanic/Latino box on most applications and, as a result, I’ve been offered similar minority scholarships and fellowships, but I always refuse to accept any of them. I consider it unethical to accept affirmative action and/or special treatment for belonging to a specific ethnic group.
“but affirmative action policies have seduced an entire generation of black and Hispanic kids into believing that special preferences are a necessity and a birthright.”
Does this same sense of entitlement not apply to children of wealth? I work with people with VIP Father’s who have jobs they certainly are qualified…
A bachelors degree from a state school usually isn’t enough to get you into high finance…just sayin.
Meant:
I work with people with VIP Father’s who have jobs they certainly are NOT qualified…
affirmative action is just kind of a catch 22. you’re screwed with it and screwed without it. It’ll do right now because requires the workplace and colleges to have some diversity.. Also, I kind of think that without it my little sister, would not have gotten into harvard and princeton. why? because coming from a public school background, no hired SAT help, no money to start a foundation or intern with the prime minister of Dubai or donate a building in the families name to an ivy league, she could simply not fairly compete with the privelidged white kids she was up against. in fact, the fact that she was a valedictorian, volutneered her summers in the library, joined every club in school, and studied to get her pilots lisence at 16 was highlighted only because she was brown. And thank goodness for that. Had she been a white rich girl with these accomplishments, she would have been run of the mill. But because she was brown and because they needed to meet a quota, it impressed the schools because brownies have less of a chance to be as accomplished at that age in this country.
don’t think i made sense but yeah.
Umm.. Puerto Rican-American? What the fuck is up with that? FYI PuertoRicans are technically AMERICANS, as in US citizens. So what happens according to you if I lived in PR ntill 18 then moved for college to California and decide to stay there, and now 18 years have passed. How would you label me? Any person born to PR parents or grandparents and raised in the continental USA is American or if you need to be specific, LATIN or HISPANIC American. Jesus people enough with the made up shitty labels.
Perhaps if the upper echelon of colleges stopped using “legacy” as a criterion for admissions we would be able to think more critically about the just role of ethnicity as a counterweight to privilege. As it is, we are always on the defensive. The playing ground is not level nor are we all even playing the same game. People get ahead because of who they know, who their parents are, how they look. Life is not fair and It works both ways. Maybe life was supposed to be fair in grade school, but it certainly is not in the real world. “Fair play,” when invoked in the real world, is too often just a defense of some real or imagined privilege. Justice ,we hope, is nothing so petty as fairness. People have a duty as citizens to defend their interests but I would hardly elevate the preservation of privileges to the realm of duty. Your worst fears are true–somebody somewhere is getting away with something. It may be you.
and one more thing, i have NEVER EVER checked off “white” on any application or test. Why would I? I am “Latino/Hispanic”? I just do not get how some latinos/hispanic would check off white? unless you’re of mixed race then thats a different story.
@mare: Now it’s very misleading and, frankly, wrong to think that any “run of the mill rich white girl” applying for college has a pilot license, was valedictorian of her graduating class, joined every club in school, etc. Only one person can be valedictorian in any given class, and most teens do not fly planes. Although I think that you do have a point, I think you’re actually belittling your sister’s accomplishments in order to emphasize her brown-ness. She didn’t choose to be Hispanic or “brown” or whatever, but she did work to acheive all those things you mention. I don’t know, I think it sounds like sour grapes in your part, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.
And why was my rambling post so goddamn long? Damn.
@pocachica: yeah, funny how “legacies” and the over-priviledged children of weathy parents don’t seem to be attacked as much for their preferential treatment, huh…
and when i get asked “what are you?” i say, american of colombian descent. when they ask, where were you born? “New York but raised in California”.
OMG!!!!! “we were, in fact, part of the majority much like a Cuban in New Jersey or a Puerto Rican growing up in New York” Are you serious? Maybe I dont get the facetiousness of this comment, but being a ghetto NEWYORICAN doesnt mean you are the majority in a city poulated by millions of people. Dito the for Cubans. Maybe Miami, but Jersey? BTW I was born and raised in la isla, and as a light skinned (caucasian, Spanish, Criolla, white, whatever!!!) person I could give a shit about whether some loser sees me a white red yellow latino brow or any stupid label dujour. And if you need to know, Affirmative action helped some of my mostly wealthy and blonde haired blue ayed light skinned looks white but is quite not fellas. Most f these people “benefited” from their Fonalledas latin last names but its not clear how as they mostly had 4.0 average plus thehigest possible scores on their SATs and their families had enough moolah to pay for these Ivy league schools. In my case being the least applied I had to conform myself with a BFA from a small art school and 50,000 worth of student loan debt. No affirmative action whatsoever for this bitch.
ayed=eyed, whether=wether, brow=brown
i am absolutely NOT belittling her accomplishments. But statistically speaking the fact that she accomplished this AND is latina is quite impressive. Why? Because she’s gone far for the little resources she had compared to a rich white girl in lets say the Upper East Side. They have the money to hire private tutors, name a building at a school, yada yada yada.
@ boricua bitch: Pretty sure Puerto Rico, while a commonwealth of the U.S, is still a distinct and separate country. Preeeetty sure.
Union City and Elizabeth, NJ have large, homogenous pockets of Cuban immigrants. Same goes for sections of NY in terms of Puerto Ricans.
This reminds of what Chris Rock, when he mentioned that affirmatived action was alright to a point. He said if a white person did better then me on a test then by all means he deserves the job or entry into a school. But if we both got the same grade then I deserved it, the white man had a 500 year start. The white man will be alright. Which I have to say is pretty true.
White folk practice affirmative action all the time…it’s called a “legacy”…
it’s all fucked up either way.
@Gwenny: That type of thing isn’t reserved for “White folk.” Some Latinos are guilty of the same exact thing. It’s particulary prevalent in Latin America.
particularly*
@guana
but that legacy was achieved after centuries of oppressing people of color and besides, we’re talking about the US, who has its own distinct history and relations with minorities
@cookie: So you’re telling me that some affluent Hispanics in the United States don’t benefit from the legacy phenomenon? Hmm, maybe all the stereotypes are true. . . Hispanics in this country are all brown, disadvantaged, and incapable of achieving a level of success at the expense of others. NOT!!!! There are Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanics Americans, and other hyphenated Americans who, just like European Americans, were born privileged. And in some cases, they’re given opportunities that they don’t deserve. It’s part of almost every society. You even see it among people who belong to the same ethnic/racial group. So, it’s not just a race thing.
This issue of Affirmative Action is more complex than you all are making it out to be. Going along the lines of Barack’s speech last week, there are plenty of white people in the country who are lower class. Their lack of resources, too, makes them face a host of problems: weak schools and curricula, lack of extracurricular opportunity, not enough funds for SAT prep, etc.
On the other hand, I am a Latino from the upper middle class who has benefitted from the hard work that my father put forth to rise from stark poverty to become a professional. Since I have the opportunities that more wealth allows, I do not necessarily need the benefits of affirmative action. The poor white person, however, could
definitely benefit. In my post-graduate days, I have met many white people that are either in school or recently graduated and face tons of debt. They are lower to middle class but are very talented, intelligent, and driven people. This contrasts with my Latino friends from home whose parents are wealthy enough to send them through college with little to no debt. Once they have the degree, many doors open for them, and given where I live, ethnic discrimination would not be a problem for them to get a job. Latinos and blacks are not a monolith. Why, then, should affirmative action not be based on socio-economic criteria? Then people of all races who face obstacles to advancement would be given assistance. Isn’t that really what it’s designed for.
Are you expecting me to believe that affluent Latinos outnumber those who are not and even outnumber affluent whites? How many legacy Latinos are in Harvard? Please, it’s not even comparable.
Besides, I never said it was just a race issue. It has to do a lot with class, which in turn, was achieved through centuries of oppression via colonialism and imperialism. Whites have been offered better opportunities because they’ve been able to make the system, you know 3/5 of man, Mexicans are Indians, Jim Crow, I could go on, but to I’ll come to my point. You can’t even begin to compare Latino privilege in America with whites, they’ve had centuries of affirmative action, so now it’s time for everyone else.
Growing up Cuban in Miami in the ’70s and ’80s, no one sure as hell ever told me I was a minority…You know Cubans. Puffy and Proud. But, the world beyond has told me a few times…When I left Miami it was a shock to learn the world isn’t ruled by Cubans. LOL. And then there have been those moments that show you you’re really “not from around here” — the old lady who walked away from me when she found out I was Cuban, the guy who thought he should get easily into my pants because I am Latina, to the editor who told me I couldn’t be Latina because my name is not Spanish.
Have I benefited from Affirmative Action? Oh, Si. American newspapers (where I spent my career) make a point of rounding out their newsrooms (in theory anyway). Affirmative Action though didn’t cause the awards to be won or the deadline to be hit. That, I did — regardless of my name, the color of my skin, or who my Mami is.
I dealt with being a check mark on the HR Affirmative Action sheet because I know I brought something to my workplace no one else was bringing — a different background, a different voice. And, that’s a good thing, for the office and the reader/client/whomever you serve.
It’ll be interesting to see if my one-quarter Latina and three-quarters Everything Else daughter gets to be a check mark one day.
Affirmative action or not at the end its plain old survival of the fittest. That leaves some of us in a vantage position while the moronic ones, like Piruli, remain cleaning toilets and fantazising Puerto Rico is a “preeeeetty different” than USA.
Affirmative action isn’t just for minoritites, its for women, people with disabilites, people from rual areas, ect. So Carmen Juri needs to get her facts straight. In a perfect world it wouldnt exist, but lifes tough and too bad some white kids got a problem with it. But if they’re really smart, they wont let this financial deal ruin their lives. They’ll go to school, protest, and eliminate it, which they did last fall. I’m graduating college in May and going to law school spring ‘09. And had it not of been for affirmative action, i would have never gone to college. So Carmen needs to think and talk to latinos getting their education, instead of making them up.
Affirmative Action in this country was in place to prevent unfair and biased hiring practices against (minorities) and was a good thing. However, I have some concerns to the influx of Mexicans and illegal mexicans who appear to be replacing the American worker in entry level jobs throughout California and other states. Employer’s job postings are increasingly specific in their search for bilingual applicants therefore, excluding those of us who do not want to speak nor learn another language. When my daughter and two friends returned from employment interviews they were upset and frustrated with comments aimed at this employer whose office was filled with only Mexican staff. Now I am not a bigot nor am I a racially biased person however, I have to wonder if we now need a “different affirmative action hiring policy to assure that we Americans aren’t being unfairly excluded. from U.S. jobs? AFter all we were born here….