But because my father was a doctor, I had a fairly privileged upbringing. I'm a generation removed, but growing up in California always had to indicate my background on standardized tests and always checked "White" for race and then "Hispanic" for ethnicity (which is how all the tests asked it in those days, not sure if it's still the case), without thinking much about it.
I went to MIT, and to this day I wonder how much checking "Hispanic" helped me there and if I "deserved" to go. I was valedictorian and had a perfect score on the SATs and I feel like I was a strong candidate, but then everyone who gets into MIT is strong. And since I did successfully graduate then I guess it was fine that I was accepted, but I was constantly blown away and overwhelmed by the accomplishments of my peers there, and always wondered a bit if I belonged.
I've always had an identity crisis about what I am. I know in the current zeitgeist there's a big push for racial justice, of which being Hispanic and "brown" is a part. But it also feels totally irrelevant to me, personally, because of my upper class upbringing and elite education, and I feel like I've never really been discriminated against. Though I possibly have been discriminated "for", and benefited tremendously from it.
So I don't know how I feel about this change. It's certainly a big one, but in the long run, maybe it's good? I know I've always wondered if being Hispanic helped me get into college or into jobs, but the flip side is that other people must wonder the same...