Alexis Topete

B3

Todos somos iguales. Translation: we are equal. Now maybe this is really rough Spanish
being only part Latina and living in a family full of English-speaking Polish people, I dont get
to speak it other than a week a year, when I go down to see my dads Spanish-speaking side of
the family. Yes, this white girl that you see speaking has an ancestry of immigrants from
Spanish speaking countries. But thats beside the point. We are all equal. Think about this
statement. In the United States, thats what were supposed to be at this point. Equal
opportunities, equal rights, equal stance in the community. But in all reality, equality as a whole
has not been reached. For my duration of speaking, Im going to need you to keep an open mind,
because the stance I am taking is a little less than the majority. When we check our races and
ethnicities off for admissions, standardized tests, employment, and so on and so forth, we have
automatically, despite Americas assertion that they offer equal opportunity, put ourselves in a
position where equality will be shifted.
In a perfect world, we wouldnt be judged based on our looks, race, sex, sexual
orientation, religion, ethnicities, and the list could just keep going. In a perfect world, we would
only be judged based on how hard we work, what we do for our community, and just the effort
we put in as a whole to our society. But, based on those little race and ethnicity bubbles to be
marked off, that perfect judgment is thrown out the door. Where the majority was favored in
the past, now the minority has some exceptions to live above the law and be favored over
qualification. And while its great that there is more encouragement for minorities and more
opportunity, we cant ignore the fact that sometimes, trying to make up for the United States
mistakes creates an unequal bias that deters away from hard work and integrity and instead to
background.
I want to tell a story that first brought this problem to my attention. My aunt and her
friend have both been involved in foster care due to their increased inability to become fertile
and have kids. My aunts friend had a Native American foster baby for more than a year, and
from the looks of it she was going to be adopting this baby. Why was the baby put in foster care,
you might ask? The father beat her. When the baby was put into foster care it had bruises all over
its body, ones that obviously werent from falling down stairs or running into a wall. So she was
taken away from her abuser, and the tribe didnt speak up about the baby being removed from the
tribe and put into foster care. When the time came that my aunts friend was finally able to
consider the baby for adoption, the tribe spoke up. But there was something different: in the time
that the baby was in foster care, the abusive father became the leader of his tribe. All he had to do
was say he wanted the baby back after that the baby once again was in his possession, and at
this point there isnt much that the government can do due to the Indian Child Welfare Act.

According to nicwa.org, the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, is quote a federal law
that seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian families The intent of
Congress under ICWA was to protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the
stability and security of Indian tribes and families. According to this quote, if you look at the
situation from my story, the Native American child going back to the abusive father was in the
babys best interest. This act makes the government so insistent on getting the baby back to the
tribe that the baby is now potentially back in the same situation that originally put it in foster
care. And it isnt like this is a rare occurrence Native American foster children have gone back
to the tribes many times when the foster parent has been able to consider adoption. While I agree
with the ICWA in terms of trying to keep the children with the tribe, I do not agree that the tribe
should just be allowed to take the child without any changes having been made, or the child
could very well be put back in the same abusive situation.
For my next point Im going to focus on all of us as a whole through the Equal
Opportunity Act. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (or EEOCs)
official website, job discrimination is prohibited and you cant stop being considered for
employment based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or veteran status. Its
great that we have this act if anyone feels they have been discriminated against by a company
based on any of the things I listed previously, they can take action for it and have a say because
we now live in a world where equality is supposed to be a key achievement. However, when we
turn away from the EEOC and to the Race Boxes we check off on forms, there could
potentially be a shift where the EEOC is not exactly considered.
When we check our races off for admissions, testing, etc., have you ever really thought of
why we have to do this? Colleges dont see our faces before admissions unless we have college
visits or submit pictures for some reason, so all they have to judge us are our test scores, GPAs,
school, a personal essay, and sometimes a recommendation from an academic counselor or
teacher. So why should it be such a big deal that they have to know our race? Yes, you can mark
off that you dont wish to disclose your race and it is not supposed to lower your chances of
being considered for a school or job. However, not very many people even wish to do this. In the
article Should You Check the Race Box? from January 29th of 2014, 324 applicants were
chosen to fill out a survey based on academic job forms. 272 applicants said they checked off
which races they were, which means that 52 did not. The 52 that didnt stated that they believed
race shouldnt matter if an institution was genuinely committed to inclusion. The other 272 felt
that if they did check off their races, they would have a leg up in the institution and if they didnt,
they feared the institution would not hire them.
Despite the United States being dedicated to equality, people are still using the race boxes
to have a better shot at landing a job or even to get into a preferred college. In 2011, the New
York Times interviewed an African-American Asian, Natasha Scott, who had moral issues on
whether or not she should check both being African American and Asian. She admitted that she
only wanted to check African-American because she knew that just marking African-American
could potentially help her get into colleges, while marking down Asian could potentially hurt her
chances. Colleges are supposed to guarantee no biases on races and ethnicities but students are

aware of the potential impact that marking a certain race could give. Even as a personal
experience, I am aware that the higher tier schools I have been receiving emails from could have
potentially been from the box labeled Hispanic/Latino that I can mark down. As much as I
want to go to these higher tier colleges, I dont want to be preferred because I can mark down a
certain ethnicity or race. If the United States really followed the vision for equality, these boxes
wouldnt even exist until after the admissions process was done, or after a person got hired.
Another flaw about the EEOC that we have to consider is the point that gender equality
was never actually ratified in the Constitution. As much as we try to promote equal pay for all
genders, it was never actually given the support to become a constitutional thing. Although the
point is made that we should all support equal pay, according to nationalpartnership.org, just in
September of 2014 the point was made from statistics in the Census Bureau that women are only
paid 78% of what men are paid on average. The Paycheck Fairness Act wasnt even advanced
recently that would guarantee same pay despite the lack of ratification. So, other than the race
boxes that can potentially shift our consideration, another problem with the EEOC is that not all
of it even has to be followed because it wouldnt even technically be declared unconstitutional in
a court case.
We also have to consider that it is possible to be a minority and still reap the stereotypical
white person benefits, and Im going to share an example. Hector lived in Mexico until he was
8 years old. He had no electricity, no running water, and one of his favorite pastimes were
playing in the river building clay figures from the mud by it. He immigrated to Weed, California
after his father was able to obtain a permit to permanently leave the country. He had a lot to face
he now had to figure out how electricity and running water worked, and also had to somehow
learn English to go through school without a translator and still pass. He hated the feeling of
being different so much that by the time he was a year older, he knew English fluently. By the
time he graduated high school, he became the valedictorian for his graduating class, and was
accepted into West Point. According to csus.edu, he is a commercial pilot, flight instructor, a
qualified military paratrooper, and Army Ranger. He is also now a holder of a doctorates degree,
is the founder of Role Models America, and is also the co-founder of the Dr. Hector E. Topete
Scholarship.
But why am I sharing this random example? Well, Hector is my grandfather. Having gone
from an immigrant who knew nothing about English or even modern technology to getting his
doctorates degree and helping out academically achieving high school students, Hector Edward
Topete Sr. is the reason for my motivation for college and doing the best I can possibly achieve.
He is an example of a minority that did extremely well because of hard work, even when the
United States was still more desirable of whites. It is indeed possible to do extremely well
without having as much bias of being a certain race, and working hard will get you places that
marking off a certain box shouldnt have to determine.
In conclusion, Im going to stress this saying: todos somos iguales. We are all equal.
While we still live in a less than perfect world, we have reached a point where everyone needs to
be equal in consideration. Not just minorities, but whites as well. The race boxes should not be
needed to guarantee a spot at a college, just as well as certain groups should not be able to live

above laws for the sole reason that they are a certain group. I encourage you to speak out with
me for actual equality, where judgment is based on hard work and not racial separation. Then,
and only then, can equality be achieved in the United States. Todos somos iguales.

Sources:
Indian Child Welfare Act, Native American Foster Care
http://www.nicwa.org/indian_child_welfare_act/
http://www.narf.org/icwa/faq/foster.htm
http://www.nrc4tribes.org/Tribal-Foster-Care-and-Adoption-Findings.cfm

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

http://www1.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/eeoc_self_print_poster.pdf
http://www.eeoc.gov/
http://www.workplacefairness.org/agencies_UT

Checking off Races in forms

https://chroniclevitae.com/news/302-should-you-check-the-race-box
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/us/14admissions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Hector Edward Topete Sr.

http://csus-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.9/981/Dissertation,%20Full.pdf?
sequence=1
(above link is his Doctorates paper for West Pointe, more for proof that no, this is not made-up
achievement)
http://www.csus.edu/coe/academics/doctorate/current-students/cohort/cohort-1/topetehector.html
http://www.csus.edu/coe/academics/doctorate/about/newsletter/assets/newsletter-summer2012.pdf

Paycheck Fairness Act

http://nationalpartnership.org/