It happened again. I got invited to another event for “students of color.” I found myself with the opportunity, in this case, to attend the 6th Annual Professionals Mentoring Dinner, but doubting whether I should have been invited in the first place.
Perhaps what puts the most doubt into my head is that the University Multicultural Career Alliance sets up these events to target students who have generally been at a disadvantage in some way for being a minority or student of color. Have I been disadvantaged? I certainly don’t feel that way.
Then there’s the most obvious problem: my appearance. My skin is white. So how can I go to an event that is specifically for students of color when I so blatantly defy that definition? How would people react if I showed up to this event? Would they wonder “What is that white person doing here?”
I do look quite different on paper. My last name definitely doesn’t scream white. You pronounce the “j” with an “h” sound like one does when reading Spanish. This is because I am half-Puerto Rican. I also started checking the Hispanic box when asked for my race when I kept on repeatedly seeing a box labeled white (not of Hispanic origin). At least when I checked the Hispanic box I wasn’t lying. But when I receive an invitation like that, I don’t know whether I can own up to declaring myself to be Hispanic, not only because of my appearance, but because I am not entirely Hispanic.
It is true that at this University there are not very many students of color, and I would actually be helping out the University in becoming as diverse a place as it claims to be by considering myself a student of color. Maybe I should stop being white and choose to call myself a minority instead. After all, I am part of both worlds. Why shouldn’t I get a choice over what I want to consider myself?
This time I’ve decided neither to let my ambivalence over whether I deserve to be invited at all nor my white phenotype stop me from attending. I sent the Multicultural Career Alliance an R.S.V.P. I may not be what comes to mind when the phrase “student of color” is uttered, but I’m not exactly the typical white person. If the Multicultural Career Alliance is willing to consider me a student of color, I don’t see why I shouldn’t deny them my company, simply because I have a hard time defining myself.

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