The guys came home yesterday with the usual stack of papers that require a parents signature. I LOATHE this day every year. It's a bunch of pointless crap for the most part. I mean why in the hell do i have to sign a copy of the code of conduct, i'm not going to school there? As long as i'm familiar with what it says is that not good enough?? It's like when they took the sodas out of the school vending machines or cupcakes at in class parties cause they make kids fat. Are you kidding me?? I mean really we have to make sure johnny doesn't get fat from eating cupcakes at a class party, but they serve fried burritos covered in nacho cheez in the lunch room. I'd really love to meet the person that finds the fried burrito more healthy than a cupcake.
Something new for us this year, but probably not for the rest of the world cause our school district is five years or more behind any trend, was the racial/ethnicity updated survey. They have incorporated the one that was started under Reagan and passed by king george; hell it could have even have been Clinton. There are two parts that just annoy the hell out of me. First is the Hispanic/Latino or Not Hispanic/Latino question. That is the ethnicity portion. There are no other ethnic divisions worth noting, obviously or they would have been included. Well, for me this is a murky ass question. If you think of all the Ethnic markers for Hispanic/Latino, we certainly fall into that category. However, as it is defined by the OMB and the statisticians, most of the people i know would fall into this ethnic group. You know what, i don't have a problem with that. What i have a problem with is that it's either that or nothing else. The question is, is this really necessary??
The other weirdo part is under the race category. I absolutely abhor this one. Now before i get to it, i'll say that part of my ancestry is from Scotland and part is from the Creek and Cherokee that went to Spanish Florida and my wife is, for lack of splitting hairs here, Lebanese. This is where the Race section is just wacked. The White box is for anyone that is descendant of the peoples of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Let's see Scotland is Europe so White and Lebanon is North Africa, so White again. Does this make all Lebanese White?? What about those people from Egypt or Dubai, are they White also?? WEIRDNESS!!!!!
So, We are Hispanic/Latino and White. I hate being labeled. Would it not have made a hell of a lot more sense to just put a NATIVE TEXAN box?? Now that's a label i not only can live with i am proud of.
Oh and for those of you thinking, what about the Native American box?? Well you only get to claim that status if you have lineal documentation to one of the nations. Really and truly that is something that i should have as i am the family historian and have tons of information about those that came before me, but there was a census done after the Seminole war stopped, note not ended, it just stopped. In that census my ancestors were worried about reprisals or worse and adopted the names Johnson and Williamson from people they admired. That census was to get an accurate count on the peoples of what had been Spanish Florida and family history, customs and traditions, the very identity of some families were lost forever from something as simple as that census. What will the ramifications of the new one be on the American Ethnicity's in the decades ahead?? I'm sure i don't have the answer, but what really sucks is that i'm sure they don't either.
Do you remember the 'achievement tests' we used to take in elementary school? On those tests under the section titled 'race,' we had to self-indentify ourselves. If you were white, you were supposed to mark 'caucasian.' Well, I had never heard the term 'caucasian' before. It wasn't like my parents, or anyone else I knew, ever used this term. White, yes. Honkie, yes. Gringo, yes. Caucasian, no. Anyway - I guess I probably asked whoever was sitting next to me what I was supposed to mark for 'race.' Being that there was a 70% chance that the person sitting next to me was Hispanic, they said, "Hispanic." So I did. Every year until 8th grade. In 8th grade, they took 'Caucasian' off the list and replaced it with 'other.' Someone in class said, "What you do put if you're a white guy?" In fact - it very well could have been you asking the question..... Anyway, someone said to check 'other.' Then I said, "Well what is Hispanic?" Someone said, "Mexican." That's when I learned that I wasn't Hispanic.... So - I guess the Alpine ISD received a few more tax dollars every year since they had one extra Hispanic in school.
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