Why is "Hispanic/Latino" separated from other ethnicities on university applications?

This is not a rhetorical question, just really curious why there would be two separate questions regarding ethnicity on all University Applications I’ve seen recently. The questions are in this order:

1. Are you of Hispanic or Latino origin?

2. What is your ethnicity?
-white
-black
-asian
..etc

I’m curious whether this is advantageous or disadvantageous toward Hispanics/Latinos. It just struck me as incredibly un-American.

I can’t speak for every country, but here in the U.S. people care way too much about race/ethnicity. Some universities like to say how diverse they are and show the statistics. Also there is that whole equal opportunity education thing so that may be part of it. I don’t know if it would be advantageous or not.

1. No I am not.

2. I am of mixed race/ethnicities.

5 Comments

FlameCasterJuly 31st, 2010 at 4:39 am

I can’t speak for every country, but here in the U.S. people care way too much about race/ethnicity. Some universities like to say how diverse they are and show the statistics. Also there is that whole equal opportunity education thing so that may be part of it. I don’t know if it would be advantageous or not.

1. No I am not.

2. I am of mixed race/ethnicities.
References :

~*T!NK*~July 31st, 2010 at 5:26 am

idk but it’s annoying as hell. they want to force us to choose another identity even though they know most of us consider ourselves "hispanic/latino" and nothing else. that IS our identity, for most of us anyway. light skinned mexicans tend to get pissed off if you call them "white."
References :
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Chamoru.BoyJuly 31st, 2010 at 6:14 am

They need to know which ones to reject first.
References :

Chris LerudeJuly 31st, 2010 at 6:53 am

They want to collect race statistics which in the end will pin us against each other. I hate them for just merely asking my ethnicity. IT’S NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.
References :
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LexDiamondzJuly 31st, 2010 at 7:19 am

Because Hispanic/Latino isn’t a race, it’s an ethnicity.

I laugh at Hispanic Americans who get so infuriated when they hear it’s not a race…go back home, nobody in Latin America uses the term Hispanic, and we rarely call ourselves Latino either. Nobody has any problems calling themselves White, Black or Mixed Race in Latin America, so I can’t understand why we all have problems with it here.

I’m Latino, and I’m Black.
References :

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