Alexis Topete

B3
We Are All Equal
Todos somos iguales. Translation: we are all equal. Now, maybe this is really rough
Spanish. Being only part Latina and living in a family full of English-speaking Polish people, I
only get to speak it one week a year, when I go down to see my dads Spanish-speaking side of
the family. We are all equal. At least were all supposed to be equal: with equal opportunities,
equal rights, and equal standing in the community. But in reality, that is not the way our country
works. When we check our races, genders and ethnicities off for college admissions and
standardized tests, we have automatically put ourselves in a position where equality will not be a
given.
In a perfect world, we wouldnt be judged based on our looks, race, sex, sexual
orientation, religion, or ethnicities. In a perfect world, we would only be judged based on the
value that we bring to our community, our society and our world. But, with those little race and
ethnicity boxes to be marked off, that perfect judgment is thrown out the door. Where the
white male majority was favored in the past, now the minority has gained preferential status, and
that status is often more important than test scores, grades, or other achievement-based measures
in determining who will be admitted to a school. And while its great that there is more
encouragement for minorities and more opportunity, we cant ignore the fact that sometimes,
trying so hard not to be prejudiced has led to a bias against people who are NOT minorities.
This issue of race or ethnicity being the sole basis of a legal decision recently came to my
attention when I watched a person that I know become involved as a foster parent. My aunts
friend was asked to care for a Native American foster baby for more than a year, and the courts
had finally indicated that she could adopt the baby. The foster mother had taken the baby to her
heart from the moment she was brought to her home, after the babys Indian father had viciously
beat this poor tiny child. When the baby was first brought there, she had extensive bruises all
over her body, ones that obviously werent from falling down stairs or running into a wall. So she
was taken away from her abusive father, and the tribe didnt speak up at all about the baby being
removed from the tribe and put into foster care. When the time came that the foster mother could
apply to adopt the sweet baby girl that she had grown to love so much, the tribe finally spoke up,
demanding that the child be returned to her rightful father. Because now there was something
different: in the time that the baby was in foster care, the abusive father had become the leader of
his tribe. Under the law outlined in the Indian Child Welfare Act, all he had to do was say he
wanted the baby back and the baby was once again put under his care.
According to nicwa.org, the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, is 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. Accordingly, sending the Native American
child back to the extremely abusive father was considered to be in the babys best interest

---even though she was returning to the same unsafe home shed been rescued from a year
earlier.
Its that kind of biased decision-making based on granting greater rights to a member of
an ethnic group, a race, or a gender that is having such devastating effects on our country. Yes,
there were terrible injustices perpetrated on the Indian Tribes in this country, as well as on other
ethnic minorities. But making laws that put any ethnic group, any race, or any gender above the
common sense of the law is just the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction and not
the most effective way to render a decision.
Obviously, our lawmakers are trying to correct injustice with the full might of the law.
For example, lets start with 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 our right. However,
when we turn away from the EEOC guidelines and focus on the Race Boxes or gender boxes
for that matter, sometimes the EEOC isnt necessarily considered.
A common misconception, that I have found many people to share, is that the existence
of the EEOC means that equal rights are the constitutional law of our land. The problem with this
is that the EEOC is a commission, not a constitutional amendment. When the Equal Rights
Amendment, or ERA, was passed by the United States Senate, on March 22, 1972, it stated that:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of sex.
However, in order for the E.R.A. to become a constitutional amendment, of the states
had to vote yes to ratify it as an amendment within 7 years. They failed to do so. Although most
people seem to agree intellectually that everyone should receive equal pay and equal treatment
under the law, regardless of gender or race, we didnt even vote that way. According to
nationalpartnership.org, in September of 2014, an examination of the most recent Census Bureau
statistics showed that, on average, women are only paid 78% of what men are paid for the same
jobs. The recent Paycheck Fairness Act was proposed to help rectify that problem, but, like the
Equal Rights Amendment decades earlier, it also was NOT passed into law. So okay, we are not
GUARANTEED fairness.
For instance, when we check our races off for college admissions, and testing, 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 on,
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 New York Times 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 claiming a focus on equality, people are still using the race
boxes to have a better shot at landing a job or getting into a preferred college. In 2011, the New
York Times interviewed an African-American Asian, Natasha Scott, who had moral issues with
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. 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 its vision for equality, these boxes wouldnt even exist until after the college admissions
process was done, or after a person got hired for a job.
We have to remember that its possible to be a minority and still reap the
stereotypical white male 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
was playing in the river building clay figures from the mud. 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
figuring out how electricity and running water worked, and how to 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. He became
a commercial pilot, flight instructor, a qualified military paratrooper, and Army Ranger. He has a
doctorates degree, is the founder of Role Models America, and is the co-founder of the Dr.
Hector E. Topete Scholarship.
I havent yet told you the biggest reason behind this story: Hector is my grandfather, and
his life has been a lesson to me and all who know him, that the important factors in success are
hard work, perseverance, and not letting anyone tell you that you cannot accomplish your goals. I
dont want to get into a school because I can check off a box that judges me by my race. I intend
to get in like Hector did- because my work legitimately earned me an honest spot at a top notch
university. So yes, this may mean I dont get into a school because Im not valedictorian, big
whoop - at least I can be proud of the fact that I actually earned the admission to whatever school
takes me. I want to be admitted as a student, not as a Latina. I want to, and encourage you, to
want to be like Hector and work for your admission not be born with it. Because lets face it,
no one wants to be more qualified for a school, when in the end you may be rejected because
they need their diversity quota and you dont quite fit what they needed in this years

competitive application pool. Wouldnt you believe thats what my amazingly talented friend
was told in her rejection letter to her one of her top schools? It hits hard, and it needs to end.
In conclusion, Id like to repeat: todos somos iguales. We are all equal. We have reached
a point where everyone needs to be equal in consideration. Not just minorities, but whites as
well. If we truly are equal, lets compete for a spot in a college based on our merits alone. Lets
compete for a place in the work force based on our abilities to perform the job. And most of all,
lets compete for a place in society based on who we are under the skin, and stop this focus on
racial identity as the only important factor. I encourage you to speak out with me for genuine
equality, where success is determined by hard work and skill. Then, and only then, can United
States citizens truly say, We are all equal. Todos somos iguales.

Lexie Topete Oratory 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, 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/