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Gerardo Ayala

Professor Medina

English 1A

3 November 2022

No Such Thing as Meritocracy

Meritocracy is the belief that hard work and merits alone allow a person to become

successful and reach the goals they desire. However, I have witnessed firsthand a person who

achieved high merits – especially academically – yet was not afforded the luxury that is higher

education because of her social status. My cousin achieved great academic feats and was top of

her class, yet because she came from a lower class and thus a lower financial state, she could not

attend university. The lack of financial aid she received and the excessive price of attending

university is how those like Rodriguez would define “meritocracy”: as a means of deterring

people from the true nature of society – one that involves gatekeepers segregating racial and

social classes to only benefit the white upper-class leaving the rest to struggle in vain. In

Crucet’s memoir, My Time Among the Whites, the true nature of her struggles in college and

accomplishment of buying an apartment are, according to Rodriguez’s lens of meritocracy,

exposures of how classist and racist gatekeepers segregate social and racial classes to benefit

solely the white and elite.

As a first-generation student, Crucet experienced Cornell’s gatekeeping when they

withheld information about what to pack and information about the orientation process, leaving

her and her family to struggle while those whose parents had already experienced college were

already aware of what was to come. Crucet and her family “couldn’t find the answer in any of

the paperwork the college had sent” and “didn’t know that families were supposed to leave
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campus almost immediately,” leaving them to use “all their vacation time from work [they] had

been saving for months to…go through what [they] thought of as [their] orientation” (Crucet 3-

4). Using Rodriguez’s lens of meritocracy that gatekeepers segregate people based on class and

race, Cornell “assumed that all families just inherently knew how to jump through these hoops.

That assumption cuts opportunities out of the equation” (Rodriguez 75) and left the Crucet

family to spend what little money they had for no reason, essentially wasting what could have

been used to help the family financially. To clarify, Cornell acted not out of meritocracy, but

instead out of the role of a gatekeeper to benefit only those of upper class (those whose parents

were college graduates) and hinder those of lower class (those whose parents were not college

graduates). Cornell “inherently” “assumed” that Crucet’s family knew how to “jump through

these hoops” associated with college even though Crucet is a first-generation student with no

prior knowledge of how college works.

Even within the already established gatekeeper, Cornell, the professors acted as another

layer of gatekeeping for Crucet with their conscious word choice for exam material, leaving

those like Crucet to panic and feel defeated while the elite carried on carefree. To Crucet, the

“language felt…foreign…and in tears told [her mom] that [she] had to come home, that [she'd]

made a terrible mistake” and “knew from [her] mother’s total silence that...she’d never before

heard these words: [Crucet’s] first insight into how access to certain vocabularies was a kind of

privilege” (Crucet 15-16). Rodriguez furthers this insight by bringing to light “socioeconomic

upbringing [giving white-upper class students] access to knowledge [she] could never dream of

and [she] could never even pretend to know” (Rodriguez 79), segregating the classroom by

social class. Such segregation allows the institution – especially the professor – to weed out the

lower class from his classroom and make them feel helpless and “in tears,” leading to them
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eventually quitting or failing the class because they do not have the “privilege” of coming from a

socioeconomic background that set them up for success in these environments.

Focusing more closely on the financial differences between Crucet and her classmates,

the monetary differences also bring in social class hierarchies and how those who were higher on

the social ladder were more successful. Most of Crucet’s peers “were from affluent families -

even now [she has] to stop [herself] from saying [she] had no business being there, but that’s

how it felt for [her], most of the time there” (Crucet 168). Rodriguez would view this as how

“class creates a value system: [one’s] net worth becomes [their] actual worth as a person. And it

should be noted that Black and Brown people are disproportionately part of the working-poor

class bracket. So with that logic, white people are more valuable in society, and all those who

come close to it also get value by proximity” (Rodriguez 70). Therefore, Crucet’s feelings of

unworthiness are justified – although not true – because she did not come from a family of

higher class and instead from a “Black and Brown” family that is “disproportionately part of the

working-poor class bracket” meant to keep them down. While the “affluent” students thrived,

she was forced to wallow in self-doubt and feel she “had no business being there” when her

merits may have proved otherwise – but of course merits mean nothing when gatekeepers base

success on social and racial class.

With an emphasis on racial segregation, Crucet highlights the biased value that white

individuals tend to have for other white individuals, which allows them certain privileges that

others are not afforded – again showcasing the myth of meritocracy. Crucet’s act of trying to

pass as white illustrates ‘the ugly truth: [she] didn’t want to miss out on a good apartment” and

“that meant doing what [she] could to look whiter” (Crucet 111) to increase her value as a person

in the eyes of this biased white individual. According to Rodriguez, “There is a tangible value in
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aligning ourselves to whiteness, and we were simply reflecting the society we lived in”

(Rodriguez 71) a society that does not base a person’s value on their achievements but instead on

their racial status. Crucet’s “ugly truth” is in fact the same truth for almost everyone in society,

that being white/passing as white is a “tangible value” that gatekeepers use to determine who

will be successful and who will struggle in vain. Such distinctions are why both Rodriguez and

Crucet do not believe in a meritocracy but instead in a system where the powerful rule and

influence determines who reaches their goals.

Ultimately, meritocracy takes on a new definition when Crucet’s experiences in college

and her time trying to pass as white are paired with Rodriguez’s epiphany that gatekeepers are

trying to segregate individuals based on social class and race to solely benefit those who are

white upper-class and discourage those who are not. To truly advance as a society, we must

acknowledge that there are gatekeepers in this world, and those who are gatekeepers must realize

the position of influence they are in and make a change – a change that helps society inch closer

to a definition of meritocracy that truly is based on merits and not on an individual’s social/racial

class. That way, people like my cousin who worked hard to achieve their merits can reap the

rewards without fear of gatekeeping or withholdment because of their racial/social status.

Works Cited
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Crucet Jennine Capó. My Time among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education.

Picador/St. Martin's Press, 2019.

MOJICA, RODRGUEZ PRISCA DORCAS. For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and

Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color. SEAL, 2021.