In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make

claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
Lens Essay Outline

I. Introduction
A. Definition of Meritocracy (critique of lens) that you’re using – Rodriguez’s definition
of meritocracy
1. In Rodriguez’s book, For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, she
defines meritocracy as a myth created by gatekeepers to create self-blame within
working-class and poor people. This in turn, distracts them from the system
they have fallen trap to.
B. Thesis
a) What aspect of (My Time) are we focusing on?
(1) Crucet at Cornell, white privilege of peers, them being steps
ahead based on where they started (legacy admissions, not
1st-gen, etc.)
(2) not knowing how to navigate college– office hours, general
help, no one to ask for advice, parents not having access to same
knowledge
(3) her realization of the “American Dream”
b) How are we to think about the lens text (central idea focusing on)?
(1) Rodriguez: Meritocracy is a myth. Gatekeepers are everywhere
and they keep white, white-adjacents, and most assimilated at
the top and the less assimilated, poc kids at the bottom.
Segregation. They preach the false narrative of meritocracy so
low & middle class can blame themselves for their inability to
achieve success rather than the system. “cogs in a machine”
c) What is revealed or shown in a more critical way (deeper level)?
(1) No matter how hard one works, it will never reach the privilege
of white people and the access they are subject to in society and
academia.
d) (a), (b), © framed as Thesis:
(1) In Capo Crucet’s book, My Time Amongst the Whites, the
ultimate lack of privilege she identified compared to her white
peers is revealed at a deeper level through Rodriguez’s lens of
In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make
claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
meritocracy discussing how white privilege and racism
influence how white and white adjacents are set up by the
system to succeed more than people of color.
2. 1st attempt: Through the lens of Schur’s discussion of “meritocracy”, we can
analyze how jobs and education are not something that are of equal
opportunity for all. Some are born closer to the top than others. White,
heterosexual men start on the “lowest difficulty setting”, while everyone else
doesn't.
3. 2nd attempt: In Capo Crucet’s book, My Time Amongst the Whites, the
disadvantages she experiences at college are revealed at a deeper level through
Rodriguez’s lens of meritocracy discussing how internalized racism and
pressure of assimilation contribute to Crucet’s self-doubt at Cornell.
C. Topic Sentence/ Claim #1: In My Time Among the Whites, Crucet explains how she
no longer believes in the American Dream.
1. Quote from MTAW: “... I’ve come to see the American Dream for what it
really is: a lie my parents had little choice but to buy into and sell to me, a lie
that conflated working hard with passing for, becoming, and being white. I
believed the lie for long enough to acquire the tools needed to dismantle it.”
2. Quote from Rodriguez: “Gatekeepers are everywhere, regulating who gets to
live the American Dream and who gets to work hard for others’ dreams.
3. Analysis/Connection (WHAT/HOW/WHY): Both Rodriguez and Crucet
grew up believing in the American Dream only to learn once in higher
education, that it was far from the truth. The American Dream is something
that is time and time again pushed onto immigrants as something they can
achieve, leading people to come here with false hope and unrealistic
expectations. As mentioned by Crucet, reaching success in America is aligned
with becoming more “white” or at least behave in a way that doesn’t make
white people uncomfortable. The closer you are to white-passing, the more
access you will have to opportunities, resources, and ultimately, success.
D. Topic Sentence/ Claim #2 White supremacy and white privilege has infiltrated a
system where if you have an ethnic name for example, it can create a subconscious bias
in a person where they may take you less seriously or not give you the same
opportunities than they would a white person.
In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make
claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
1. Quote from MTAW: “When they are born, you give your kids white American
names so that their teachers can’t tell what they are before meeting them, so
that your kids don’t suffer the way you suffered in school, and so that they
won’t eventually be “inexplicably” denied apartments and jobs despite their
abundant qualifications”
2. Quote from Rodriguez: “To succeed, I knew I had to fit myself into the
American definition of who I should be. My assimilation in America required
my assimilation into whiteness.”
3. Analysis/Connection By Crucet’s parents giving her a “white” name, they are
trying to help her fight the inevitable microaggressions a person with an ethnic
name may experience. Meritocracy is a myth because someone could have
worked their whole life to get to a certain point and still be turned away simply
because of their ethnic name. Her parents were trying to give her opportunities
they never had or were possibly turned away from themselves because of their
own names.
E. Topic Sentence/ Claim #3
1. Quote from MTAW: “This, too, is a kind of privilege: the resource of
people—people who love you—who have navigated a version of the very
system you are now navigating.”
2. Quote from Rodriguez: “This was not a competition for who could work
harder to get an A; this was about whose parents had provided their kids with
enough access to succeed at this academic level.”
3. Analysis/Connection: School systems are built on a system that didn’t
originally include POC. We’ve seen this throughout history with the Little
Rock Nine, Ruby Bridges and other walkouts. So it’s no surprise that these
systems are still enforced by “gatekeepers”. As Rodriguez mentioned, GATE
separated an entire group of students because they are smarter. But, what’s
important to note is that these students for the most part are smarter because
they have access to more resources and have the money for luxuries such as
tutors. When first-gen students enter university they have no idea what to
expect or what to even do, as Crucet experienced. On the other hand,
privileged, rich, white students with legacy admissions are fully prepared for
In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make
claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
college and know all the resources they have at hand. They can dedicate all their
time to solely being a student.
F. Topic Sentence/ Claim #4
1. Quote from MTAW: ““When it came to having the privilege of choosing a
career path, I did what people who’ve internalized systemic oppression
sometimes do: I aimed for something different that felt more appropriate, more
attainable.”
2. Quote from Rodriguez: “Your feelings of displacement mean that these
institutions were not built to include you. They were not built for your
betterment or for you to have more opportunities, and they rely on your
complicity.”
3. Analysis/Connection: Gatekeepers save their opportunities and jobs for their
own kind. People of color are constantly left questioning themselves and
dealing with issues like imposter syndrome, where they may feel undeserving of
their full potential. Not everyone grew up with lawyer parents where, when
“worst comes to worst”, they can “just be a lawyer”. First generation students
feel unwelcome in those spaces that white people are invited into with open
arms.
G. Conclusion:
1.

Possible Quotes:
Crucet:
● “good grades and various state initiatives meant to entice students to stay in the state for
college”
● “attending Cornell would plug me into a kind of access and privilege I didn’t yet have a name
for.”
● “These three women—the daughters of the lawyers—each said that worse comes to worst, they
too would be lawyers. ”
In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make
claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
● “When I speak at other predominantly white campuses, I’ve reminded the students of color
and the women about this fact: This place never imagined you here, and your exclusion was a
fundamental premise in its initial design.”
● “These three women—the daughters of the lawyers—each said that worse comes to worst, they
too would be lawyers.”
● “When it came to having the privilege of choosing a career path, I did what people who’ve
internalized systemic oppression sometimes do: I aimed for something different that felt more
appropriate, more attainable.”
● “I didn’t want to miss out on a good apartment because of someone’s ignorance, and that
meant doing what I could to look whiter.”
● “hey inadvertently include me in these white power moments, ones that we aren’t supposed to
witness, which are perpetrated by the kind of well-meaning white folks—people who genuinely
don’t consider themselves racists—when they’re sure we aren’t around to hear them.”
● “Losing privilege can feel a lot like inequality. If something feels unfair to you as a white
person, it’s likely that equality is actually being achieved in that moment.”
● “encouraged to buy into the falsehood of a meritocracy that promises the American Dream to
anyone willing to work hard. ”
● This material may be pro“ve come to see the American Dream for what it really is: a”
● “If I stop paying close attention, academia can be a comfortable, recognizable place, one where
I am encouraged to buy into the falsehood of a meritocracy that promises the American Dream
to anyone willing to work hard. ”
● “But I’ve come to see the American Dream for what it really is: a lie my parents had little choice
but to buy into and sell to me, a lie that conflated working hard with passing for, becoming,
and being white. I believed the lie for long enough to acquire the tools needed to dismantle it.”
● “I am someone whose parents taught her that to survive and thrive in this country, I would
have to work twice as hard as a white person.”
● “They never took issue with the unfairness of this; they said that’s just how it is until the work
itself leads to success that allows you to transcend the unfairness somehow. A”
● “Her ideal daughter was a white girl because she had long internalized the idea that as Latinx
women, we’d be treated as lesser, that we were somehow lesser. And she just wanted better for
me, which meant: whiter.”
● “When they are born, you give your kids white American names so that their teachers can’t tell
what they are before meeting them, so that your kids don’t suffer the way you suffered in
In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make
claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
school, and so that they won’t eventually be “inexplicably” denied apartments and jobs despite
their abundant qualifications”
● “These names, in their new home country, impact everything about their lives: their educations
(and the premature ends of those educations), their job prospects, in what areas of the city they
can look for a home”
● “This, too, is a kind of privilege: the resource of people—people who love you—who have
navigated a version of the very system you are now navigating.”
● “. I waited for her response and for the ways it would encourage me, for her to tell me I could
do this, but I knew from my mother’s total silence that, like me, she’d never before heard these
words: my first insight into how access to certain vocabularies was a kind of privilege.”
● “ meet other students admitted to Cornell, many of them from private high schools, many of
them seeing the financial aid as irrelevant to their decision: They’d be paying most if not all of
the cost anywhere they went. For them, whatever came next was worth that cost, and that was
the promise my family and I could recognize and want for ourselves.”
● “But at that Cornell recruitment reception,”
Rodriguez:
● “...meritocracy is a myth. Most people are not able to work so hard that they are no longer
poor.
● Gatekeepers use the myth of meritocracy to distract busy working-class and working-poor folks
with so much self-blame when they fall short that they will not think to revolt against their
oppressors.
● Gatekeepers are everywhere, regulating who gets to live the American Dream and who gets to
work hard for others’ dreams.
● I was never that kid, the kid who was encouraged to go to college. I know what those kids look
like, and they are typically middle-class, white or white-adjaent, well-dressed, well-spoken, and
well-behaved by white standards.
● Because I was behind and was expected to have already learned this, my victories were not
celebrated.
● I needed to commit and distance myself from woring-class immgirant background if I was
going to be accepted. To succeed, I knew I had to fit myself into the American definition of
who I should be. My assimilation in America required my assimilation into whiteness. WHne I
finally realized what had happened, there was nothing I could do but mourn th eloss of so
many parts of myself.
In this essay you will apply the lens of Schur’s and/Rodriguez’s discussion of “meritocracy” to make
claims about My Time Among the Whites. Through one of these lens texts (Schur or Rodriguez), your
analysis should explain an aspects of a social system such as education, jobs, or marriage just to name a
few. This assignment asks that you re-examine My Time Among the Whites through concepts such as
meritocracy from the readings, thereby providing a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of Capó
Crucet’s memoir based on the critiques of meritocracy.
● Racism and classisim are why it is easy to accept some children and easy to overlook others.
● Entire school systems have found ways to keep the good white kids away from the rest of the
student population.
● We know today that gifted programs ere invented to recreatre segregation within desegregated
schools. Gifted programs were not about the smartes kids but about appeasing parents who
could take thei rkids to private scholls if the public schools did not serve their needs.
● I was not dumb; I just did not fit into what schools ystems and teachers have been told to value.
● There was an us-versus-them mentality, “us” being the more assimilated Latinx and “them
being the ones who were not.
● I remember hearing students talk about college; it was an “us” conversation that I knew I had
to infiltrate.