Norma Pahl,
Orange, CA
I am American, I was born here and was raised here my entire life, I have never even been out of the country, not even to Mexico. I don’t understand why my daughters and I have to check the race/ethnicity box of a country none of us have ever been to. We love hamburgers and fries, pizza and sometimes a good ol’ hot dog. My girls play softball and love to go watch the Angels we love roller coasters, Broadway shows and rock and roll. To me we are your average and classic Americans, so why must we always check Hispanic? Because of our skin, eye and hair color? I think its time we change our mind sets and stop segregating ourselves into ethnic categories, we don’t all identify with. Why is ‘American’ never an option on the race or ethnicity questionnaires? Most of us only see ourselves as Americans because this has been our only race since birth and our culture, history and language all stem from here. I respect people who don’t identify themselves with America because of their strong racial and ethnic roots, but what about the ones that don’t. How many generations will it take before the were allowed to identify ourselves from here?
