I remember discussing race once with my husband and he said that he claimed one race only...the human race. And that when he fills out the race portion of various forms, he writes "human" in the "other" category. This is surprising, if you know how quiet and meek my husband is, but it speaks volumes.
When I was growing up, I was always very quick to claim my Hispanic heritage. But, I am only 1/4 Colombian, and the rest of me is very much Caucasian. And I was in a community where I had an advantage being a minority, or so I felt. Plus, when you can mark the Hispanic box on college applications and scholarship forms, it helped. Affirmative action and all that.
But now, things are moving the other direction. Politicians are so concerned about people being "illegal" that laws are being pushed: laws about profiling, laws about deportation, laws about banking, laws about education, laws about employment, laws about border patrol, etc.
People can come illegally from anywhere, so looking at Hispanics and asking if they are citizens is haphazardous. Canadians can be illegal. English and French can be illegal. Chinese, Japanese, and other Asians can be illegal. Africans can be illegal. But the discussion isn't focused on stopping them in their cars or on the street and asking for documentation. It is being discussed in regards to Hispanic immigrants.
A few years back, there was some talk about amping up protection around the Mexico border, about spending thousands, millions of dollars, of taxpayer money, to increase border patrol to keep illegal immigrants from coming to the United States. I heard nothing about changes being made to increase patrol around Canada.
Why is there such a concern about illegal [Mexican] immigrants?
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