<p>I would politely argue that being Hispanic isn’t necessarily always about cultural identification. Sometimes it is about racial identifcation and all that comes with that. As stated before, my oldest son is 1/2 Puerto Rican, 1/2 Caucasian. Culturally, we are a “white” family. Racially, my son identifies more as being Puerto Rican. I think it might have taken on new importance to him as he recently may have had his first brush with “racial profiling” by the law based on how he looks. It was new to him and he denies that is what happened. Nonetheless, it has opened his eyes to an aspect of life that he has mostly been inoculated from but one that will no doubt present itself again. We don’t say it’s good or bad, what happened; we simply make a note.</p>
<p>At any rate, my son will identify himself at Puerto Rican and Caucasian on college applications (with a decidely non-Hispanic sounding last name) though we are not an “Hispanic” family.</p>