Diversity Statement Review Forum

[geoduck]

I absolutely hate writing diversity statements and am usually happy to just mark down the proper bubbles and be done with it... but Georgetown isn't letting me off that easy! So here is the second draft of my attempt to write this darn thing. What do you think?

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As a light-skinned Mexican, my biggest struggle has been maintaining my identity. My Mexican heritage is from my father’s mother, who married white and gave their children Teutonic names to counter the racism of California’s San Bernardino Valley in the 1950s. My father, Eric, continued the trend by naming me William. When my grandmother died in 1988, we moved north to the suburbs of Seattle, Washington.

Most of my childhood summers were spent with my family around Los Angeles. When I was in California, I was Mexican. Besides the fact that my mother and I were the only ones wearing sun block and that I only partially understood the Spanish that my older relatives spoke, I felt like a part of the family. I was sure of my identity.

The rest of the time I was in Washington, where almost all of my friends were white and any others were Asian or African-American. With my name, rudimentary Spanish, and propensity for sunburns, no one believed my Chicano claims. To them, I was white. Even as my skin developed pigment, the overcast skies of Seattle continued to camouflage my ethnicity. The longer I was away from California, the more I believed them.

In my second year of college, I began making friends with other Chicanos and I discovered just how much of my identity I allowed to be hidden by my desire to fit in. Since then I have actively reclaimed my heritage. From the obvious habits such as eating tamales on Christmas Eve to subtle elements such as the way I structure verbal sentences, Mexican culture is a large part of who I am today. I still have acquaintances who try to dismiss my culture because of their preconceptions, but I no longer allow it to affect me. I am proud to stand as an example that the Mexican people aren’t a shade of color, but rather a shared collection of history and culture.

[DeeCee]

Your diversity statement sounds remarkably similar to mine except for you can replace the Mexican with Cuban for mine, and I moved from FL to NC.

My similar diversity statement worked well for me at some schools, but I was dinged at Georgetown. However, if you have better numbers than me, I'm sure the numbers + essay + Mexican URM will give you a much better shot than I had.