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I'm half white, half Mexican and half Native American. Can I choose which one to label myself as?

As I said above, I am half white, half Mexican and half Native American. I am pretty pale and it is hard to tell that I am half… anything, but I'm half white from both sides of my family, half Mexican from my dad's side and half Native American from my mom's side. I'm wondering if I can choose to label myself as any one of those? Thanks so much for your help!

4 Answers

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  • 7 years ago

    Why do you feel the need to have a label? Can't you just be yourself?

  • Mexican is a nationality. Mexico has many ethnic cultural identities to be found within it. Plenty of Mexicans are pale. That has no bearing whatsoever on their identity.

    Native American is a legal identity....not an ethnic one. The citizens of the 566 tribes the US has a legal treaty relationship with. It's not something you can be a percentage, fraction, bit or part of without that citizenship.

    White is a lame descriptive term for skin colour and a loose association with ancestry in Europe. It's not a cultural group or ethnicity. Just a lame skin descriptor.

    So what are you? Average American.

    Source(s): Ojibwe By culture, citizenship and birth.
  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Legally, you can only identify yourself as "native American" if you are an enrolled tribal citizen.

    btw...you are claimed 3 halves....that makes you 1 1/2 of a person, you realize? And if you actually WERE 1/2 (or even 1/4) native American, then you'd have a CDIB from the BIA and tribal citizenship since birth. What tribe is your mother enrolled in?

    And "Mexican" is a nationality. You aren't a citizen of mexico, so you can't claim to be Mexican, either.

    So legally, unless you have either Mexican or tribal citizenship, you are white/Hispanic mix

    Source(s): Navajo
  • 7 years ago

    That's a lot of halves..

    Anyways since when is mexican a race?

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