General Whats my Race?

[lord999]

Parents are from Russia, but am of Buryat ethnicity (which is related to Mongols). I look East Asian, but the only foreign language I speak is Russian and am culturally Christian as opposed to Buddhist like in Mongolia. The census classifies Russian as White, and that's my origin, but I look more Chinese. Should I put White or Asian on my app?

Race is a constructed variable as well as ethnicity. Pick the one that you feel most applies. You could make the case for either. Just don't be inconsistent (apply as white then apply for diversity scholarships as something else).

 

[Raryn]

Doesn't matter. If this was the Soviet Union, you'd be stuck with whatever your passport said your nationality is, but in the US race (outside of being a recognized Native American) is entirely self-identification. If you feel comfortable putting yourself down as White and did that on the last census, then just put down White. Or put down both. Or put down "Other". Or decline to answer.

I mean, technically speaking, if you're ethnically from Buryatia, you're Asian. That is, there's plenty of ethnic Russians in the far-east, but based on your identification above and your appearance, you're not (at least not entirely) one of them. Even if you are of Russian immigrant extraction (think of it this way - if Pushkin was alive and immigrated to the states, he could still put Black if he wanted, even if he immigrated directly from Russia - despite the last four generations of his family being born there)