Iowa State student Tania Anderson is classified by the university as a Caucasian.

Her light skin tone gives people the immediate impression that she is white. But her oval, slit-shaped eyes and broad forehead suggest something else.

Anderson is half Taiwanese and half white.

Because of her partial Oriental background, she could be considered as one of Iowa State’s 1,703 minority students and one of its 553 Asian students. Or she could be considered one of Iowa State’s 20,630 white students.

This however, depends on what classification a racially mixed student checks on the admissions application.

Anderson said she has sometimes checked Caucasian and sometimes Asian in various applications requiring classification listings. She classified herself as a Caucasian at Iowa State.

“I never really pondered seriously about my race,” she said.

There’s no multi-ethnic section in the university’s minority enrollment numbers for fall semester, which were released earlier this week. It only has the usual classifications of American Indian/Alaskan Native, African American, Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic.

It may be easy for Anderson to classify herself as Caucasian or Asian. If Anderson were half Asian and and half American Indian, she could still pick and choose what she wants to be classified under, but she thinks much of this depends on what people perceive her to be on a first impression.

“When I’m in Taiwan, people think I’m Caucasian,” Anderson said.

No one really knows how many of Iowa State’s minority population is truly 100 percent of what they are classified under. And no longer is Anderson’s Oriental and Caucasian makeup a unique mixture in today’s society.

Like other Iowa State students, Anderson is part of a growing population of multi-ethnic persons in this country.

Today, there are about two million ethnically mixed people under 18 in the United States.

Our society today is becoming more and more of a true melting pot of ethnically mixed people rather than just a salad bowl of individuals of one race or another.

It’s an interesting phenomenon that has quadrupled in the last 30 years and it is something that will increase, like it or not.

No longer are hair texture and skin color definite clues to a person’s ethnicity.

“What exactly are you?” may become a more common question among curious observers.

Multi-ethnic persons may not be as prominent at Iowa State or in the state for that matter, but in some of the most populated regions of the country they may be staring you straight in the face without you even realizing it.

Faces like Anderson’s may be more commonplace. But with multi-racial relationships being more accepted in today’s society, we are being gradually introduced to individuals who have the opportunity to be raised with at least two different cultural backgrounds.

If we haven’t already, we will be seeing true faces of diversity in the future: the individual with the Argentinean and Chinese face, the Nigerian and Philipino face and the Japanese and German face.

It’s been said that Caucasians may no longer be the majority population in next 50 years in the U.S. At the same time, Hispanics are becoming the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. Aside from that, there is a growing pool of multi-ethnic people. They will remain in the minority for some time, but they are growing in population.

But the increase of the multi-ethnic population raises some interesting questions about the classification listings on job applications, standardized tests and scholarship applications.

Would affirmative action be as prevalent? Would it even be necessary?

Years down the road, maybe as far as our great-grandchildren’s generation, it may not be as easy for statisticians to collect data comparing how ethnic groups perform scholastically against each other. It may no longer be necessary for universities to collect data about how many minority students contribute to the diverse makeup of their campus.

It isn’t really important for me to list my racial classification on tests and applications today. But would it still be necessary for students 60 to 70 years from now?

Instead of checking a specific box under race, we might as well all put down that we’re human.

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Shuva Rahim is a junior in journalism mass communication from Davenport.