How is race determined? Is it by nation of origin, by ancestors or by your skin color?

I ask these questions because I look like a Caucasian female but my genes say I am American Indian, Jewish, German, English, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Irish, Iberian Coast and a smattering of other ethnicities.

I have rare blood antigens in my red blood cells that are common in those from Africa but I look like a Caucasian.

I ask these questions because they may help people think a bit deeper about relationships than the shade of one’s skin.

My parents sacrificed and worked extra jobs to pay for me and my siblings to get through college. “Social privilege” doesn’t run in my family but education, studying hard and a work ethic does.

My grandparents and great grandparents picked cotton and worked in the fields. They were simple farmers with little money, but their thrift helped them save money to get what they needed. They build life on hard work, sacrifice and responsibility.

That is not social privilege. That is common sense and hard work. My husband and I work hard to pay for our kids’ college education. We require them to do chores, pay for their own phones, get jobs and work.

I consider hard work, sacrifice,and an education paramount to just giving them money. I want them to earn itI isn’t that what the real world is like?

The terms Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic are polarizing terms used to separate us and pit us against each other.

We would do better as a society to delete the terms “race” and “social privilege” and level the playing field by seeing others as humans whose paths are determined by the consequences of our decisions.

Liesha Huffstetler writes the Chronicle’s weekly Around Chapin & Irmo column.