A Student Survivor Makes an Honors List

In reference to “Joyful Survivor,” I was troubled by the third sentence: “And he was an Anglo . . . . “ I gather from the article that Mr. Blitzstein was born in the Ukraine and learned that country’s language; he emigrated to Venezuela where he acquired Spanish, his second language, and in mid-life, to the U.S., where he learned English. My question is, after all this, how is he classified as an Anglo?

I am an American primarily of Irish descent. My wife is of Spanish/American Indian descent and speaks only English. Neither of us has any English ancestry. Am I an Anglo? Is she?

If the foregoing nit-picking sounds ridiculous, it is. But isn’t it just as ridiculous to label people with these imprecise, vague and ill-defined labels in the first place?

MICHAEL McCARTHY

Orange