It was when I met “V” that my indefinable feelings about affirmative action were finally defined. I’d always felt that affirmative action was a flawed system, but I couldn’t explain my emotions; I could only feel that perhaps some inherent racism or personal ambition was keeping me from wanting this thing that was supposedly so helpful to minorities. But it was in getting to know V — and seeing what it was like to be one of the city’s working poor, a member of an immigrant family slipping through the cracks — that I realized, and was finally able to express, what it was that so bothered me.

Along with the smell of cooking and her mother’s cleaning supplies, there is an acceptance that pervades her house. The kitchen, the TV room, and her bedroom are all one. There are two small chairs where we sit and read English together. Sometimes a member of her family comes and sits on her bed because there is no where else to sit — and because it is the only time in their week that they really hear English. V is the only one in her family who can have a conversation in English and possibly the only one in that whole building or even the whole block. I have no idea. Certainly, I had no idea that there are people who live in the United States and may never be fluent in English. Call me a fool, but the Hispanics I do know are privileged students who will also benefit from affirmative action simply by mentioning their ethnicity on a college application, and all of whom have maids who speak better English than anyone in V’s family.

She is such a sweet girl, and on some small level, it feels good to think that I might be making a difference in this girl’s life. Her mother seems to think so. She kept trying to give me money, although I’d thought that I’d make it clear I didn’t want it, until finally I told her in Spanish “mi madre va a matarme” — my mom’s gonna kill me if I take your money. She laughed, and she understood that.

I honestly don’t know if I make a difference, to V or in any other way. But she has opened my eyes — and given me a chance to practice my Spanish with her family members. Only English passes between us, and it strikes me to see how hard she works and hear all her mother’s questions about her progress. I make sure to tell her mother how good V is at math and get to see the satisfaction on her face.

It is strange, then, to walk the few short blocks to my house, maybe 20 minutes away. So close, but a different world. There is no Spanish spoken where I live; even the babysitters all speak English. It’s also strange to go to school the next day and see children with “one parent from a Spanish-speaking country” in clothes I wouldn’t feel comfortable buying even though I can afford them. And I just think to myself: How many of those scarves, how many of those belts could V buy with the salary her mother earns at a laundromat?

They are all “Hispanics” in the eyes of affirmative action. But V won’t have the opportunity to talk about her life, and she won’t be able to hire someone to teach her how to present herself to a college as unique and genuine. She can use the same label, but otherwise she’ll have to rely on her own talents. I have a friend who is black and richer than many of the whites I know, but she still goes down as a minority. I’m still white and even if I’m poorer than she is, she is at an advantage, and I’m in the opposite situation.

I am glad that V will have help getting into college. Lord knows that she needs all of the aid she can get. Not because she’s less gifted than anyone else — in fact I’m struck by how incredibly talented and smart she is — but because the people she is up against have access to resources she doesn’t. The idea of an inherent connection between the race that you are born into and need is ridiculous and degrading. The implication is that something that your ancestors were responsible for and over which you have absolutely no control, has pre-determined the socio-economic status for you and your children and your grand-children. That, to be blunt, is affirmative action in its current state. It is a “pity-gift,” as if to say that race is such a difficult hurdle to overcome, such a horrible disadvantage that you must be given an advantage just to catch up, just to overcome your handicap, which has determined that forever you are destined to be unable to accomplish things on your own. The fact is that the people who really need it, the people who have real obstacles, are the ones who are poor – right now, regardless of how life was for their ancestors, or how much natural protection their skin has against the sun.

This is just the way life has gone for her since her family left Mexico — and at least one sibling — behind a few years ago to come to this country. That doesn’t mean that more shouldn’t be done for her; just that it isn’t her minority status that makes her deserving, it’s her financial status.

To say that she deserves it because she’s Hispanic is racist and insensitive. It suggests that poor whites are inherently better adjusted than even, say, Eddie Murphy’s children would be — simply because they are white. It suggests that white kids are at a place that blacks and Hispanics cannot attain without our help.

This is condescension, and it helps no one more than the rich minority students who don’t need the help and who use it not as a leg up to go from a job as a deliveryman to a college, but as a means to jump from an amazing college to a super prestigious one. The poorest students, the ones who need it the most, are abandoned by the system. People like V will never understand how much more they deserve, because they’ve never been told how high they can rise. Instead, the message sent to them is that they are inherently inferior to whites and that no matter how high they rise, they will always need more help than even the poorest whites or Asians.

Miss Phillips is a junior at a private high school in Manhattan.