The term "minority" is being redefined, especially in California, in contentious ways. But however the lines are drawn, for an individual, minority status can be a source of pain, confusion, and self-doubt. PNS commentator Russell Morse, 18, a student and a writer, has contributed to YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about young people produced by Pacific News Service.

This past month, the Census Bureau revealed that whites are a minority in the state of California. That may come as a revelation to some, but it I've always felt it was true.

I was born to a father of mixed European descent and a Latino mother. I always had fair skin, and from early on I was a "white boy." My own brother often called me a honkey. With no particular cultural values from either side, I grew up believing my race was the absence of any pigment -- white.

The school I went to was culturally diverse, drawing people from every neighborhood -- I was a minority there. The school was primarily Asian and black, with Latino and white kids rounding out the population. It was fairly segregated, mostly by race and neighborhood, and I spent time with a lot of different groups in seventh and eighth grade.

Among my Latin friends, because I didn't speak Spanish and had an Anglo last name, I was not even called "huero," the word used for light-skinned Latinos. There was no blatant prejudice -- we were friends -- but I always felt a sense of alienation when we were together.

My black friends would introduce me as a "cool white boy." At the time, I thought this was an honor. I thought, "Who ever heard of a cool white boy? And if there is one, could I really be it?"

White friends were usually busy trying to be another color or spouting racial slurs, so my options were limited.

I always felt as if I had to prove myself beyond everyone else. I had to fight anyone who stepped -- not because I had violent tendencies, but because I was prejudged as a sucker by the color of my skin. If my friends were stealing, I had to steal more. If they were fighting, I had to jump in and hit harder. I was plagued by an inferiority complex because I was white.

My way of acting out was never aimed at people of other colors, but I can understand the anger and hatred some people show. In my case, the problem was hatred of myself. I felt cursed by not being given an identity. It seemed to me that all the despair in the country was solely the doing of the white man. If this was so, why did I have to belong to that group? If a group of black kids beat me up in the schoolyard, I assumed I deserved it because my ancestors had enslaved their ancestors.

In fact, the only form of white man acceptable to me when I was growing up was the Italian gangster. I must have watched "Goodfellas" fifty times trying to perfect the accent, dress and attitude of my role model. I altered my mother's maiden name to Carro and I was Italian, waiting to be initiated into the underworld. The call never came, but in pursuing it (wearing a double breasted pin-striped suit and two tone shoes to my confirmation) I became even more confused about my ethnic identity.

In the years that followed, I fell in with a racially diverse group of delinquents and felt as if my problems had been solved. Well, one set of problems may have ceased, but they gave way to a new set. Jail was on top of that list.

To speak on the racial divide within juvenile hall would take many words, so I will say only that the abuse I endured in my incarceration based solely on my skin color brought my hatred of self to a boil.

Things are better today. I have learned to embrace my father's European heritage as tightly as I do my mother's Latin roots. I am comfortable with who I am.

I'm not sure how this came about -- maybe I just grew up.

I had a long conversation with my mother one day about my confusion and the next time that I saw her, she brought me a book, "The Color of Water," by James McBride. This is billed as a black man's tribute to his white mother. But the author speaks of how loving his mother was, with little attention to her race.

The situation is radically different from my own, but the book started a long healing process that continues today. I learned to pay little regard to my parents based on their blood, but rather to concentrate on their love and the fact that I am a piece of each of them.