One of the fascinating things about the modern world, is how populations and emigration have shifted the very simple ways we look at people, but yet there is still one annoying holdover that refuses to die.

For example, in the US, the largest (and almost only) minority group was black/African-American, so race relations tended to be framed in white/black terms. Now, we have black, east Asian, Middle Eastern, Indian (south Asian) and Hispanics as US Citizens, and the world isn’t as simple.

Which leads me to the remaining annoyance, “Hispanic”. I think this was somewhat useful from a US standpoint when the only immigration to the US was from poor border Mexican communities, so all Hispanics were mostly indigenous/Native American, but it’s fascinating how few Americans realize that south of the border, a lot of people who are Hispanic don’t look at ALL like that.

The same groups of immigrants that came to the US, went to Latin America - Italians, Irish, Germans, Poles, Lebanese, Swedes, English, Japanese, Chinese, African, etc etc. Argentina is full of Italians and Germans, as is Brazil, Peru has a large Japanese population, etc.

Yet, all of these are considered “Hispanic”, because they speak the same language. That’s as absurd as lumping Canada, Nigeria, India, Belize, Northern Irelend and Hong Kong into the same ethnic descriptor, merely because they speak the same language. Call them the “Anglic” ethnic group

In my case, my family is from the Spanish/French border, and immigrated to the new world in the 1500’s. Over and over, I hear “you don’t LOOK Hispanic”, but Hispanic isn’t an ethnic group!

Is it time to kill the term Hispanic, or do you think it serves a purpose?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: reloader-1,

Beats Latinx.

I think it serves a limited purpose. If I say the person “looked Hispanic”, everyone knows what I mean. My wife and I use the term often, knowing that there is a decent mix of Central American and Mexican people living in our area.

My wife is Mexican and has only been in the country for around two years and only moved here to marry me.

So we, especially her, have the proper understanding that Hispanic is a term that has limited use, but does have a use.


I’m the gringo and she’s la morena. My Spanish is ok, and I can tell some accents apart and you can even look at some people and get a sense they are not Mexican for instance.


The leftist use of Hispanic as saying that all brown people think the same should be ended.

Don't look at me - your beef is with the U.S. Census Bureau.

My wife is Puerto Rican and hates the word "Hispanic."

Hispanic means of or from a Spanish speaking country. That means Brazil is not included. Yes, the intent was to prevent discrimination against the native people of Latin America, which includes native people of Brazil. Makes sense right?

But it does include Spain. And Spaniards are native Europeans, which means they are white. So if you are a white European man from Spain, you are hispanic and therefore a protected ethnic minority. Even though all other white European men are now the object of derision and contempt.

And yes, I know Japanese people from Peru and Brazil, and Italians from Brazil, and Germans from Argentina, and a Southern Spanish/French from Mexico, and on and on. A fair number of Europeans and Asians in Latin America have very little if any native ancestry, but there is a lot of mixing too.

Why did this happen? Because the law is trying to protect NATIVE AMERICANS that happen to be from south of the U.S. border with Mexico. Had they been from north of the border they would be Native Americans and fall under those laws. But we can't call them Native Americans because that term is reserved for Native Americans whose ancestors lived within the current U.S. borders.

So what do we call them? Native Americans Once Removed? Native Not Quite North Enough Americans? Realistically, I think "Native People of Central and South America (including Mexico)" would have made sense, but the government punted and came up with Hispanic because they all speak Spanish, except for the Brazilians.

Such is the folly of trying to pigeonhole people into boxes on a census form.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

So what do we call them?

What's wrong with "Latin Americans?"

Spaniards would probably argue that Mexicans don't speak "Spanish", anyway. Just as the Brits don't think US citizens speak "English".

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
But it does include Spain. And Spaniards are native Europeans, which means they are white. So if you are a white European man from Spain, you are hispanic and therefore a protected ethnic minority. Even though all other white European men are now the object of derision and contempt.

Kinda-sorta. Don't forget that the area that is now Spain spent centuries under the control of various Arab and Berber (North African) groups, so there's plenty of that mixed in.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

So what do we call them?

What's wrong with "Latin Americans?"

It's the native part that the law is trying to protect, not the location part. Latin America means pretty much anywhere in the Western Hemisphere south of the United States, just as Hispanic means anyone in Latin America except Brazil.

The effect is essentially the same because the government did not identify the actual characteristics they wanted to protect, and just went with a language, instead of a region which is just as absurd as the OP pointed out.

Hell, even in Latin America those with native ancestry are lower in status than those mixed with European Spaniards, while those that are the most Spanish are highest.

The intent was to protect the "race" of native Latin Americans. But native Latin Americans are the same "race" as Native Americans from the United States, who are classified as a distinct race by the U.S. Government. Equating the two would result in a whole lot more benefits for the Native Latin Americans, so they had to punt and assign them to another group and chose Hispanic. Whether assigning Hispanic or Latin American, the result is that a whole lot of people that are not native to the Americas are lumped in.

Again, it continues to expose the absurdity of the obsession with race and ethnicity for political purposes.

True story: This far left woman I went to high school with was complaining on social media about how awful white women are (she's white) because some were protesting J-Lo and Shakira pole dancing during the Super Bowl half time show. I reminded her that although J-Lo and Shakira are ethnically hispanic, they are also considered "white" because they are not black (never heard either of them identify as having black ancestry), not native American/Eskimo, and not Asian or Pacific Islander. So it's white women complaining about white women. She got mad and said "no one thinks that they are white!". I responded that I cannot control for other people's stupidity but yes indeed, by all legal definition they are racially white with hispanic ethnicity.

And my friends/coworkers in Mexico are amused by all this Latinx silliness here. Spanish is a gendered language. To neuter the language would mean changing most of the words. Latinx doesn't even make sense in Spanish and cannot even be pronounced.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
But it does include Spain. And Spaniards are native Europeans, which means they are white. So if you are a white European man from Spain, you are hispanic and therefore a protected ethnic minority. Even though all other white European men are now the object of derision and contempt.

Kinda-sorta. Don't forget that the area that is now Spain spent centuries under the control of various Arab and Berber (North African) groups, so there's plenty of that mixed in.

And then we have to start including other southern Europeans that were under Arab control or mixed with North Africans, such as Sicily. But then, Arabs are also considered "white" because they haven't been defined as anything else by the U.S. Government.

The sooner we get away from all this labeling and admit that most people are much more mixed than they may think and that race and ethnicity are largely irrelevant except for race baiters that keep things going.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
But it does include Spain. And Spaniards are native Europeans, which means they are white. So if you are a white European man from Spain, you are hispanic and therefore a protected ethnic minority. Even though all other white European men are now the object of derision and contempt.

Kinda-sorta. Don't forget that the area that is now Spain spent centuries under the control of various Arab and Berber (North African) groups, so there's plenty of that mixed in.

Having lived in Spain, with the exception of the southern tip (former Kingdom of Granada), the Spanish are very Western European in appearance. There’s large Celtic influence, so northern Spaniards are pale, with blond and red hair being fairly common.

quote:

Why did this happen? Because the law is trying to protect NATIVE AMERICANS that happen to be from south of the U.S. border with Mexico. Had they been from north of the border they would be Native Americans and fall under those laws. But we can't call them Native Americans because that term is reserved for Native Americans whose ancestors lived within the current U.S. borders.

So what do we call them? Native Americans Once Removed? Native Not Quite North Enough Americans? Realistically, I think "Native People of Central and South America (including Mexico)" would have made sense, but the government punted and came up with Hispanic because they all speak Spanish, except for the Brazilians.

Such is the folly of trying to pigeonhole people into boxes on a census form.

I believe it was more due to the widespread discrimination against formerly Mexican citizens after the Treaty of Guadeloupe post Mexican-American War and again in the 1920s when the US relaxed immigration law due to labor shortage.

American Indian is a political term that defines recognition by the United States government. This category includes people who are not genetically or ethnically indigenous, such as emancipated slaves formerly owned by the Cherokee Nation (at least in Title 18 and Title 25).

Native American is a genetic, racial, or ethnic term used to describe people indigenous to North America that may or may not have political recognition as an American Indian.

Definitions evolve and have regional variations. In the US & Canada, 'Asian' replaced what we used to call 'oriental'. In the UK, when they say 'Asian', they are referring to South Asia, mostly India & maybe Pakistan too.

Back in college, I had an argument w/ an instructor who used 'hispanic' and 'latino' interchangeably. I argued that 'hispanic' was much broader than 'latino' for the reasons you explained. I got shot down, b/c she was the instructor, but point is, in the US, 'hispanic' has come to mean the same as 'latino' and 'chicano'.

However, as Il Cattivo mentioned, government forms such as the Census and F4473 have questions that ask to distinguish between white or non-white hispanic.

You gringos are all nuckin futs to me!

love you anyways.

0-0

PS: from now on, call me Loretta.

quote:

That means Brazil is not included

That's flat-out untrue. Culturally and linguistically Portugal forms part of a continuum that runs from Catalonia in the east to the Azores in the west. Brazilians are unquestionably Hispanic by that standard. If you've got a connection to the Iberian Peninsula, you're Hispanic.

As to being indigenous, that's basically an excuse. If you had a Spanish-sounding last name you got treated like shit no matter how "Spanish" a Puerto Rican you were. If you think I'm kidding, take a run to northern New Mexico and ask around. They're very proud of how Spanish they are and they've got plenty of stories to tell about discrimination.

I think Iron Chef is right. In the U.S. we now use Hispanic as the equivalent of latino, even though the original meaning isn't the same. It is a confusing term if used in its original sense because many people think it simply means anyone from south of the U.S. border, from Mexico to the furthest reaches of Tierra del Fuego.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
I think Iron Chef is right. In the U.S. we now use Hispanic as the equivalent of latino, even though the original meaning isn't the same. It is a confusing term if used in its original sense because many people think it simply means anyone from south of the U.S. border, from Mexico to the furthest reaches of Tierra del Fuego.

On a similar note is the common usage of 'African American'. In many circles, especially news media and academia, 'African American' is preferred to 'black' and has become the default. Problem is, not every black person you see in the US is American (or arguably of African heritage). A black Nigerian here on a work or student visa is African but not American and does not appreciate being called African American.