posted
One of my college instructors told us in class that using the word "Hispanic" to refer to people of Mexican or other Latin American descent is incorrect. He said Hispanic should only refer to those of European Spanish descent. Latino was the proper term for those from the Americas.
He was, incidentally, a naturalized American citizen who emigrated from Spain.
What does everyone think? Is one term more appropriate than the other? Honestly, the way they're used it's almost as if they're interchangeable. I think most people hear Hispanic or Latino and assume both refer to people whose first language is Spanish, regardless of country of origin. However, I can imagine that to the people from those various countries it might well make a difference to them.
quote:One of my college instructors told us in class that using the word "Hispanic" to refer to people of Mexican or other Latin American descent is incorrect. He said Hispanic should only refer to those of European Spanish descent. Latino was the proper term for those from the Americas.
It sounds silly to me, but I could easily see this being something that matters a lot to someone of the proper descent (which I am not) - much like the difference between saying "oriental" and "asian."
Of the very few (2-3) hispanic people I know well, none have ever objected to the use of either hispanic or latino. One was Mexican, the other two were Puerto Rican.
If anyone has a more informed idea, I'd be interested in hearing it as well.
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posted
A Mexican aquaintance who I've discussed the issue with prefers Latino/Latina because it refers to a part of the world and a culture, and in his view "Hispanic" is a made-up word that doesn't really mean anything. I've heard similar preferences from other people who fit the demographic, so that's what I try to use. But I'm sure there are plenty of opinions on both sides. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I've heard similar distinctions made. From what I can tell, most people who are from South & Central America prefer Latino/Latina.
As far as the masculine/feminine, yeah -- Latino would refer to a man, Latinos to a group of men or a group of men and women; Latina would refer to a woman, Latinas would refer to a group made up exclusively of women.
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posted
Alright. Technically, Hispanic refers to anyone of Spanish descent, so basically anyone from Spain or a country colonized by Spain. In practice, Hispanic typically only refers to people from Spanish-America. I personally have never refered to anyone from Spain as an Hispanic, and have never heard anyone use it to refer to the Spanish.
A Latino/a is anyone from Latin America or of Latin American descent. Latin America refers to countries in the Americas that speak romance languages. All of Spanish-speaking America and Brazil are considered part of Latin America. There is some debate over whether Haiti is considered to be part of Latin America (I consider it to be, others don't).
The biggest difference between the two terms is that Brazilians are Latinos but are not Hispanics (which is an issue with the US census, which essentially considers Latino and Hispanic to be the same).
In my experience, Latin Americans who object to 'Hispanic' believe that Latino/a does a better job of representing the mixture of Spanish (or Portuguese or French), indigenous and African cultures that define the region. They argue that Hispanic places a focus on the linkages to Spain and consequently undervalues other aspects of Latino culture. And people who object to Latino, tend to be less common and do so because they feel it's another example of political correctness.
There's certainly a lot of overlap between the terms and I tend to use Latino/a because it has a clearer definition and think it is less controversial.
posted
Were that to be the actual difference. How in god's name would you know what to call whom?
Ask everyone their origin? Or regardless, ask everyone their stated preference? And then remember it afterwards?
I'm sorry, but to be honest I'll never be able to remember the stated preference of every...hispatino that I know. Besides, a lot of people consider it rude to ask an immigrant their origin.
"So, where are you from?" "Los Angeles." "Yeah, but where are you from."
Sounds like a lose/lose situation all over the place. I'm sticking with hispatino.
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posted
Your professor's right as far as I know, though I'd wait for Jose to chime in. My blood's Spanish, so I qualify as Hispanic though my family's been Mexican for generations. Most Chicanos I've met have preferred to be labelled Latino.
George Lopez's sitcom is terrible, but the man himself is a stand-up god -- and one of the best pop culture representatives of Latin culture we've had since Desi Arnez, in my opinion. The way he put it was something like: "Now we have Latinos getting a bit of income and all of a sudden become Hispanic. 'Well, my mother and father are from Mexico, but I'm from Spain!' Oh yeah? What part of Hispania are your ancestors from?"
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Meh, I'm both hispanic and latino by the definitions given, and I have no problem with people switching between the two.
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There is also the possibility that some people from Spain do not want to be confused with New World mestizos. My Beloved's Mexican roommate was fairly proud that he was of pure European descent. It's a form of racism that most Americans find rather puzzling.
Olivet, Proud American Mut
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posted
I remember a thread not all that long ago where on some award show, Penelope Cruz and Selma Hayek were presenting an award together, and someone said that this was a proud moment for Hispanic women.
That poster was immediately reprimanded for not using the preferred "Latino". Then it was mentioned that Cruz is from Spain, and so not in any way, shape, or form a Latino. I don't remember that thread well enough to know if that made it okay to refer to the two of them as Hispanic or not.
posted
Growing up in the West, the terms that were in use included: Hispano, a person, usually from New Mexico, who's ancestry included persons who were living in the area prior to the US occupation. They were always US citizens.
Chicano, (from the Aztec Chichimeca) a person of Mexican decent who was well culturated into the US. They were usually US citizens.
Mexicano, a person of Mexican decent who exibited the Mexican culture. They were often Mexican citizens.
posted
My wife, from Argentina, strongly prefers the term Latino to Hispanic. Although according to the extensive definition above, she could be considered Hispanic since her grandparents immigrated from Spain. Either way, all she really would like to mark now is "American." However, we as a country are way too focused on race for that to happen.
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posted
I have a weird question/comment. Feel free to clarify if I said anything which is in error. I really hope this doesn't offend anyone as I'm such a product of PC liberal education that I have no means to gauge what is and isn't insulting.
I have read that most Asians are very averse to the term 'Asian-American' or Asian as a general description because the countries and cultures which make up Asia are so different.
Is that a similar case with Hispanics/Latinos as well?
In general, is it considered insulting to be lumped into a whole bundle of other cultures and countries just because a group of people are foreigners who speak the same language (or worship the same religion, or look similar, etc)?
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Kristen: I have a weird question/comment. Feel free to clarify if I said anything which is in error. I really hope this doesn't offend anyone as I'm such a product of PC liberal education that I have no means to gauge what is and isn't insulting.
I have read that most Asians are very averse to the term 'Asian-American' or Asian as a general description because the countries and cultures which make up Asia are so different.
Is that a similar case with Hispanics/Latinos as well?
In general, is it considered insulting to be lumped into a whole bundle of other cultures and countries just because a group of people are foreigners who speak the same language (or worship the same religion, or look similar, etc)?
No, it's true. Don't go to Florida and start calling everyone Mexicans.
There's strong nationalistic pride the Latino community. Puerto Ricans, Ecuadorians, Hondurians, Brazilians, if you're familiar enough with their races it's very easy to tell the differences between them -- and some of the less populous Latino communities in the US are tired of being called Mexican as a lump term.
It really isn't that big a deal, though, in my experience. People are used to it, and even if they aren't... who cares? If they're dedicated enough, they'll correct you and maybe laugh a little at your ignorance. If they aren't, they won't. The same with calling a Thai person Chinese, just a correction and moving on. There's nothing to get in a PC fluster about.
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posted
Depending on the country and on the individual, Hispanic is often the self-identification of the crillos and castizos who don't want to be mistaken for "those other" Latinos.
quote:I have read that most Asians are very averse to the term 'Asian-American' or Asian as a general description because the countries and cultures which make up Asia are so different.
While I would certainly be much happier being called a Japanese-American than an Asian-American, most people I know recognize that there are logical limits to this sort of thing and that Asian-American is a fair descriptor.
I think the reason more asians (and, likely, hispanics) object to the generalized terms is because we've immigrated more recently and there are more single-ethnicity asians and single-ethnicity hispanics than there are single-ethnicity white or black folks, and likely a stronger sense of ethnic identity because of it.
Regardless, I still think of myself as American before Japanese. I'm not sure what my feelings would be like if I were an immigrant.
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posted
While there are a lot of details, the long and short of it is that "Hispanic" references to Spain (i.e., by name). Central and South Americans don't generally prefer to be called Hispanics, because the sense then is that their culture is derivative in some way from Spanish culture. In their eyes, Spain is the country that colonized them and is responsible for all sorts of brutality-for obliterating their culture, in fact. (Imagine if, through some quirk of history and geography, all Jews came to be known as "Germanics.")
I personally don't care, but then, my ancestry is Spanish, not indigenous American. *shrug* I try to use latino all the same, because my current understanding is that this is what the vast majority of the people in question refer. I don't beat anyone over the head with a PC stick, but if you know what a group prefers to be called, it seems nice to use that name. This is the same reason I use African-American--my observations seem to indicate that this is still the preferred term, although I have certainly met blacks who differ.
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posted
My Hispanic friends, all of whom are Mexican or Puerto Rican, prefer Hispanic, but many stress that it is a cultural label, there are Afro-Hispanics in Brasil for example.
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quote: My Beloved's Mexican roommate was fairly proud that he was of pure European descent. It's a form of racism that most Americans find rather puzzling.
I wonder why that is since until very recently in the USA, you weren't considered "white" unless you were of pure European descent (no black or native American ancestry).
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posted
I had the same reaction as you, Rabbit, given the common-ness of anti-African, anti-Asian, and anti-indigenous prejudice here.
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posted
When I was studying Spanish with a south American teacher the distinction was this:
In Spanish the equivelant term of "Hispanic" means a person of a culture which speaks Spanish. As Icarus said, that carries with it its own problems, but the teacher in this case based it entirely on language and language based culture. Thus in that case the Korean and Japanese descended peoples of Peru are Hispanic, as are all other people from Spanish speaking countries. This teacher was of Korean decent, and came from Peru, BTW.
Latino on the other hand, was used more racially; you had to have a particular racial make-up. This was at least the system several teachers of mine discribed. The Peruvian-Korean teacher said he was NOT latino.
However when I lived in Barcelona the question didn't even come up once. I think this has to do with their more considered interest in their own local Catalan identity, which is a whole other issue. They would tell you that they live in Spain, but that they are not even Spaniards... so trying to peg down a label for people who actually live in different official countries seems hopeless to me.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Latino on the other hand, was used more racially; you had to have a particular racial make-up. This was at least the system several teachers of mine discribed. The Peruvian-Korean teacher said he was NOT latino.
Out of curiosity, what was the racial make-up they claimed meant one was latino?
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posted
And are you sure he didn't say 'ladino' which is an anthropological term used that is essentially the equivalent of mestizo (and generally only used in academic writing)?
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: [QUOTE] Out of curiosity, what was the racial make-up they claimed meant one was latino?
Well if I can recall, it was any racial group with a significant amount of Spanish ancestry. I think much of that has to do with how people identify themselves. I suppose there are groups in Mexico who are relatively free of European ancestry even today, so I don't really know what they would prefer to be called. Then there are places like the Phillipines where many people are only a small part Spanish in their ancestry.
I suppose now that you point it out, Latino is a cultural thing as well... but it seems it have more to do with blood relation than "hispanic" does. For instance I had one friend in Highschool who was half Puerto-rican, and I didn't know he was until years after I met him. He didn't call himself latino and he didn't speak a word of Spanish, so I don't know.
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quote:Originally posted by Risuena: And are you sure he didn't say 'ladino' which is an anthropological term used that is essentially the equivalent of mestizo (and generally only used in academic writing)?
posted
I had no idea such a language existed. It sounds VERY much like Spanish to me... I understood the majority of the audio-clips.
" Es kon una immensia alegria i agradesimiento ke saludo vuestra honoravle prezensia en la inaugurasion del Sentro para los Estudios de Ladino ke yeva el nombre de mi mujer i el mio ; el primer sentro ke dedikara estudios akademikos i lavoros sientifikos sovre la lingua, la istoria, i la kultura sefaradi, establisido en muestro pais"
posted
Ladino is to Spanish more or less as Yiddish is to German. Only a bit less diverged, I believe.
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posted
Well.. According to the T-shirts and flags this week.. Mexicans are calling themselves.. MEXICAN.. and find offense in being latino or hispanic!
In the end.. everyone is going to be a latino to me because of the origin of language is latin.. therefore.. latino.
as it is: I'm MIXican American! Posts: 163 | Registered: May 1999
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Yeah, I probably should have made a comment to differentiate ladino people from the Ladino language, but it didn't even occur to me.
Looking at written Ladino, it reminds me a lot of Haitian Kreyol, in that it changes the spellings of a lot of words but it's still extremely recognizable (the only bit of Kreyol that I ever remember: Pwogram Fomasyon pou Oganizasyon Dyakona). Too bad I don't know enough French to figure much out.
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posted
It's worth noting, I think, that "Hispanic" is a word in English, while "latino" is a word in Spanish. That might play into the whole thing as well.
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posted
Hispanic= Hispanico, right? I think I've heard it used, but it could be a spanglish usage.
so latin= latino.
Isn't that the same? we just never ad the "o" in English to any long anglicized words. If a word is short enough, it retaines the original spelling.
For example Arroyo = Arroyo, but "Coldera" in English is based on the Spanish "Cordiera" (sp? I could be way wrong about that, it isn't in my dictionary!). Anyway I notice that when we borrow short words we keep the spelling, while long words get anglified.
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posted
It's all confusing to me. I had a roommate in college for a few years, he was born in America, and his mother was from Mexico. He insisted that he be referred to only as an American, and he disliked any Mexicans who came to American and refused to learn English and identify themselves as Americans. He told me that if they wanted to be Mexican and speak Spanish, they shouldn't have come to American in the first place.
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quote:In the end.. everyone is going to be a latino to me because of the origin of language is latin.. therefore.. latino.
Brazilians too? What about Italians? French? Go ahead, call a Frenchman a latino. See what he says. *grin*
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posted
As a Brazilian, I'd have no problem being labeled a "Latino" (but only if you also call Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, etc... Latinos). I would,though, complain, If labeled a "hispanic" (since Brazil was colonized by Portugal, you see...)
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Judezmo is used to describe the langage spoken by Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. They settled in the Balkan peninsula where the Ottoman Empire welcomed them. There were about 80,000 Judezmo Jews in 1900, but not many remain after the Holocaust.
While Ladino can colloquially refer to Judezmo as the Spanish-speaking Jewish dialect, it actually is a literary bible-based language of Jews speaking Judezmo.
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It seems to be used, sometime even preferred, predominantly by Californian's of Mexican decent who have been in the US citizens for a couple of generations.
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posted
To my understanding, Chicano also includes Californios, people whose lived in California since before it belonged to the US. Don't you dare tell a Californio they are a Mexican, unless you want a tirade.
ahhh... from wikipedia
quote: The term Chicano can also refer to Mexican Americans who have lived in the United States for generations. Some Chicanos/Mexican Americans have lived in parts of the United States before the Treaty of Guadalupe and before some southwestern states, including Texas, California, and Colorado were actually states. The term began to be widely used in the 1960s as a means of claiming one's cultural indigenous roots and reclaiming a heritage and culture encompassing a history unique to the United States. This is also important because the term Chicano is associated with a culture and history that is not shared with other Hispanic groups who live in the United States.
As a cultural thing, most everybody I knew who called themselves Chicanos, seriously identified with Ceasar Chavez for whatever reason.
posted
Chicano is likely derived from the Aztec word Chichimeca the sufex meca is analagous to the spanish sufex ano and the repeated syllable would denote some kind of plural. Chichimeca was a collective term for the "uncivilized" tribes in the north, something like the Greek or Roman designation of "Barbarian." Like I posted earler, the usage several years ago was "a person of Mexican decent who was well culturated into the US. They were usually US citizens." The persons who were refered to as Chicanos on this side of the border were sometimes called "Pochos" on the other side. Pocho is a spanish term refering to english words that have migrated and become spanish like "Mitin" or meeting (Vingan todos al gran mitin.) Or even worse (Puch'e los brekes pero la troca no se par'o.) I don't have a spanish keyboard so I used apostrophes.
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posted
I have heard the Chichimeca derivation story as well. I have also read that is was a play on Mexica (pronounced me-chi-ca) which was the name of the peoples from what is now Mexico City.
The term Hispanic gained wide spread use during the Nixon administration as a generic label of Spanish speaking people or people of Spanish ancesrty. Rejection of the term and subsequent embracing of Chicano or Latino was driven by the desire to identify with indegnous ancestry.
I am a fourth generation Mexican-American. Which term I use depends largely on the situation. Sometimes I use Latino and others I use Hispanic. I almost never use Chicano. I actually think the term American of Mexican ancestry really sums up what I am, though.
By the way...Pocho is usually a term that is used in a very negative way. The connotation is "one who has lost their culture." It is often used as an insult.
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posted
I think "chicano" also has a connotation which sets it apart from "mexicano." One refers colloquially to a a migrant farm worker, and the other to a former worker who now owns a farm. I don't know how common that usage is though... but I have heard it myself.
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