When did "Latin" become a race?

[Stinky The Clown]

Latin is an uberethnicity, perhaps. But a race?

(Pardon my ignorance in what follows. I am being sincere, but may well not be using the correct names for the various races I cite).

Some Latins are Caucasian.

Some Latins are Negroid.

Some Latins are Native American.

Some Latins mix some or all of these.

Ethnicity and race are different things, are they not?

I am not trying to be disrespectful; I am trying to learn.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. And I'm curious when I stopped being white or caucasian, and became "non-hispanic".

I don't get that at all, defining though a negative.

[Horse with no Name]

3. The way I understood it when it was explained to me

is that it is a way that the government tracks migrant farm workers and their offspring. Purely statistics. (I'm quite sure of that!):sarcasm:

[RB TexLa]

23. Were you ever hispanic? If not then what is the curiosity about?

Or is it a matter of some kind of caucasian pride to you to have that listed instead of non-hispanic?

[Rabrrrrrr]

28. Was I ever hispanic? How does one change one's race? Geez.

My question is purely one of taxonomy through usage of a negative, and is not me being a racist.

[RB TexLa]

123. I really don't understand. If you are not hispanic, what problem would you have with checking

the box that says "Not Hispanic"?

[Rabrrrrrr]

124. As I said, my question is one of taxonomy.

Why have one category that is defined by what it is not, while everything else is defined by what it is?

[sutz12]

57. I am not Hispanic...

and I have never been Hispanic.

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

74. LOL!

[DireStrike]

29. I noticed that too on a few surveys and things

I'm white, or caucasian, or if you want I can give you 5 different european countries. I'm not "non-hispanic".

[rateyes]

2. I long for the day when none of this stuff matters.

In my mind there is only one race of people--human.

[HamdenRice]

11. I don't. I treasure my identity, culture and family history. nt

[rateyes]

17. Same argument made by those in GA who wanted to keep the

Confederate Flag flying as the state flag. I'm not talking about one's culture and family history. I'm talking about it not mattering in how we treat one another.

[HamdenRice]

27. Ever read Joe Baigent?

I think southern whites -- more specifically, Scots-Irish and hillbillies -- are and should be proud of their heritage as well. I salute them for being proud to have fought for what they considered their country.

But that's different from a political neo-confederate ideology.

Just because I celebrate my heritage doesn't mean that I have to embrace, say, pre-Mecca Malcolm's racial chauvinism or Elijah Mohammad's doctrines.

You are confusing heritage with political ideology.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

35. My identity is homo sapiens.

My culture is the entirety of culture produced since the invention of writing.
And my family history begins around the same time.

My treasure is bigger and better than yours.

[HamdenRice]

36. Ever heard of a Venn Diagram?

Apparently not.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

50. That made no fucking sense whatsoever. And yes, I know what a Venn diagram is.

This is a Venn diagram. Where to draw the "racists" bubble is left as an exercise for the reader.

[HamdenRice]

53. Actually, unless you think there is no overlap between "African American" and "homo sapien"...

as sets, then it is your posts that make no sense.

You seem to be saying that you know what a Venn Diagram is, but yet you can't conceive of a person cherishing both his unique African American heritage and his broader human heritage.

Is that your point?

Most people would draw the Venn Diagram as a large circle for homo sapiens and many overlapping smaller circles entirely inside the homo sapien circle, one of which would be for African Americans.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

54. (A is finite) AND (A contains B) AND (A is not equal to B) => A is bigger than B.

I know my set theory, thank you.

The rest of the discussion is too subjective to be useful.

[JuniperLea]

120. We are all Royal Bastards!

But you should get off your high horse... that condescension was uncalled for.

[MellowDem]

47. Race has nothing to do with your true identity...

It is a social construct that was invented by white slave owners. If you want to treasure a social construct applied to you by no choice of your own for the purposes of economic exploitation, then go ahead I guess.

You can always make the argument that because race matters in society, it is real, which is true. But you will never get rid of race or racism by making it a part of your pride or identity. I think we need to acknowledge its current existence and declining power until it is gone, but I identify myself by my culture, and culture does not equal race.

[HamdenRice]

48. It's sad if you believe that

My culture, heritage and family tradition were not "invented by white slave owners." They were invented in jazz-like improvisational heroic resistance to them and their successors.

[MellowDem]

55. Whatever...

I never said that, but if you want to try to throw a pity party for yourself, go ahead. Race was originally invented for the purpose of exploitation.

Let's say I'm proud of being white. What does that mean? What does it mean to be white? There is no one answer culturally, certainly no biological answer besides melanin count. To assume there is for any race is stupid. Anything I say about what it means to be white would have to be the broadest of generalizations and rely on the narrowest of assumptions. Anything I said would be false. To celebrate race is to celebrate false assumptions and historical prejudice. After all, that is what I would have to rely on to define race in the first place.

Race is going away, slowly but surely, and I think the most ironic and sad thing is that some people are scared and sad that it is going away. And there are those who will fight to keep it alive forever.

[HamdenRice]

56. "a pity party"?-- huh?

Does that mean you can't tell pride from pity?

[MellowDem]

62. No...

it means you accused me of saying your heritage was invented by white slave owners, when I never said that.

[HamdenRice]

63. You: "It is a social construct that was invented by white slave owners. "

Is my cut and paste function not working? Is that quote not accurate?

[MellowDem]

71. It is...

and "it" is the idea of race. It's a historical fact that race was invented to divide the poor whites and poor blacks and make chattle slavery more feasible. To say I'm belittling your heritage by stating historical fact makes no sense.

[EFerrari]

59. To hold the view you hold, you pretty much have to be white

because it's hard to think of another group that has no qualms about telling other people what their identity should be and how to think of themselves.

Another Irony Meter explodes.

[HamdenRice]

64. Sort of like: I look forward to when there are no gays, when there are no women, no blacks, hispanic

As though that would be a great thing. Then we would all be straight white men (of course, the only "universal" identity), and the world would be great and finally we'll all be able to just get along.

[EFerrari]

69. The thing is when people say "race is a construct" they seem to believe

that by abstracting it, they've mastered it. :)

[a la izquierda]

97. 9 times out of 10 I agree with you...

but your comment essentially throws every historian under the bus.
Race IS a social, not a biological construct. It is created to separate, to denigrate.

[EFerrari]

98. No, my comment throws no historian under the bus.

My comment is actually a joke that replicates what the idea of race does -- abstracts people into a category as a means of control.

And, remeber, izquierdista, that the critique of colonialism was written by someone. It wasn't handed down to us on tabletas.

:)

[a la izquierda]

113. Okay, I just misunderstood you

:pals:

[MellowDem]

75. No

But that is quite an awesome jump in logic.

I think all of those things will always have some importance, especially historically, but there will come a time when those identifiers won't mean as much as they used to in the here and now.

It's like you think I am attacking the idea of diversity, wanting everyone to be seen exactly the same. That's not what I want or what I'm striving for. I love diversity, and race stifles it. Why have Irish, Spanish, Italian, Egyptian, etc. when you can just categorize all that as "white"? Or Mexican, Venezuelan, Indian, as "brown". Even nationalities don't cover all the complexities of someone's identity. But race seems to tell you the least about a person while actually projecting the most. It never was a great tool of identification and is just becoming less and less so.

[MellowDem]

65. Blah Blah Blah

Tell me where I told other people what their identity should be. Another false accusation. It's funny, whenever you respond, it's always an accusation based on something I never said and never an actual response to anything substantive.

But since I have to be white to hold my view, let's hope no one else out there in the wide world who isn't "white" holds it, or your precious categorizing ways will be all for naught.

Tell me where I told others how to think for themselves for that matter? I'm stating my opinion. Are you telling me how to think for myself or how to hold my opinion now? Shame, shame on you!

[EFerrari]

67. I could write an essay but let's just take two of your statements.

Race was originally invented for the purpose of exploitation."

Well, no. That is only true if you only consider the viewpoint of the exploiter and not how people of color construct themselves.

There is no one answer culturally, certainly no biological answer besides melanin count.

Again, that is only true if the default is white, isn't it?

And more than either, doesn't it strike you as a little ironic that you're sitting on a discussion board upbraiding HamdenRice for having the "wrong" opinion about race? It should.

[MellowDem]

77. In response...

"Well, no. That is only true if you only consider the viewpoint of the exploiter and not how people of color construct themselves."

Uhh no. Guess what, exploiters have a lot to do with forming the identity of those they exploit and vice versa actually. But if you think race would have come about without slavery and exploitation, then that's your theory. I don't agree with it.


"Again, that is only true if the default is white, isn't it?"

How so? Unless you think that one definition would cover everyone who is black, or Asian, etc. etc.

And I find it a little sad that having a discussion on a discussion board is seen by you as me "upbraiding" HamdenRice. And once again, where did I say that HamdenRice had the wrong opinion about race? It's ok to have different views on race and to even discuss them, even if you are not the same race as the person you are discussing it with! Crazy, ain't it? What's ironic is that you are trying to shut down discussion about race on a discussion board with false accusations and defining who should be able to discuss what based on their own race.

[EFerrari]

78. Your theory of race depends upon taking a view of colonialism

which depends upon the viewpoint of the colonizer. Theories of colonialism hopefully have gone beyond that. White people didn't invent slavery, for one thing.

And I'm not trying to shut down this discussion in any way. :)

[MellowDem]

80. I agree with you there...

it was the particular system of slavery in the US and Caribbean that led Africans to be THE source of slavery for the colonies. Once that happened, the idea of seperating and dehumanizing a slave class in order to control them was nothing new either. The only really new thing was that it was done on the basis of skin color, something that was easily identifiable.

I love maps, and one of the most interesting maps to me is one that was put out by the US census (and I'm eagerly awaiting the new one) that shows the majority ancestry in each county (by how people identified themselves). Besides showing some historical patterns of immigration, it also starkly showed how different regions of the US choose to identify.


http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf (scroll down to page 8 for the map)


Looking at the South, you can see that counties are majority African American in the former Cotton Belt, which makes a lot of sense. What I find really interesting though is the rest of the South, which primarily identifies as "American". This, I think, shows something of the effect of the idea of race on self-identification. While African Americans generally have little knowledge of where their ancestors came from specifically in Africa and thus identify with the broader "African-American" category, many Southern whites do have some idea of their ancestry and where it came from, but they choose to put "American" rather than their ancestry. To me, this is because they identify more with their race than their ancestry. To them, American = white. That is my theory anyways. This is in stark comparison to the rest of the country and seems to be generally divided between the former slave states and everyone else.

To me, it proves that the exploiter/exploited dynamic was defenitely at work. Southern whites categorized all blacks, regardless of their African ancestry, as one people. And in response, Southerners began to categorize themselves as one people as well, regardless of their own ancestry, though I'm sure the making dichotomies such as black/white and slave/free had something to do with it.

Also, I found it interesting that people who did not report their ancestry went up from 9.6% in 1990 to 19.1% in 2000. Either they couldn't identify it or they just didn't care about that as part of their identity, and I have a feeling it is more of the latter.

[EFerrari]

82. That's fascinating and demonstrates one of the reciprocal aspects

of colonialism where it intervenes in identity or even, in subjectivity.

Somewhere in this thread, I pointed out that "Latino" is generally held to mean "from south of the US border" by American citizens. It's mostly used to refer to a mixed blooded populace that came about via intermarriage and for which there is really no cognate in American English because there was no intermarriage up here on the same scale, i.e., there is no ethnicity "American" that correlates with a mixed blooded populace.

So, Americans tend to categorize Latin Americans as all one people but also, themselves as all one people, too, when on both sides of the border, more or less the same opportunity for intermarriage existed and when in fact, there are many, many other identities/ ethnicities/ possibilities.

[CJCRANE]

4. And funnily enough, Caucasia is in Asia

so some Asians are Caucasians...

[The_Commonist]

18. I'm white, but not caucasian!

None of my ancestry is from the Caucasus Mountains, or anywhere near there.

[mmonk]

5. Latin was probably initially a term used

because the Roman Catholic Church was more influencial in that part of the Americas.

[Retrograde]

79. but then French-Canadians would be included (n/t)

[CJCRANE]

6. I think you're right, "Latin" describes language(s) and culture(s), not race.

(Spanish and Portuguese are Latinate languages).

[BlooInBloo]

7. Gosh. Nobody worries more about this stuff than white folks.

:rofl:

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Yanno .... sometimes it is a worry and sometimes it is just a question

But you do your little rofl thing and show us how above it all you are.

You're very special.

:eyes:

[BlooInBloo]

10. Yah.... sometimes.

[schmuls]

46. he doesn't say he's worried, he says it is to learn!

[KharmaTrain]

9. When They Stopped Voting Rushpublican

Today's GOOP is like the Whigs and Know Nothings...a "nativist" party supposedly protecting all things American. In the 19th century this meant demeaning the Irish and Eastern Europeans and Italians and Chinese and Blacks (always the blacks) as some great threat to social order. Then, as now, they ignore the labor and economic importance of immigrants, but it is good political theater as it wins elections and fills the pockets.

The modern GOOP is based on the Southern Strategy...a modern version of the Know Nothings that considers themselves superior and threatened by "outsiders". Since their worldview is of Ozzie & Harriet and Ronnie Raygun, anyone who isn't white, male and christian need not apply. "Aliens" are especially suspect as not only are they inferior, but here to steal or take something. Stereotypes set in and boogiemen and strawmen are created.

Also...Mexicans are NOT Puerto Ricans who are not Cubans who are not Spaniards who are not Colombians...each has its own culture but is broadbrushed by the corporate media and rushpublicans. I find it interesting that when I talk with those from rural areas, their biggest concern are Mexicans as those in the city (depending on which one) will gripe about Puerto Ricans or Cubans or another group. But it's all broadbrushed as it all is a threat to the rushpublican oligarchy.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

12. Since I'm 100% Italian, am I a latina????

just wondering. If the term "latino/a" is applied more to a linguistic issue than an ethnic one, then I would be a latina, since Italian derives from Latin if more so than Spanish and Portuguese do. Incidentally, very few of my Brazilian friends would describe themselves as Latino (and neither would many Argentinians).

[msongs]

15. what town in italy were you born in? nt

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

16. Not a town, but a major city

Bologna, between Florence and Venice.

[MineralMan]

20. Then you're a sausage. There...that's settled.

[closeupready]

39. A poor imitation of the real thing, though.

:rofl: j/k

[Hepburn]

34. Romanian is the modern language closest to Latin.

I am Romanian ~~ and, yes, I do consider myself to be Latin because of this background.

[notesdev]

13. When somebody figured out

how to make money off it

[pinqy]

14. Who is calling it a race?

I don't think I've ever heard "Latin," or the more common "Hispanic" being referred to as a race except perhaps in the loosest sense (and until the last hundred years or so, "race" was often applied to different nationalities such as "German race," "British race," etc.

For the U.S. Government, the 2010 Census asks the following questions:

Note: Please answer BOTH Question 8 about Hispanic origin and Question 9 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.
8. Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

• No, not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin
• Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano
• Yes, Puerto Rican
• Yes, Cuban
• Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin --Print origin, for example, Argentinian, Colombian, Dominican, Nicauraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.

9. What is Person 1's race? Mark x one or more boxes.

• White
• Black, African Am. or Negro
• American Indian or Alaska Native --Print name of enrolled or principal tribe.
• Asian Indian
• Chinese
• Filipino
• Japanese
• Korean
• Vietnamese
• Other Asian --Print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.
• Native Hawaiian
• Guamanian or Chamorro
• Samoan
• Other Pacific Islander -- Print race, for example, Fijian, Tongan, and so on.
• Some other race -- Print race.

Note that one can be of any race or multiple races and also Hispanic.

[MineralMan]

22. I will do as I did before on the census...

I check other and print "Human."

[rocktivity]

19. I thought Latin referred to South Americans

whereas Puerto Ricans, which Sotomayor is, were Hispanics.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[Rosa Luxemburg]

38. Latin Americans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America

[Fountain79]

21. Many Latinos will not identify themselves as

white, black, etc but rather Latino. More so than that culturally/ethnically speaking a black Dominican will find more in common with someone who is not black from Mexico rather than a black person in the US.

Still many Latinos themselves will identify Latino as a race.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

24. I don't know, but it's stupid.

In Europe, Latin people are rightly considered to be people from romance language-speaking countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Romania).

In this country "Latino" or "Hispanic" is defined as anyone with with heritage south of the US border, regardless of race or color.

It seems ridiculous that we consider an indigenous Guatemalan the same race as a white, wealthy, Argentinian.

[mitchtv]

122. La Raza

is what many Latinos use , CHE said we are a single mestizo race from Tierra del Fuego to Mexico.. a bit of a stretch but I can live with it

[ecstatic]

25. My understanding is that it refers to people from "Latin American" regions

like anywhere in South America/Central America/and I think Mexico. I thought Puerto Rico fell into the Caribbean region and therefore was not considered Latin but I have no idea.

[RoyGBiv]

26. It's all a social construction ...

One could argue until we're all green and purple and pink about what constitutes a "race" as opposed to an ethnicity. The bottom line is that these words are defined by the person or group using them and are therefore mutable in that meaning.

The traditional difference, broadly speaking, is that "race" concerns biology whereas "ethnicity" concerns cultural traits. But that traditional meaning has about ten thousand exceptions.

IOW, I wouldn't worry myself over what the 'real' definition is and just pay attention to the intended meaning behind the words.

[marmar]

30. Latinos are an ethnic group technically, but defacto in America, they're a racial group.....

..... It's semantics.

[sparticus]

31. When someone figured out Benjamin Cardozo was Hispanic

Got to have a "first", so "Latino" was used after the "first Hispanic" mantra got grabbed by Hoover.

[Hepburn]

32. I was just coming to post the same question in GD...

...GMTA.

As far as I know, there are about 4 or 5 distinct categories on the list of the races of mankind and "Latin" and/or "Hispanic" is not on that list.

BTW: I am considered Latin because I am Romanian. So, should I stop putting "white" or "caucasian" on applications and check the box for "other"?

:shrug:

[MgtPA]

33. When I went to school (awhile ago, I admit) there were 3 races -

Caucasoid, Mongaloid and Negroid.

Further breakdowns were ethnicity, tribe, etc.

[MicaelS]

37. I'm curious too...

So what are the technical, cultural, etc, differences between Latino and Hispanic? Speaking of Venn diagrams, anyone got one handy?

[Enrique]

43. I think they mean the same thing

Hispanic has some technical meanings, but the common usage of hispanic I think is the same as latino, and there are various definitions, and imo the differences are arbitrary. Some definitions include Brazil, some include Spain, some include Portugal.

Chicano I think is specific to Mexico.

[EFerrari]

52. Some Latinos categorically reject the term "hispanic" on political grounds,

i.e., because it's being named after your colonizer.

[Enrique]

58. and some reject Latino because it's too Eurocentric

c'est la vie. :-)

[EFerrari]

60. LOL! That's true!

[Winterblues]

40. Silly me I thought the ONLY Race was Human...

:shrug:

[marmar]

42. In reality that's true.....but we're dealing with the social constructs in this thread.

There's the idealistic world and the real world.

[EFerrari]

45. And then there's DU.

:P

[EFerrari]

41. When you try to figure out what "Latino" means, you wind up tracking down

all the different DNA that wound up in Latin America after the first contact with the indigenous peoples. White northern Europeans, Africans who were taken there or even dropped off as "bad" slaves on the north coast of Nicaragua,

One thing that has to strike you at some point is that the indigenous people in many modern Latin American counties managed to survive the Spanish somewhat more intact that many indigenous peoples here up north and how that happened in part by intermarriage. That's mostly why "Latino" is considered a race (Mestizo) and why "American" isn't. It's more complicated than that, but isn't that at bottom what is being referred to?

In a way, we're describing the different strategies northern Europeans deployed among the people they encountered here and how each people responded to those strategies. The French, for example, and specifically de La Salle, had a whole program of intermarriage planned. The English had other ideas, the Spanish theirs, the Portuguese, the Dutch and so on.

Most people don't get that far and seem to romanticize "American Indians" on one hand and fret about "illegal immigration" withut ever relating the two ideas. And don't even start with Harry Belafonte.

[eauclaireliberal]

44. Latin is a general, broad term that people (esp business and media)

...like to use for a variety of reasons.

[MellowDem]

49. Don't worry...

It is meant to not make sense, just like everything else with race, a completely made up social construct that can't help but contradict itself.

Hispanic means spanish-speaking, but you could be any race.

Latin usually means from Central and South America. Why Latin, a dead language from ancient Rome? I have no idea. Spanish is a latin based language?

Non-hispanic white just means you are white and don't speak spanish (as a native language I guess?)

Basically, the whole point of categorizing people like this is supposedly to make sure that racism isn't a factor in whatever you are applying for, but a lot of times it just becomes another tool for racism and division, a sort of way to play identity politics, as we saw all too often in the election and primaries.

Whenever I'm asked what race I am, I always put "choose not to answer" because the whole thing is complete bullshit.

[JackRiddler]

99. "Choose not to answer"? Means, almost certainly, you're white. Sorry.

It's okay to be mildly uncomfortable with that.

[Mrs. Overall]

51. Not a race, but a language: epublicansray reay tupidsay.

[indigo32]

61. reading this conversation is so funny

I just had a similar one with my partner, who is of Mexican descent, and fairly bilingual. She despises the term latina/o and chicana/o. She considers herself hispanic if anything. She went out of her way to point out that Sotamayer refers to herself as 'hispanic'. I pressed her on it, for learning purposes only (what does a scandihuvian MN gal know), and she couldn't really explain it. Though she did mention that Latina/o seems to be more west coast and hispanic east.

[borelord]

66. Race

Is a cultural construct. Anthro 101. Time to get over it.

[EFerrari]

68. Culture exists. Time to deal with it.

[borelord]

72. think you missread me

I was (possibly crassly) trying to point out that by calling any group a race we are mentally making them some kind of separate genus when in fact we are all the same creature viewing the world through unique cultural perspective. Maybe it's semantics but i think "culture" is less divisive than the myth of race.

If I don't make sense I'll shut up now.

[EFerrari]

73. It doe make sense and it certainly is accurate -- up to a point.

The pitfall in any discussion about race, though, is to avoid replicating the original sin of abstracting other people out of their sneakers by naming them. In other words, who's construct are we talking about?

And that's why Stinky's question about Latinos is a brilliant and complicated one. :)

[tjwash]

70. White folks do love to slice and dice other white folks into small fucking groups, don't they?

Especially when it happens to kill any "racial superiority" arguments they may have. I always have a chuckle when some of the idjits I work with refer to "Jewish" like it's a race.

[Chovexani]

83. Latin@s are not all white people.

That would be news to my Dominican family in Washington Heights.

And Jewish folk are simultaneously an ethnicity and a religious group.

The correct version of your post would be, "white people sure love to define other people's identities for them".

[Badgerman]

76. The test for are they the same...call a Cuban or Puerto Rican a Mexican...and DUCK! no cohesive...

cohesieness...the ONLY thing determining latino/a status is spanish language and spanish system as foundation of the culture. MAny mixes and believe me thye do NOT resemble one another, nor do they want to. American gringos and most Americans of spanish descent are Meixcan in origen, therefor to the stupid masses ALL spanish speakers are Mexicans!

[Beacool]

104. You want to really start a fight?

Then confuse a Puerto Rican with a Dominican, a Colombian with a Venezuelan, a Peruvian with a Chilean, a Mexican with a Central American, an Argentinian with an Uruguayan, etc.

The main thing that unites Latin America is its language and even then there are many variables. The food, music and culture vary from country to country.

In this country we like to lump people together and place them in a niche. When we see a blond blue eyed Argentinian, for example, it throws us into a loop because he/she doesn't fit our preconception of what a Hispanic "should" look like. Color as ignorant.....

:eyes:

[Terran]

81. The federal government does not classify "Latin" as a race.

Check the Census, or any federal agency that collects data on race. One's status as Latin is determined independently of one's 'race', so that you can designate yourself as a person of African ancestry who is Latin, or not Latin, for instance.

That said, I don't know of any Latinos who feel that that *isn't* their race.

[Cleita]

84. As a Latina myself, the term as far as I know is a self-described term

to distinguish ourselves from northern Europeans. Latinos are Europeans of mediterranean countries who spoke Latin way back when. I believe the term stuck when the New World was invaded by Europeans of both north and south to distinguish those who spoke Spanish or Portuguese contrary to those who spoke English. Yes, we who originated from south of the border do come in all colors and stripes so it's not a word to denote race.

[EFerrari]

87. I thought it was what Orson Wells called Rita Hayworth.

:)

[Cleita]

91. "Quien sabe."

:shrug:

:hi:

[EFerrari]

93. Hey, Cleita!

:hi:

[Chovexani]

85. I'm sure glad we colored folk have white people to explain these things to us.

[EFerrari]

86. Nice construct, Evita.

lol

[Chovexani]

89. Damn soda burns when it goes up your nose

Don't do that to me again. :spray: :hug:

[EFerrari]

90. Lol.

:pals:

:)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

88. "Negroid?"

:wtf:

[Truth2Tell]

94. Negroid...

[Stinky The Clown]

114. Why did you feel the need to say that?

Was this not enough for you?

"(Pardon my ignorance in what follows. I am being sincere, but may well not be using the correct names for the various races I cite)."

Of course, knowing you, its all about the fight.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

118. Thanks, Stinky

I'm just in shock at seeing that term.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

92. Check out "Journey of Man"-Spencer Wells

He makes a good case for there being only one race.

----------------------------------------------------
“Genetics, I think, resoundingly has answered the question of where we ultimately came from, we came out of Africa. And we came out quite recently, within the last 50 or 60 thousand years,”
--Spencer Wells

[JoseGaspar]

95. WTF is a "Caucasian"?

Is it one of these guys?

[Bucky]

96. Race is mostly an arbitrary categorization scheme

"Race" used to mean nationality in the 18th century (John Adams used to speak of the "American race"--not meaning whites but meaning the collection of people who comprised the United States without regard to national origin--although in all likelihood blacks didn't come into his thinking despite their presense in the New England population at the time).

Today it's a loose and unreliable designation of what continent your ancestors came from--an entirely elusive definition, and not only because all of our ancestors came from Africa.

But for most of our country's history we had the convenience of two major races, black and white, that could be counted and one race that, by consensus and census, was not counted at all. Then the muddle happened. A rainbow of Asians joined our nation and have remained ludicrously lumped into one ethnic category. West Asians moved to America and got counted as Caucasians--the current US Census way of drawing the distinction is that if you're born in Iran, you're Caucasian and if you're born in Pakistan you're Asian--another arbitrary distinction.

If you're born in Egypt or Libya or Morocco, you're not African-American. African-American applies to blacks as a single race, even though, as Jared Diamond points out, black subsaharan Africans are properly divided into three entirely distinct racial haplotypes--not counting subsaharan Africans from, say, Madagascar, who are actually a blend of the racial groups of African Bantus and "Asian" Indonesians (who are counted as Asian ethnically, even though Indonesia isn't part of Asia). Meanwhile we have the ludicrous definition that the American children of Koreans, Bangladeshis, Vietnamese, Sri Lankans, Han-Chinese, and Pashtuns are all of the same race.

And I haven't even started talking about racially mixed kids, even though that covers an increasing percentage of Americans. Speaking of "mixed", the racial notion of "mestizos" as understood in Mexican culture--where official policy is "we're all mestizos"--came about because of the Spanish colonial legacy of designated such a ridiculously specific hodge-podge of races and the political rights permitted to each separate group, that by 1800 they had over 20 different legally defined castas--sundry blends of African, Indian, Spanish, and non-Spanish European, each strictly defined (and pragmatically unenforceable).

Today we think of race more as a social identity but fool ourselves into believing there's some biological reasoning behind it. There's not. Blacks in generations past accused of passing as white were in fact more white than black to begin with, if you just go by ancestry. But ancestry was the least of the concerns. When in mid century Latinos gained enough geographic spread to be considered a unique political grouping in the US, the culture began to think of Hispanics as a separate race. Had it debuted a decade later, I doubt you could have had an "I Love Lucy" show on TV in a racially segregated America; but until the mid 50s, Cubans of mostly Spanish extraction were considered white. Today I doubt Gloria Estafan or Andy Garcia would self identify as white.

But the science of demography doesn't account for transient cultural fads such as racial identity. Demographers pretend there's a science to what they measure, but in truth race is entirely self-determined in this country. If you want to pass yourself off as Asian or African, you have only to fill in that bubble on your census form. I doubt it'll get you any extra scholarships, but it's your right.

So race means nothing, but still it means everything, because all white people walk like this, but all black people walk like this...

[Beacool]

100. You are absolutely correct.

Hispanic is NOT a race, it's an ethnic group. It's as ignorant to call it a race as it would be to call Italians, Germans, Irish, etc. a "race". Hispanics belong to all races: Caucasian, Black, Asian, Native, etc. and any combination thereof.

I find that this is probably the only country where Hispanics are viewed as a separate race. Elsewhere, their race is irrelevant to their ethnic group.

:crazy:

[Bucky]

101. Except that race is arbitrary and moist Latinos self-identify as a separate race

Besides which, the majority of Hispanics are mestizo, a blend of Spanish and American Indian racial haplogroups--and it is that particular "recipe" of racial stock that makes one Hispanic. It really is a distinct race, matching neither the Native American nor the Caucasian definition.

[redqueen]

103. Uh oh... better not say "Hispanic" here...

apparently that's a word made up by white people... it's s'posed to be "Latino" or "Latina".

I learned that today here on DU. And I'm half Mexican. I feel so very deeply ashamed.

[Bucky]

105. That's largely a regional thing, tho it's starting to spread

Usta be you'd only hear "Latina/Latino" out of California--then it spread to the East Coast. But in Texas it was always Hispanic. I spent 10 years with a marketing firm that specialized in the Spanish language advertising market and watched the geographic progression of the terms. I don't know if "Hispanic" is still "palabra non grata" on the Golden Coast, but the two terms are used fairly interchangeably here in Texas still. I expect over the next decade or so for the term "Latino/Latina" to bypass Hispanic as the accepted term of art, but for Hispanic to loose its offense. The only objective advantage "Latina" has is that it brings Haitians and Brazilians under the umbrella (but NOT the Quebecois).

Fashions shift. But no, you oughtn't to be ashamed of not knowing that.

On the other hand, I am deeply offended that you're a REDqueen rather than a BLUEqueen!

[EFerrari]

116. Oye chico, at least the ancient Romans never colonized *us* like the Spanish did!

lol

[redqueen]

119. LOL... well that's what the theory's called, so I'm stuck with it.

:)

As for "Hispanic"... I'm fine with it. :shrug:

[Beacool]

106. I don't agree.

Tell an Uruguayan or Argentinian that they are "mestizo" and see how well it goes. There are plenty of Hispanics who are not of mixed race and are neither mestizos nor mulattos. Argentina is even more caucasian than the US, check it out:

Argentina
Ethnic Groups:
86.5% European (mostly Italian and Spanish)
8% Mestizo
1.5% Amerindian
4% Other

USA
Ethnic Groups:
White 80.0%
African American 12.8%
Asian 4.4%
Native American and Alaskan Native 1.0%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 0.2%
Multiracial 1.6%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 15.1%


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa

[Bucky]

108. Well, as long as we're dueling Wikipedia pages...

True, Argentina is more caucasian than the US. But Argentinians are not a significant factor among US Latinos. The vast majority of US Hispanics are of Mexican national origin. There's nearly 60 Mexican Americans in the US for every single Argentinian American.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_in_the_United_States#Demographics

{Hispanic} Population by national origin (2007)
Hispanic Group   ↓   Population   ↓   Percentage
Mexican               29,189,334       64.3%
Argentine                 194,511         0.4%
Uruguayan                 48,234         0.1%


So not surprisingly, my comments are based on what I know about the vast majority of Hispanic Americans. Among Mexican Americans, about equal numbers identify themselves as White and "other". What the Wiki page doesn't tell you, but what I learned from 10 years in the demographic research dodge with a firm specializing in the Hispanic market is that there's a significan age skew to which Mexican Americans say they're white vs those saying they're other. The faster growing group and those under 35 are much more likely to identify as other--which >90% of the time means "Mestizo" except that we don't have that term in US demographics (yet).

These are 2000 Census figures found on Wikipedia. In the 2010 figures, you'll see "other" pass up "white" as the term of self identification in the Hispanic consumer market by a significant number.

{Hispanic} Race by national origin (2000)
Country of Origin   ↓   White   ↓   Black   ↓   Some Other Race
Mexican                   47.3%       0.7%      45.5%
South American         59.6%       0.9%      30.8%

I was surprised to see the white vs other ratio among South Americans just at 2 to 1. I'm pretty sure that's a function of the more northern South Americans being here in greater number (and of the tendency of Caribbean area non-white Latinos being more likely to come to the US).

[Beacool]

109. It has to do with economics.

Argentina until WWII was doing quite well financially. That's the reason that many European immigrants emigrated there at the same time that they were coming here. A country that had 6 million people around the turn of the 20th century received 2 million immigrants from Europe in less than 50 years from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Half of the names in the phone book in Buenos Aires are of Italian origin. Their culture is far more European that what is considered here to be "Latin".

I went to boarding school in Buenos Aires and love the city. It's not called the "Paris of the South" for nothing. Great food, great wine and sophisticated people. When I go there I love to go to the theater and browse through Corrientes Ave. where the used bookstores run one into the other. Most of them are open until midnight and it's a joy to find out of print treasures among their eclectic selections.

:-)

[Number23]

112. "moist Latinos"????

moist Latinos self-identify as a separate race

What do the ashy ones self-identify as?? :rofl:

[EFerrari]

117. Firey, of course!

[jberryhill]

115. That's Why Lucille Ball And Desi Arnaz Could Be Married And On TV!

...and broadcast into respectable homes on small screens.

[undeterred]

102. When they started speaking it in Latin America,

during Quayle's term, I believe.

[armyowalgreens]

107. I've never heard latin used for anything other than ethnicity.

[JerseygirlCT]

110. Well, "race" itself is an artifical construction, really

Those differences are largely cosmetic, and nearly impossible to really isolate.

But yes, sure - Spanish speaking people are all over the globe, and come in a wealth of shades and many different ethnic backgrounds.

[Catherine Vincent]

111. It doesn't matter

Have you guys ever seen "Quest for Fire"? Unfortunately that is the race we all came from. Ick! :)

[uppityperson]

121. Latin is a language. The term "Latin America" has been applied

to areas of the Americas which Spain colonized, bringing Spanish language which has Latin roots.

Where are people being called just "Latin"?