Cultural Imperialism

As your resident latina I feel the need to weigh in on the moniker "Hispanic" as in "Hispanic Heritage Month". Actually, people have been asking me off-blog about the 'hispanic vs. latino' and I just have to weigh in.

If the opening of this post is any indication, and if you are too lazy to peruse our archives, you will see that not once have I used the term hispanic to descibe myself nor my heritage. I detest the word. I loathe the word. I find the word hispanic repulsive and repugnant, to the point of inciting me to acts of violence. Why? Let me give you some reasons :

1. Hispanic assumes that all people in Latin America speak Spanish.
   What about the languages spoken by Haitians (French), Trinidadians(English) or Brazilians (Portuguese)? What about indigenous and creole languages like Aymara, Quechua or Papiamento?

2. Hispanic assumes all people in Latin America have a Spaniard and European ascendancy.
   Along with the fallacy of Spanish-only, even in a place like Puerto Rico (which was a Spanish colony until 1898), Spanish Castillian culture was not the source of most of the Spanish culture in the island.

   Most of the Spaniards that settled in Puerto Rico were not Castillian. These so-called Hispanics were actually non-Spanish speaking Catalanes (Catalunya), Gallegos (Galicia), Mallorquines (Las Mallorcas) and Canarinos (Islas Canarias) with, as per some demographics theories floating around now for more than 30 years, a huge influx of Crypto-Moors and Crypto-Jews from Andalucia and Granada.