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 :
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?
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.
The rest of Latin America is even more complex. The Argentinian lilt is attributed to the massive influx of Southern Italians during the turn of the 20th century. Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, they all got some massive waves of Persian Jews and Christian Lebanese during the 2nd half of the 20th. The sugar explosion could not have happened without the indentured servitude of hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Filipino laborers throughout the whole region. Peru's Japanese community is influential enough to have had elected Alberto Fujimori as President.
And of course, I wouldn't be here had it not been for African slavery.
Hispanic somehow has come to mean WHITE in this country.
Nothing tells you how badly gringos want to have latinos, who are in their majority a dark-skinned mixed breed of humanity notwithstanding Univision's blurred racial vision of us, than what the US Census has been pulling off since the "Hispanics" came into demographic prominence in this country, especially with the first major internal migration of Puerto Ricans back in the 1940s. Why?
"Mexican" was instituted as a race back in the 1930s but it's a category that denies other latinos groups. So what did people at the Census started doing? They took Puerto Ricans' self-classification as "Others" to mean we are "White".
This is the aspect of "Hispanic" that makes me want to punch somebody in the face.
The history of census data on Hispanic origin (which is identified as an ethnic origin rather than as a race in federal statistics) is quite different from the history of census data on race. While there were various indicators of portions of the Hispanic origin population, including data on mother tongue, data on the population with Spanish surname, and the designation of Mexican as a race in the 1930 census, the first attempt to identify the entire Hispanic origin population was in 1970.
The Hispanic origin population of the United States was defined three different ways in 1970 census reports, the first and second based on 15-percent sample data and the third based on 5-percent sample data: (1) as the Spanish language population (the population of Spanish mother tongue plus all other individuals in families in which the head or wife reported Spanish mother tongue); (2) as the Spanish heritage population (the population of Spanish language and/or Spanish surname in the five Southwestern states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, the population of Puerto Rican birth or parentage in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and the population of Spanish language elsewhere; and (3) as the population of Spanish origin or descent based on self-identification. The Spanish origin population in 1970 was overstated in some states, especially in the Midwest and South, because some respondents interpreted the questionnaire category of "Central or South American" to mean central or southern United States.
Data on Hispanic origin were collected on a 100-percent basis in 1980 and 1990, reflecting the release of Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 1977).
[...]
In the case of Other race, there was a dramatic population increase from 1970 to 1980. This reflected the addition of a question on Hispanic origin to the 100-percent questionnaire, an increased propensity for Hispanics not to identify themselves as White, and a change in editing procedures to accept reports of "Other race" for respondents who wrote in Hispanic entries such as Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican. In 1970, such responses in the Other race category were reclassified and tabulated as White.
(Emphasis mine)
It was Spain, not England, that instituted the slave trade in "The New World" right after they killed off through slave labor and disease 90% of the native populations of the Caribbean. Spain and Portugal were the largest slave-traders in the world, starting as far back as the late 1500's and way before it was introduced in any of the Thirteen Colonies.
Somehow that makes all "hispanics" white.
Last, but not least, Hispanic somehow romanticizes Spanish Imperialim in the Americas.
This is probably the biggest reason for me to reject the use of the term. It's used to glamorize an colonial past. That somehow the King and Queen of Spain were a better imperial tyranny than the US Congress because, gosh darn it, at least they were our original owners.
And there you have some of my main reasons to hate Hispanic Heritage Month.
Submitted by HispanicPundit (not verified) on 3 October 2007 - 12:29am.
This is all fine but then when you get into other terms like Latino, Chicano, Mexican-American, Mexican, South American, Latin American, and so forth you realize that they too have shortcomings and/or over generalizations. So at the end of the day you are left with a bunch of definitions of which none are perfect.
In addition, while 'Hispanic' may have meant one thing in the past, like language in general, it has evolved (especially among raza) to encompass a far more 'Latin American (including Puerto Rican)' group of people. As any linguist will tell you, the definition of terms is not what central powers give it, but how everyday users of the word define it. And in everyday usage, "Hispanic" has evolved to overcome many of the shortcomings you cite.
Finally, not only is this an insignificant battle but it is a battle you are not likely to win. Hispanic has become so embedded in everyday language that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stop its usage. Unless you get every Hispanic to take a Chicano (a term, btw, not lacking in its own problems) Studies course - and most have enough sense not to waste their time - you are not likely to motivate anybody enough to work hard against its usage - leaving the word to be defined by the masses instead of leading to its elimination.
Which brings me to an alternative approach. If the definition of Hispanic pisses you off so much, instead of trying to eliminate its usage, why not try to focus its usage on what it means to the everyday person? This has been my approach. Instead of giving up the term to the anglo government census, I have used the term to mean precisely what many take it to mean - a person of Latin American descent. So as a first generation Mexican-American, I wear the term proudly and everybody who sees what I look like will have a much more refined definition of the term.
This is all fine but then when you get into other terms like Latino, Chicano, Mexican-American, Mexican, South American, Latin American, and so forth you realize that they too have shortcomings and/or over generalizations. So at the end of the day you are left with a bunch of definitions of which none are perfect.
The fact you can't parse out nationality and political terms here is ... well ... Mexican is not a shortcoming. It's a national term that has been muddled in this country by the Census giving it a racial status. It's insane. Not everybody Mexican is Mexica.
In addition, while 'Hispanic' may have meant one thing in the past, like language in general, it has evolved (especially among raza) to encompass a far more 'Latin American (including Puerto Rican)' group of people.
We're going to the mat on this one. Outside of the US NOBODY calls themselves an "hispano". In Latin America we are all latinoamericanos. Maybe, just maybe "hispanoamericanos", but it's a term that especially after the 1960's and the "Latinoamerican Boom", nobody really uses anymore.
As any linguist will tell you, the definition of terms is not what central powers give it, but how everyday users of the word define it. And in everyday usage, "Hispanic" has evolved to overcome many of the shortcomings you cite
My background is in Language and Literature with a big dose of linguistics. My point of contention is not the everyday use of the term. It's Power's use of the term.
Why would the census choose to mark as WHITE people who define themselves as OTHER and HISPANIC?
And why would a "hispanic" choose to use the term if not to become that new other "white"?
Finally, not only is this an insignificant battle but it is a battle you are not likely to win. Hispanic has become so embedded in everyday language that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stop its usage. Unless you get every Hispanic to take a Chicano (a term, btw, not lacking in its own problems) Studies course - and most have enough sense not to waste their time - you are not likely to motivate anybody enough to work hard against its usage - leaving the word to be defined by the masses instead of leading to its elimination.
Oh, so the masses don't read?
WTF!
Which brings me to an alternative approach. If the definition of Hispanic pisses you off so much, instead of trying to eliminate its usage, why not try to focus its usage on what it means to the everyday person? This has been my approach. Instead of giving up the term to the anglo government census, I have used the term to mean precisely what many take it to mean - a person of Latin American descent. So as a first generation Mexican-American, I wear the term proudly and everybody who sees what I look like will have a much more refined definition of the term.
Submitted by cindylu (not verified) on 3 October 2007 - 3:14am.
I think I hate the Census classifying us (and by us I mean Raza, Latinos or whatever other panethnic term you want to use) as white more than I hate the term Hispanic. I read a sociology book on immigration where these big name sociologists hypothesized that people who marked "white" as their race somehow had a more assimilated view of themselves. That was the stupidest thing I'd ever read and wondered how their editors/reviewers let it pass.
That people just play along unquestioningly says a lot about the state of racism within the latinamerican communities that become "hispanic" in this country.
Submitted by Josh (not verified) on 1 November 2007 - 1:24pm.
Let me get this straight, Lou Dobbs is a bigot because he is against illegal immigration. I find it interesting that this is the only country on Earth that thinks it's not correct to consider our own interests in choosing immigrants. Try showing up in any other country on the planet, illiterate and penniless, and announcing: "I've seen pictures of your country and it looks great. I think I'd like to live here! Oh, and by the way, would you mind changing all your government and business phone messages, street signs and ballots into my native language? Thanks!" They would laugh you out of the country. What seems not to have occurred to you is that this is a country, not a public park.
There are more than 6 billion people in the world, many of whom apparently like the idea of living in the wealthiest democracy on Earth. But if the billions of people of the world did live here, it wouldn't be "here" anymore. America is special for a reason that must transcend the right to vote — or everyone would be trying to immigrate to Iraq right now.
America has a seller's market in immigration, but thanks to Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law, we no longer favor skilled workers from developed nations, but instead favor unskilled immigrants from the Third World. Kennedy's bill promptly cut the number of European immigrants in half and increased Third World immigrants to 85 percent of the total.
Not surprisingly, post-1965 immigrants have sharply higher levels of poverty and welfare dependence. Europeans may not seem like ideal new immigrants, but the truth is, if what they want is welfare, they'll stay in France.
It's as if we've got the last Xbox 360s available on Christmas Eve and instead of doubling the price, we're entertaining low-ball offers. Or more accurately, we're paying our customers to take the darn things off our hands — and the customers are still indignant with us. As hardworking as illegal immigrants are when they come here, they are immediately demagogued by liberals into adopting the victimhood pose so popular on college campuses. Everybody wants to act like his ancestors were brought here on slave ships. If America is such a bad, racist country Lisa, why did you move back here? Why are people of color from all over the world dying to come here? To be oppressed?
Consider this e-mail from Michele Waslin, La Raza's director of Immigration Policy Research, to her members denouncing Sen. Lamar Alexander's proposal to provide government grants to immigrants who want to learn English and American history and to organizations offering those courses. (I'd be happy with a law that simply trained new immigrants not to be "offended" all the time.)
Even though this potentially meant free money for La Raza, Waslin — of the Guadalajara Waslins — ominously warned that while the amendment "doesn't overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional American values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities."
Meanwhile, Americans aren't allowed to consider whether millions of immigrants refusing to learn English and American history is "potentially dangerous to our communities." Here, please — we'll pay you, just take the whole Xbox 360 factory.
I'm not touching most of this since it wasn't aimed at me...Liza can handle you herself just fine. But I would like to point out that Liza was born American. She's from Puerto Rico. Last I looked, that is officially and completely part of America. So don't talk to her about moving "here" because we incorporated Puerto Rico into "here" long before she was born. If you want to rant, fine. But at least keep it factual.
The % of migrant workers coming in to the US is actually small compared to Europe and other parts of the world.
Second, you're full of shit when you call migrant workers of today less skilled than the European rif raf that came here at the turn of the 20th century. Mostly agrarian people with very literacy in their own languages who basically ended up in slums across all the major cities of this country. NYC wouldn't be what it is had it not been for the urban refuse of italians, germans, irish, greek and other europeans who littered our landscape in the 1800s.
Third, asshole, I was born here and even if I had been born in Puerto Rico, I still would be a natural born American.
And the future of this country is supposed to be in the hands of gringos like you?
Submitted by Josh (not verified) on 3 November 2007 - 11:51pm.
You said this racist thing: "NYC wouldn't be what it is had it not been for the urban refuse of italians, germans, irish, greek and other europeans who littered our landscape in the 1800s." Those ethnic groups you degraded built NYC. They came to this country legally, and have made great contributions to this country. The fact is that about half of those interned by the U.S. government during WWII were Italian-Americans and German-Americans. Needless to say, no of those internees have received money, an apology or a monument and their sufferings have been erased from history.
It's interesting that you refuse to respond to any of my points. Those groups came here to give their children a better life. Assimilation was the goal. Mexicans who are coming here today don't have the same intentions. As La Raza has said that they are against assimilation.
There are innumerable reasons to want our border secure. We know our infrastructure is being ravaged--emergency rooms overwhelmed, hospitals closing, our highways jammed, school rooms overcrowded, tax revenue lost, it goes on and on. When illegal immigrants are discussed in the media, the picture painted is of a hard working family man or woman, the sort of person President Bush refers to when he pitches his "guest worker" program. "Hard working people who want a better way of life," is how he casts them.
While many fit that bill, the dirty little secret is the fact that illegal aliens are not only destroying our infrastructure by stealing valuable services such as health care and schooling, they're also committing horrific crimes throughout our great nation. The fact that police departments in virtually every major city (and not so major ones) spend their time responding to crime by illegal aliens, looking for the illegal alien culprits, arresting illegal aliens (when their local laws allow them to), processing them through the system, means more officers, more departments, are stretched to the limit, by people who shouldn't be here in the first place.
At the end of that road, our prison system then provides them with, shall we say, a quality of life (shelter, food, protection, health care, cable television, gyms) one would not find in regular housing in the pit of any South American city. The latest insult to this nation, the latest slap in the face we receive by those who use this country like a convenient dish rag, is a continuation of that rape, but this time it’s a literal one.
On October 4, 2005 WKMG television in Florida reported on their website that fourteen “field laborers broke into an 18-year-old woman’s home, dragged her across the street and then took turns raping her.†This rampaging gang of “field laborers†consisted of men ranging in age from 18 to 56. The victim reported they choked her until she passed out. When she awoke, they were pouring alcohol in her mouth. She was then raped by each and every one of them. When these animals finished they pushed her out the front door like a piece of used meat. Somehow this girl managed to get to a phone where she called the police. Deputies arrested the 14 men who were still at the house where the rape occurred. They will be charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and sexual battery by multiple perpetrators. They face life in prison if convicted.
Not until we get to the end of the WKMG website story is the fact that the rapists aren’t just “farm laborers.†Indeed, they are all illegal aliens. Only at the end of their story do we learn, “Twelve of the men are from Guatemala, one from Puerto Rico and the other from Mexico.â€
The rather euphemistic headline is our first clue that it’s now very politically incorrect to even state the truth about a situation when it comes to illegals. The fact is, besides the obvious primary importance of the girl being gang raped, the other clearly important cultural element is the fact that it was carried out by a gang of illegal aliens.
This is not, unfortunately, a freakish, one-of-a-kind event. Last year, the L.A Times addressed the astounding impact of illegal alien criminals. The Globe noted that in Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.
And that’s just that statistics of one city in the midst of a nationwide problem. Our nation's security rests on our securing the borders; that's a given. Most of our persuasion and rhetoric on the issue has been based in the points I made at the beginning of this article. I contend, however, the much-ignored security threat posed by illegal aliens is at least as insidious (if not more so) as al-Qaeda. When it comes to illegal immigration, the president not only hasn’t declared war on the group responsible for a massive wave of crime including murder and rape, but wants to invite them in with a guest worker program. Instead of supporting the incredibly courageous Minuteman Project, the president calls them “vigilantes.†I wonder, how many rapes and murders were stopped because of their success in sealing the border in April? The Minutemen have returned for October, thank goodness, with 4500 hundred volunteers. This time, it’s not just Arizona, but the entire 2,000 mile Mexican/American border that is under watch.
While it is too late for the young woman in Florida, and all the others who will be victimized by illegals in the days and weeks to come, we can no longer ignore our duty to expose the dirty little secret of illegal alien crime. I contend, however, it’s not just contempt for the law, but contempt for the people of this nation. After all, after they pushed their victim out the door like a piece of trash, their staying on the premises said volumes. They didn't expect her to do a thing about the violence they inflicted on her. The contempt was present in the act and even after the fact. It's time for every American to exhibit some righteous contempt of our own--contempt for being used, contempt for those who commit violence, contempt for those eating away at this nation like parasites.
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Obama sketched out a different theory of social change than the one Clinton had implied earlier in the evening. Instead of relying on a president who fights for those who feel invisible, Obama, in the climactic passage of his speech, described how change bubbles from the bottom-up: “And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world!â€
For people raised on Jane Jacobs, who emphasized how a spontaneous dynamic order could emerge from thousands of individual decisions, this is a persuasive way of seeing the world. For young people who have grown up on Facebook, YouTube, open-source software and an array of decentralized networks, this is a compelling theory of how change happens.
Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning.
But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. — as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.
Clinton had sounded like Old Politics, but Obama created a vision of New Politics. And the past several months have revolved around the choice he framed there that night. Some people are enthralled by the New Politics, and we see their vapors every day. Others think it is a mirage and a delusion. There’s only one politics, and, tragically, it’s the old kind, filled with conflict and bad choices.
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This is all fine but then
This is all fine but then when you get into other terms like Latino, Chicano, Mexican-American, Mexican, South American, Latin American, and so forth you realize that they too have shortcomings and/or over generalizations. So at the end of the day you are left with a bunch of definitions of which none are perfect.
In addition, while 'Hispanic' may have meant one thing in the past, like language in general, it has evolved (especially among raza) to encompass a far more 'Latin American (including Puerto Rican)' group of people. As any linguist will tell you, the definition of terms is not what central powers give it, but how everyday users of the word define it. And in everyday usage, "Hispanic" has evolved to overcome many of the shortcomings you cite.
Finally, not only is this an insignificant battle but it is a battle you are not likely to win. Hispanic has become so embedded in everyday language that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stop its usage. Unless you get every Hispanic to take a Chicano (a term, btw, not lacking in its own problems) Studies course - and most have enough sense not to waste their time - you are not likely to motivate anybody enough to work hard against its usage - leaving the word to be defined by the masses instead of leading to its elimination.
Which brings me to an alternative approach. If the definition of Hispanic pisses you off so much, instead of trying to eliminate its usage, why not try to focus its usage on what it means to the everyday person? This has been my approach. Instead of giving up the term to the anglo government census, I have used the term to mean precisely what many take it to mean - a person of Latin American descent. So as a first generation Mexican-American, I wear the term proudly and everybody who sees what I look like will have a much more refined definition of the term.
So happy Hispanic Heritage Month Liza. ;-)