"Hispanics"/"Latinos"

[Agnapostate]

We’ve discussed (or at least, I have :P) this issue on the forum before. The nature of my contention is that usage of the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” is obfuscating and misleading, since they are categorizations based on extremely broad linguistic commonalities and nothing more. The term “Hispanic” is applied to the citizens (and now, the descendants of citizens) from the countries of “Hispania” (Iberia), Spain and Portugal (or merely Spain), and the countries that representatives of those nations colonized and created. The term “Latino” includes these countries but also includes other “Latin” classifications such as French, and incorporates Brazil if it was not included as “Hispanic.”

The unfortunate popular misconception in the U.S. is that Hispanic/Latino is a race of tan to copper skinned people with brown to black hair and eyes, which is effectively a description of mixed to full-blooded Indians, the racial group that Hispanic/Latino identity is most often associated with, despite the existence of numerous Hispanics/Latinos of other races (the terms are European in their origin, yet it is apparently unknown that whites constitute a racial majority in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Cuba). It‘s too often that I roll my eyes at the ignorance in “Why does Cameron Diaz look white if she’s Hispanic?” and “Huh? Sammy Sosa’s black!”

Can you imagine the nonsensical nature of classifying all races and peoples of all Anglophone countries as one “ethnic group,” ignoring important and significant national, cultural, and racial (in terms of treatment) differences? Does it make sense to refer to Indians of full and mixed breed as “Hispanic” or “Latino” because they have been compelled to adopt the Spanish language as Spanish names when we would laugh at the idea of calling black people in the U.S. “Anglos” because of their similar compelled adoption of English?

Should usage of the terms be phased out and replaced with racially descriptive terms (since racism does happen to exist and we do the victims of it a serious disservice by conflating them with their oppressors), such as white, black, and Indian (I include mestizos just as mulattoes are included with blacks, though it should also be noted that a substantial number are predominantly Indian and not half-breeds and it should therefore be uncontroversial to call them Indians just as it is to call African-Americans black despite their minority of white blood)?

Share your thoughts.

[Dimentio]

Race is ultimately a meaningless concept (except maybe for certain medical conditions, like milk intolerance). Culture is somewhat more important, since its the kaleidoscope through which most individuals view their reality.

[Revy]

"Hispanic" refers to the Spanish language, not the country. And so it includes all the countries in which Spanish is predominantly spoken. From Latin America, to Spain, to Equatorial Guinea (which is in Africa).

"Latino" is most often used to refer to Latin America, and Spain is excluded. I think Brazilians could be included in that, even though they speak Portuguese.

One refers to language, the other refers to geography.

You can be of any ethnicity and be Hispanic/Latino.

[Agnapostate]

Race is ultimately a meaningless concept

Certainly. However, at present, institutionalized racism continues to exist, though it has certainly substantially diminished in recent years. It would inaccurately obfuscate race relations issues to use confusing terms such as "Hispanic" and "Latino."


"Hispanic" refers to the Spanish language, not the country. And so it includes all the countries in which Spanish is predominantly spoken. From Latin America, to Spain, to Equatorial Guinea (which is in Africa).

That's what I said; it's simply a matter of course that Spanish came to be spoken in non-white sections of the world through colonization of those territories. I have also, however, known Portuguese speaking countries to be included in the "Hispanic" label, inasmuch as the term 'Hispania" is derived from reference to Iberia as a whole. This doesn't seem to be commonplace, however.


"Latino" is most often used to refer to Latin America, and Spain is excluded. I think Brazilians could be included in that, even though they speak Portuguese.

One refers to language, the other refers to geography.

That seems to be true, though Haiti and French Guiana are occasionally incorporated into "Latin America."


You can be of any ethnicity and be Hispanic/Latino.

That's exactly my point; of any ethnicity and any race.

[bayano]

to reiterate my previous statements in discussion with you before:


Well, the main issue is how people are identified on census roles, police reports and other data. For years, there was no place for Latino(which i prefer) or Hispanic(which i despise, but what the govt usually uses). Then, the US govt came up with a bizarre solution: to have race as one thing where there is no Hispanic option, and then have a second question for ethnicity to which there are only two answers: Hispanic or non-Hispanic. the solutions since have also been silly.

in other words, Latinos had and still today often have no choice to call ourselves 'mixed' or 'mestizo' or 'Latino'. we have to pick white or black or asian or native american, and then say latino or not. that means you have very dark skinned and indigenous Latinos ticking white on surveys and govt questionnaires because those are the options given, but to a cop it would be clear. or you have Afro-Latinos (of which there are tens of millions around the americas) in the usa just ticking black.

then, there are the conservative lighter Latinos who, in their country or parents' parents' country would be essentially white, but anyone in the USA would consider them Latino/hispanic. they answer census and other documents as white for other reasons, but still get harassed often times, despite their class, politics, and family background.

so very, very few Latinos in the United States can 'pass' as gringo whites, but most have to say 'white' on government data even though they aren't perceived as such....

and


but ive heard your perspective before, almost always from west coast Mexicanos/chicanos. i respectfully disagree. perhaps it is bcuz my family is from the smallest spanish speaking country in the americas, but i think there is a different perspective. central and south americans often group together, whereas there are mexican or boricua barrios. mexicans in the usa tend to be more nationalist than other latin americans, perhaps in part because the political traditions are different. in south america, we have the example of simon bolivar, and in central america we have francisco morazan- both symbols of a 19th century tradition that called for latin american unity and attempted it. theyre such central figures that it is rare to find a town in central america without Plaza or Parque Morazan in the center, and every city has one as well. so the idea of latin american unification has never fully died, and certainly got stronger with the ascent of Hugo Chavez and the pink tide. as such, we consider ourselves panas or colombians or salvis or nicas or ecuatorianos, but we also consider ourselves [email protected] [email protected] or [email protected] because there is a belief in unity in north america that is partly based in culture, and partly in a latent desire for latin american unity. its not to say central and south americans in the usa arent nationalistic or patriotic. but beyond that, there is still the legend of the dream.

aside from that, we are la raza cosmica, not bcuz of how much indigenous, spanish, or african blood we have, but bcuz we have blood from all over the world- including chinese, arab, irish, jewish, south asian, etc too. there are seemingly a hundred different tendencies of how Latinos in the usa identify, and i like the most unifying ones, and the most accurate.

Besides that, to some degree race is true. It cannot be simply dismissed. Systems put in place took people of different cultures and ethnicities and built a hierarchy based on concepts of racial categorization, but in turn the composition of these groups being as heterogenuous as they once were, they are now oftentimes culturally distinct and geographically (often at the micro level, but not just) separated to some degree. The struggle to destroy white privilege and supremacy, and thus destroy the racial system of oppression with all its intersections to capitalism and patriarchy, is a struggle left socialists need be cognizant of. But it isn't so simple that we can dismiss or ignore the realities of culture and space that now exist. That is to say, does eliminating a racial system that perhaps we all agree needs to be abolished in conjunction with the elimination of capital, mean extinguishing new ethnic and cultural traditions, styles of cooking, music, speech, historicism, etc.

[FreeFocus]

The terms largely have to do with obfuscating one's identity. You already touched on how many "Hispanics" are actually Natives by ancestry/blood who speak Spanish and have been culturally assimilated into the dominant culture.

[bayano]

but theyre not just. many are of African descent, others are mixed lobos or mestizos who have as much oppressor as oppressed. many others are chinese or arab. latinidad is a unifying force, and for mestizos can be an honesty that they arent just conquered or conqueror

[Glenn Beck]

Some of the assumptions of your post are based on trying to impose the dominant Anglo-American idea of race on the dominant Latin-American view of race, but the two views are incommensurable. You mention Cuba and Puerto Rico as countries with a majority-white population, but these are whites on Cuban/Puerto Rican terms. The white identity in the US is far more exclusive and it was only relatively recently in history that any "Latin" or South European ethnicities were included in it. The converse is true for the identity of "black", which is used to describe someone with an African appearance with little notable ethnic admixture in much of Latin America but is a far more inclusive category in the US where it includes pretty much anyone with clearly African features.

It should be noted that "Hispanic/Latino" as an official demographic category in the USA is considered an ethnicity and not a race, but the two concepts are conflated in the general understanding of (especially white) Americans. The categorization is partly legitimate insofar as it reflects the greater degree of assimilation and miscegenation in Latin American cultures compared to the US, but as you say glosses over key distinctions of "race" and obscures the issue of the native ancestry of many people of Mexican and Central American descent living in the US. To that I would add that it obscures the ethnic and cultural distinctions between different Latin American nationalities residing in the US, though I think that a certain degree of unity between these groups is desirable.

A major side effect of the "Hispanic/Latino" identity I see is that it has been used by elements of the Latino bourgeoisie to import a peculiarly Latin American form of collaborationist nationalism into immigrant communities that obscures the social distinctions within these communities and helps to prevent them from mobilizing politically either intra-ethnically or especially across ethnic lines to build working class coalitions. How it does the former is obvious, but the latter is interesting in that this kind of "unity" nationalism, though opposite to the traditional North American "divide and conquer" model of race relations, plays a role within that system by forming Latinos into an ethnic bloc that can be played off against other ethnic groups, especially in situations where a few minority groups taken together would have a clear majority over whites.

I don't have a clear answer for you except for a couple of points that stick out in my head. The first is that I don't think it would really help matters to "dissolve" the Latino identity into a group of identities that fit into the racial hierarchy of the US. The second is that I don't think it's even possible to do so, any more than your devil's advocate proposition to assimilate blacks into whites together as "Anglos". The reason the latter wouldn't be possible is because of the real ethnic distinctions between the two groups at play that runs far deeper than simply language. The same goes for the ethnic characteristics that divide Latino whites/blacks/indians/mestizos/whatever from their "Anglo" counterparts, and these same ethnic characteristics give these various "races" a certain degree of commonality and shared cultural experience that, while often problematic and politically abused, can't simply be denied and swept under the rug.

It seems like in terms of redefining identity as a political project you are primarily concerned with having mestizos within the US identify primarily with their Native heritage. I can't really intelligently comment on that idea but I think it could benefit the visibility and recognition of indigenous people in the US if it's feasible. I don't know what other effects it might have on US politics but anything that mobilizes people to fight for their rights in a way that feeds into class struggle would be a good thing; maybe it would go some way in eroding the damaging and segregating forms of immigrant nationalism I talked about earlier, or maybe it would make it worse somehow, I dunno.

[Raúl Duke]

Hispanic/Latino are ethnic categories...
In surveys and such you can choose "Yes" on "Are you hispanic/latino?" and still have to choose a race (white, black, asian, etc). For example, I answer Hispanic White in these sort of forms that ask these questions.

To me, I usually use the term Latino-America or something similar and in my mind use it to include all of Spanish-speaking America plus Brazil.


Should usage of the terms be phased out and replaced with racially descriptive terms (since racism does happen to exist and we do the victims of it a serious disservice by conflating them with their oppressors), such as white, black, and Indian (I include mestizos just as mulattoes are included with blacks, though it should also be noted that a substantial number are predominantly Indian and not half-breeds and it should therefore be uncontroversial to call them Indians just as it is to call African-Americans black despite their minority of white blood)?


What you ask for is odd in the northamerican/U.S. context...
In our countries of origin the racial distinctions are sometimes marked in the way you describe them. While PR tends not to differentiate much between most morenos and whites, they do note the distinction towards blacks (and to a way lesser degree mulattos). This of course is different in other places, originally Batista era Cuba was a very racist place (now I'm guessing Cuba is similar to PR in this regard) and in Venezuela/South America you could see some level of chauvinism/racism between whites and indigenous people (especially in Bolivia).

However, when we go to the U.S., we do have a commonality: We all come from a mostly spanish-speaking country which cultures do have Spanish/European influences (although mix with those of the indigenous and/or Africans, in varying degrees).

Plus, why do you wish to divide even more? I don't think that does any good.

[bayano]

Well, there is a growing philosophical concept that Latinidad is ethno-racial, and perhaps that blackness is too. That it incorporates the culture, community, tradition of ethnicity with the power structures of race, generally the former traits create by the circumstances of the latter condition. Just to offer one of those icy nuances.

But as I said in my earlier statements, to me Latinidad is part of a political project that reaches across racial and national lines, and works mutually with the visions of those who recall Morazan, Marti, Bolivar, Che, the Latin American identity. The idea of a region without borders and national boundaries of other sorts. A regional pride and identity, which is very much in existence and always working against or in tandem with national identity and pride. To me, this spirit can carry over to the global north, to the immigrant populations, and does for many reasons. Practicality, the sense of belonging, cultural overlap, all create Latino (as opposed to Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, etc) communities in the United States in many places, and that's wonderful. And it should be a part of a larger project.

I do agree that there are those bourgeois Hispanics (ahem) and whites who use this identity to play it off against Blacks or whomever else. That there becomes an access competition that is violently dangerous, and our African heritage is a powerful weapon against those efforts.

Of course, none of this is a substitute for genuine internationalism, but it can operate with or toward that objective.