This started with my husband a few days ago by asking, "so what's the difference between Latino and Hispanic?", than my sister commented that she liked the word Latino better. This is a dilemma as both words can be, and in fact are, used interchangeably.
The term "Hispanic" itself is very old, it means "Spain". However, in modern US, the word "Hispanic" was used during the 1970's to identify people of a certain origin during the census of that decade. According to the US Census Bureau, the term Hispanic categorizes people with Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Central and South American origin. Since then, the term has been used in all federal documents by the US government.
Looking back in history the term "Latino" was originally used to describe countries that were under Roman rule, which included Spain. Today, "Latino", in American Spanish, is short for "Lationamericano" (Latin American). That is, people from Latin America that are actually identified as Spanish speakers. In the late 1990's the term "Latino" was adopted by the US government. Apparently this term is used most commonly in the western part of the country.
Both of these definitions; however, are a little tricky as some include the countries of Spain and Brazil in their definition. In addition, it wouldn't be completely correct to say that the definition for Hispanic alone is "people of Spanish-speaking culture or that are Spanish speakers themselves" because many Hispanics in the US do not actually speak Spanish or Spanish is their second language, not their first.
Most importantly, however, is that neither term, "Hispanic" or "Latino", refers to race as Hispanics/Latinos are composed of many races. We are indigenous, blacks, whites, etc. I even have a friend who identifies herself as being Latina although she is Taiwanese by birth, she grew up in Chile and in her mannerism, language, and cultural ideals it could be said that she is more Latina than even me!
So why did I choose to use the term "Hispanic" in my blog's name? Well, because I come from the advertising world, where the word "Hispanic" is most commonly used to describe this particular market segment. Marketing and advertising includes all Hispanics/Latinos (whatever term you want to use) whether they speak Spanish or not, whether they come from Latin America or were born in the US, whether they feel more attached to that particular culture or not or feel more "American", etc. Much of the research you will see out there about this market segment will be in terms of "Hispanic market"!
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I didn't realize my simple question had such a complicated answer! Very interesting historical perspective. It will get more complicated as time goes by. But in a sense maybe more simple too, as people will just be people. The question is raises for me is the dangers and difficulties of classifying people versus the benefits of pride in one's culture, values, and history. By the way, I think another name (or an old name) for the Domican Repulic is Hispaniola. I just know it as "the place where you should were jeans when riding horses."
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Danny Boy. Classification of people can more often than not lead to complications -politically, social, economic, and, of course, cultural implications.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you are right, what we know now as the DOminican Republic and also Haiti was in fact called Hispanola during the time of the Spanish conquest.