Half Hispanics don't exist Famy

[lilwriter85]

I was looking through Famy's instragram pictures. One picture is titled, "Daddy's lunch, he's half Hispanic." The term Hispanic isn't a racial term, it is ethnic term and Hispanics can be black, white, mestizo(mixture of European/Indigenous), mulatto and Asian. If Terry has a mestizo parent and one white parent, he is really mostly white with Indigenous ancestry. But Famy is stupid and she is misusing a ethnic/cultural term.

[virginmojito]

Hispanic does not sound very good, either. On pages like Craigslist or Gumtree, it takes you one little "Hispanic" to never see your ad online or get banned. Latino or something sounds much better.

[lilwriter85]

Hispanic does not sound very good, either. On pages like Craigslist or Gumtree, it takes you one little "Hispanic" to never see your ad online or get banned. Latino or something sounds much better.

The term Latino gets misused a bit because it also includes Italian and French people.

[virginmojito]

I see. I don't see how French gets in the picture, I'd expect Portuguese instead. I know these languages are related to French too, but a bit more distantly. I think she should have just said a country instead, like half Brazilian or whatever.

[FlorenceHamilton]

I see. I don't see how French gets in the picture, I'd expect Portuguese instead. I know these languages are related to French too, but a bit more distantly. I think she should have just said a country instead, like half Brazilian or whatever.

Latino...comes from Latin. Latin is the parent language for Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese language. We also call them the Romance languages as their origin is Rome. This is the connection.

[lilwriter85]

I see. I don't see how French gets in the picture, I'd expect Portuguese instead. I know these languages are related to French too, but a bit more distantly. I think she should have just said a country instead, like half Brazilian or whatever.

The picture was titled, "Daddy's lunch, he's half Hispanic" had a picture of a burrito so my guess Amy is possibly implying mestizo culture related to Mexico. Some people don't understand that mestizos have mixed backgrounds and some mestizos have mostly white racial heritage more than Indigenous heritage.

[emmiedahl]

I thought Latino included Italians, Spanish, Portuguese?

I live in a majorly Hispanic area and use it all the time, as do many government forms and local offices. It is used on the US census. It describes a group of people in a more succinct way. Should I say Latino (sometimes I do...), which includes a larger group of people, or a term that includes a much smaller group? Sometimes you need to describe a population and "Hispanic" is the preferred term of many.

[xDreamerx]

I was looking through Famy's instragram pictures. One picture is titled, "Daddy's lunch, he's half Hispanic." The term Hispanic isn't a racial term, it is ethnic term and Hispanics can be black, white, mestizo(mixture of European/Indigenous), mulatto and Asian. If Terry has a mestizo parent and one white parent, he is really mostly white with Indigenous ancestry. But Famy is stupid and she is misusing a ethnic/cultural term.

People still say mulatto?!

I think Hispanic is one of those blanket terms white people use when they aren't sure what nationality someone is but they look Latino. Kind of like how people say Asian as a blanket term for what we used to term 'Oriental', if they are not sure what specific country the person is from. I mean, if you want to get technical, many many races of people from many countries are Asian but everyone just kind of knows what you mean when you say Asian.

I guess I can't fault her too much for this as many other people do it.

[lilwriter85]

I thought Latino included Italians, Spanish, Portuguese?

I live in a majorly Hispanic area and use it all the time, as do many government forms and local offices. It is used on the US census. It describes a group of people in a more succinct way. Should I say Latino (sometimes I do...), which includes a larger group of people, or a term that includes a much smaller group? Sometimes you need to describe a population and "Hispanic" is the preferred term of many.

They do include Italians, Spanish, Portugese and French. On the Cenus forms Hispanic is listed as ethnicity. Some people will put Hispanic as an ethncity and white as a race and mulattos/blacks will put Hispanic as an ethnicity and black as a race.

[lilwriter85]

People still say mulatto?!

I think Hispanic is one of those blanket terms white people use when they aren't sure what nationality someone is but they look Latino. Kind of like how people say Asian as a blanket term for what we used to term 'Oriental', if they are not sure what specific country the person is from. I mean, if you want to get technical, many many races of people from many countries are Asian but everyone just kind of knows what you mean when you say Asian.

I guess I can't fault her too much for this as many other people do it.

The term mulatto is still used by some people in Puerto Rico, Cuba and several other places. The tricky thing with Hispanics/Latinos is that there is no specific way to look Hispanic/Latino. The ones with darker features are usually mestizo Hispanics and usually the more Indigenous features show. But there are some mestizo Hispanics who don't have dark features. Then there are white Hispanics with little or no Indigenous ancestry.

[xDreamerx]

I thought mulatto was a term used for someone who was biracial with one white parent and one black parent, especially in America in the early decades of the 20th century when classing people according to their colour was a big deal. I think the term was carried through the Civil Rights era. I'm not sure when it died off in the vernacular but it's distasteful to say now.

I realize there's no one way to look Hispanic, but as a society we characterize races, really by looks. If a person has certain characteristics that we consider to be Hispanic, regardless of whether they are are not, we tend to describe them that way. If you see a person on the street say, you aren't going to stop and ask them what race they are. You're going to look at them, see a set of physical characteristics and make a judgement. For example with Italians, some can be very fair with light eyes and light hair. Just to look at that person, one would probably call them white. Whereas if they had the darker, tanned and dark eyed look that we associate with Italians we might say the person looked Italian. People don't bother to describe Barack Obama (at least not often) as biracial. They simply call him black or African American because that's how he appears.

[justlurking]

I was told by someone who was "Hispanic" that the term only related to "Latino" people from Hispaniola (Dominican Republic) and other Caribbean islands (Puerto Rico, Cuba, etc). They said the term Latino incorporated all other Spanish speaking people from Central and South America (Mexicans, Argentinians, Peruvians, etc.) aka "Latin America".

[doe]

Wow, I have only ever heard Latino to refer to people from Latin America.

[Rachel333]

I know a lot of people use "Hispanic", but I don't use it anymore because a lot of people find it offensive, like using "Oriental" for Asian people.

[Guest Anonymous]

The term Latino gets misused a bit because it also includes Italian and French people.

That's news to me; is that something you've observed? Latino/Latina is used to identify people from Spanish-speaking countries:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino_(demonym)

[Georgiana]

People still say mulatto?!

My friend who is half white and half black calls herself mulatto. My sister, who is also half and half, would be super offended if anyone ever called her that. I think it's a regional thing, though I avoid using it just because I'd rather use a term that would be less likely to offend.

On the topic of Latino/Hispanic, one of my friends in college was from Mexico City, but was of purely Spanish ancestry. The historic term for that is Creole, but that means something else in the States, and with no accurate term to call himself, he just messed with people and their racial terms. There's always going to be someone who doesn't fit in the racial boxes we try to create. Kudos to him for having fun with it.

As for "Oriental", that became a slur in America but not elsewhere. So if you go to England, it is perfectly fine to use the term "Oriental". "Asian" in England usually means India or the Near East.

[0KidsAndHappy]

That's news to me; is that something you've observed? Latino/Latina is used to identify people from Spanish-speaking countries:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino_(demonym)

It's original meaning was people who spoke Latin-derived languages in Europe. Because Mexico, Central, and South America were inhabited mostly by those Latin people, it came to be known as Latin America ... and the term has evolved, mostly in the US, to only refer to people from Latin American countries as Latino.

[Rachel333]

As for "Oriental", that became a slur in America but not elsewhere. So if you go to England, it is perfectly fine to use the term "Oriental". "Asian" in England usually means India or the Near East.

That isn't entirely true. "Oriental" can be offensive in the UK, too, though not as much as in the US (here's an example: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 63204.html ).

[fundifugee]

Latino...comes from Latin. Latin is the parent language for Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese language. We also call them the Romance languages as their origin is Rome. This is the connection.

Romanian is also a Latin-derived language.

I find what folks want to be called differs from region to region. Some places say no Hispanic, only Latino. Others say no Latino, just hispanic (usually to differentiate themselves from a more-hated minority like the Hatians). Pretty safe to call folks by their nation of origin or first language -- Spanish-speaking or Mexican or whatever.

Of course everything turns into a slur depending on who is saying it and how it is said, witness Indian, Negro, Black, Native, Handicapped, etc. etc.

[Mama Mia]

As someone who has to do government reports all the time I find it particularly irritating that under the federal definitions "Hispanic" is an ethnicity and people of hispanic/latino identification have to ALSO pick a "race" and nobody ever knows what they are 'supposed' to pick. Many people resent choosing "white" and will pick "native american" but then we get push back we will have like 60% of our clients (mostly Mexican) identifying as "native american" and we live in an area with extremely few 'native americans' according to the census.

On our State and Local forms Latino/Hispanic is included as a "race" ( I think most of them use the combination Latino/Hispanic term ). So we will have all these freaking reports to do and the same people will be one "race" on one form and a different race on another.

The whole thing is so stupid it makes me ill. And as someone who has always identified as "mixed" hispanic/latino it is a real pain in the ass. In my household we had people with an obviously anglo last name and people with an obviously latin last name and if you have any doubt that racism is alive and well all you need to do is be the parent of kids with last names of different origins. It is kind of astounding.

[BloodyIbiza]

I'm brazilian, but I've been living in Canada for 11 years now.

I feel that ' Hispanic' excludes people from latin america that don't speak spanish- which IS a problem when you are trying to build on commonalities. When that's the only option in a survey, it bugs me because it erases both my race (mixed, "Brazilian white") and a broader ethnicity/culture.

It did take me a couple of years to start identifying as Latino. Nowadays, I see it as an "umbrella term", just like Asian. You probably wouldn't say that the culture of the Korea(s), China, Hong Kong, and Japan are the same- even though there are some similarities.

Even though saying that French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish people are Latin is totally correct, it is just not used that way in most contexts.

As for "mulato", that is still used in Brazil. "Negro" and "Oriental" can be/are considered more polite than "Preto"(Black) and "Asiático"(Asian). Go figure.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Hmmm....I wonder if my grandmother would be considered half-Hispanic? Her parents split just before she was born, her father ran off to Cuba and her siblings were all raised there. Grandma lived there briefly as a kid.

I remember one funny episode with my mom's cousin - half way through the visit, her WASP husband basically stares at us and says, "so which one of you is Cuban, again?" We had to point out that his Spanish-speaking Cuban Catholic mother-in-law was actually born a Montreal Jew.

[PBrooke]

I was told by someone who was "Hispanic" that the term only related to "Latino" people from Hispaniola (Dominican Republic) and other Caribbean islands (Puerto Rico, Cuba, etc). They said the term Latino incorporated all other Spanish speaking people from Central and South America (Mexicans, Argentinians, Peruvians, etc.) aka "Latin America".

I've heard this as well. When I lived in FL - where most Spanish-speakers are from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, etc - the term Hispanic was not offensive at all. I'm told on the West Coast, Hispanic is considered offensive and Latino is the preferred term.

[aelar]

I'm from California, I call myself half-Hispanic, or half-Mexican interchangeably, and I've never known Hispanic to be an offensive term, but I also don't spend a lot of time in conversation with other people of Mexican descent that are politically active, so it's possible that it is considered offensive to activists, but the rest of us Hispanics are fine with it. (I'm sure that people who find it offensive have reasons, and I'm not dismissive of those reasons, it's just not an issue that I am personally sensitized to, nor have I ever been told by anyone that Hispanic is outdated.) "Hispanic" sometimes appears on our forms here, as does "Mexican or Other Hispanic" and almost always we are also asked to choose a race.

I consider myself bi-ethnic, not bi-racial, because my mom is white, and my dad is brown, but some of my dad's brothers are white (same parents, who were both brown, but yay Mexican weird racial mixing genetics). I look very white (pale skin, light brown eyes) and it is usually only other half-Mexicans that pick me out as being one. Other people can tell I'm not quite Anglo, but tend to guess that I'm Middle Eastern or Jewish, partly because of how I dress. So I always check Mexican-American, and White if I have the choice, but always Mexican-American or Hispanic if a separate race option isn't given and so I have to choose between representing my ethnicity or my race. That's because I feel like it is important as a highly educated, high income woman to also be a representative of my ethnic group, because there is a perception that Latinos in general (ha see, I shift terms, and I can't even say why Latino feels more right there, and why I feel Latino, not half-Latino) are under achievers.

I tend to identify in conversation most often as Hispanic, because I feel like saying half-Mexican leads people to believe my father is from Mexico--as in, a first-generation immigrant--and even half-Mexican American still sort of sounds to me like my father might be from Mexico. My family on my father's side has been American for variable amounts of time, my grandma was born in America, but her mother wasn't, while my grandfather's family, though Spanish speaking, has been American as far as we can tell since America captured Texas from Mexico. As a result, my experience of being Mexican-American is really different than a Mexican-American whose family are more recent immigrants. So I tend to claim Hispanic because my family history is not super tied to the Mexican culture anymore, or even the Latin-American culture. I will sometimes call myself Latino, but that term to me still seems to imply being more culturally different from mainstream white America than my experience has been.

[muffynbear]

I think Latino refers to anyone who is from a latin speaking country: Italy, Portugal, Spain etc. So, a Brazilian of Portuguese descent can be considered Latino, but not Hispanic. Am I right?