Are you Hispanic if you come from Spain?

Parent Cafe
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<p>A little off topic, but what else is new:</p>

<p>There’s a common misconception (e.g., the comment about freckles) that people from Hispania were dark. That is not necessarily true, although it is in some cases. The Spaniards were, like many cultures, varied. The Greeks colonized the east, Goths were prevalent in the north, Basques - well, who the heck knows where they came from originally. The term “blue-blood” came from the fact that the noble classes were very fair-skinned, and Moorish blood tended to be a little darker. So if you could see the blue vein in the wrist, you were “higher class” [please note the quote marks refer to the concept at the time]. Many of the Castillian royal family of the 1500s and 1600s were actualy blond with green or blue eyes. Northern Spaniards often look more like the “black Irish” - milky white skin, with jet black hair. </p>

<p>Nothing more than lunchtime trivia. I do not have anything to say about AA or URM’s.</p>

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<p>Cuba is an interesting study because it was the last significant vestige of the Spanish empire in the New World. So its ties to the motherland and Europe remained long after similar ties in Central and South America had faded away. I’m always amused when I think of the names of some Latin America’s important historical figures----Bernardo O’Higgins just slays me, for example. So many Europeans down there. There are a huge number of Italians in Argentina, and there’s a reason that former Nazis found sanctuary in the region–lots of Germans, too. As far as your other point, LW, I think that Latino correctly refers to the area south of modern-day USA that was colonized by Portugese or Spanish. People still don’t agree on whether those territories colonized by French or Dutch, for example, should be considered “Latino.” But it’s an open question.</p>

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<p>People from Spain are Europeans, not Hispanic.</p>

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<p>LW, when it comes to ethnicity and races, there are so many variables that is it extremely hard to reach clear conclusions. AA measures that favor the “weak” gender are so much easier to define and apply -without opening a debate on the transgendered population. </p>

<p>It is an undeniable fact that North America is a continent of immigrants, and that our society is a hodgepodge of flavors and colors. I fully understand how one would turn an accusatory eye towards someone who “appears” to bend the rules for a temporary benefit. However, most often, we may not be fully aware of the finer details of one’s origin. It is also not our place to question the private actions of others. In the case of college admissions, the definition of race or ethnicity is remarkably an issue of self-definition. </p>

<p>This said, while I believe that we still need the equalizing arm of AA, I would hope that we continue to refine the system in order to include more disadvantaged citizens, as well as attempt to “graduate” others. For instance, I have an unabated critic of the posters who claim balnket discrimination against Asians, yet I believe that it is a huge mistake to consider the Asian population to be a single block. Subset of the asian populations such as Hmongs, Khmers, Laotians, Cambodians, or Vienamese families face very different challenges than a 4th generation Chinese American. Our current system does not seem to recognize that. Further, I also think that the system could benefit from exclusions based on SES conditions. Since schools do have access to the financial aid requirements of students, one could speculate that schools might very well make distinctions among URM candidates.</p>

<p>However, I think that we are still a couple of generatiosn away from having to exclude groups. The numbers describing the changes in college admission and graduation are NOT very good for URMs as they continue to trail the overall population distribution. Today, our efforts should continue targeting a higher participation and graduation by minorities in higher education, and strive to expand the system, albeit a juster and more equitable one.</p>

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<p>“I’m always amused when I think of the names of some Latin America’s important historical figures----Bernardo O’Higgins just slays me, for example.”</p>

<p>Driver, I also find the name interesting, or even amusing. However, in the context of this discussion, should we question his ethnicity beyond the surname. Ol’ Bernardo was born in Chile and is mother was a Chilean criolla. His father was a Spanish officer. </p>

<p>The population distribution of the southern countries of Latin America is interesting. The original native population has been decimated by hordes of immigrants -sounds familiar? The plight of the black population also presents a number of question marks. Why are there so few blacks -except for the occasional diplomats- in Argentina or Chile, while they are well represented in Brazil? Obviously, Brazil was a major destination of slave labor in the heyday of the colonialist. The answer in the case of Argentina is that they sent a large portion of their blacks in a sure slaughter in a war against Paraguay. The ones who were not killed fled to a … safer country. The leaders of Argentina did this … because they could. </p>

<p>In a way, one of the salient differences between North America and South America is that we found our own racial actions despicable, discovered remorse and contrition, and that we do have the means to correct past injustices.</p>

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<p>Bernardo’s father was Irish, and obviously an early believer in the global economy. But that’s really my point about the nonsense of a “hispanic” ethnic designation. Alberto Fujimori was a native Peruvian. His parents were Issei. Does he have “drop of hispanic blood” in him? For that matter, can a pure Peruvian Inca be considered “hispanic?” It’s an interesting “minority group” whose membership requires a lineage back to Cortez, but disavows the mother country.</p>

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<p>Driver and Xiggi, thanks for your last posts, and for the correct indentity of Bernardo. I misconstrue his name every time!</p>

<p>When can we “graduate” certain groups from AA? That’s anybody’s guess, as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor more or less said. I believe that part of the need for AA is about societal power and avoiding balkanization and tribalism. Not to be dramatic about it and that may sound contradictory. But I first got that idea after reading the article by conservative scholar Nathan Glazer a few years ago. If I recall correctly, this was the time of the anti-AA propositions in California and Washington State. Glazer completely reversed his position, thus he came to support AA.</p>

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<p>“Bernardo’s father was Irish, and obviously an early believer in the global economy. But that’s really my point about the nonsense of a “hispanic” ethnic designation.”</p>

<p>Driver, Are the paternal genes more important than the mother’s? Had Bernardo’s mother be Jewish, wouldn’t he not be Jewish? I realize that religions are different from ethnicity and nationalities, but where do we draw the line? Are we supposed to only consider the direct descendants of Chief Joseph or Geronimo as the only true americans, or maybe only the Mayflower’s passengers?</p>

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<p>Xiggi, I think we’re miscommunicating even though I think we agree. I was reacting to the notion of a “hispanic” ethnicity. I don’t think there is any such thing. Hispanic is of the same category as Semitic. It refers to a group of people that share a common language. However, just as we now freely accuse Arabs of making “anti-semitic” statements when they derogate Jews–even though Arabs are also Semites–we also have people who claim that “Spaniards are European, not Hispanic,” despite the obvious historical and semantic inconsistency. As I understand it, to be “hispanic,” according to the “aggrieved minority group” designation, one must be descended from the conquistadores and the native americans (Indians) that they conquered and enslaved. If you are pure conquistador by heritage, you cannot be Hispanic, despite the fact that you derive from the country, culture, and language to which the word refers. If you are pure Native (south) American, you cannot be Hispanic (unless you also accept the idea of nisei Alberto Fujimori as Hispanic) because you have no conquistador in you. What a tangled web we weave. (For the record, I think Senor O’Higgins was Hispanic).</p>

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<p>Driver, you were correct. I read way too much between the lines. Do 20 year-old need bifocals? :)</p>

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<p>“Semite” is a language group, but the term “anti-Semite” has come to mean “anti-Jewish.” It’s not an incorrect use of the term, it just doesn’t mesh with the orignal meaning of the word “Semite.”</p>

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<p>I think that there is a bit of confusion and ignorance about this words.</p>

<p>Hispanic and Latino are not the same. I’m sorry but Hispanic is something related to the Spanish peninsula (where Spain actually is), and to what was called Hispania, so Spanish are Hispanic and European. A person from Spain is more related to the Spanish peninsula than a Latin American who is indigenous.</p>

<p>The person that said that Spanish are European, not hispanic is wrong. These are not contradictory categories.</p>

<p>Latino is the word in Spanish for Latin. All the Romance Languages (those that come from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire), like Spanish, Portuguese, French and obviously Italian (it’s the most similar to Latin actually), but also Romanian and Bulgarian. So, yes, French and Italian are LATIN, but not Latin American or Hispanics (they were not part of Hispania).</p>

<p>Also, as was said neither of these categories is a race. There are white latin Americans, and dark Spanish. Just as not all US people look native American, not all Latin Americans look like indigenous, most are mixed race, and many are white.</p>

<p>The reason there are not as many black people in Latin America is that since the colonization of the Spaniards was very different from that of the Englishmen, they did not kill the indigenous people (aztecs, mayans, olmecas, incas, etc) as did the British colonizers, but exploit the indigenous people as labor for the mines, and construction. That’s the reason many Latin Americans still look indigenous, the Spaniards had babies with them, and hence the mixture of races. Actually Hernan Cortes (the colonizer of Mexico) married the Malinche, and indigenous woman that was her translator. They didn’t bring as many Africans because they could exploit the natives. I don’t know which model of colonization was better or worse, it’s just the way it was.</p>

<p>People in the US confuse Latin, with Latin American, with hispanic. The meaning of this words is not a poor person with dark skin that comes from Puerto Rico or Mexico. It’s way more broad than that, and hispanic is not the same as latin which is not the same as latin american, and not the same as Mexican American. None of these is a race group.</p>

<p>The way universities define that is up to them. It is always going to be controversial because the process is very competitive. I am just trying to make the meaning of these words more clear for everyday life. I think that it’s important to use the words correctly and know what they mean, to avoid unnecesary attacks and judgements (for example if a person from Spain says in the application she is hispanic, because she is) or others I have heard in other threads about a white Latin American not being latino.</p>

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<p>No offense taken for the vent ladybug.</p>

<p>But…
The Spaniards did succeed in nearly wiping out indigenous people in Puerto Rico. That is one of the reasons Spaniards enslaved an imported Africans to the Caribbean; the native population was decimated in Cuba, PR and San Dominque.</p>

<p>Spaniards also took enslaved Africans to Mexico as well, but in smaller numbers than their British and Portugese rivals. Today you can see African decendants in significant numbers in the Vera Cruz region. Also, slavery in the Spanish speaking world [sugar plantations] was just as harsh as in North American cotton and rice fields, as documented by the Latin American historian Moreno Fragenals (check spelling).</p>

<p>Ladybug, you’re from Mexico so you’ll know more than me, but I understand that “Mestizo-ness” is sometimes somewhat overstated. That is, in Merida for example, there was significant native oppression by criollos as recently as the turn of the century (1900). Lately, American author Richard Rodriguez has provided some excellent commentary about Mestizo-ness.</p>

<p>Yes, it’s a bit of a quandry to classify the indigenous population of Latin America when they immigrate to el norte. On a trip to the pyramids of Quintana Roo, our tour guide took pains to explain that today there remain some Yucatan inhabitants who know no Spanish, speaking only their native “Indian” language.</p>

<p>Finally, I really understand the gripes of Mexican decendants who are tired of having their latino bona fides questioned. Familiar with these notable 'Mexican-Americans?"</p>

<p>John Gavin
Terri Garr
Raqhel Welch
Selma Hayek…Lebanon
George Chakiris…Greece
Gov. Bill Richardson…Ireland/Mexico</p>

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<p>In English we adopt words to mean what we want them to mean. Hispanic and Latino are used virtually the same to mean the group that includes people of Mexican and Puerto Rican background, especially with surnames to match although not always. Some would include Central and South American too but that tends to vary more. It’s not a cut and dried issue and the interpretation will vary from school to school. Where I grew up in the northeast years ago, we PR’s called ourselves Spanish (hence Spanish Harlem) with the common negative term being Spics. Maybe that came from Hispanic but I don’t think so.</p>

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<p>Barrons, you’re so right. People adopt words and give them the mean that they want them to mean. </p>

<p>LakeWashington. Of course there were African slaves, but in a much lower degree. In Veracruz it’s where you can find more in Mexico because it’s closer to the Caribbean. Historically, the Spaniards brought slaves to the new world after an epidemic sprout of smallpox. Interestinlgy, the areas were the colonizers brought slaves were less populated by indigenous people. That’s why in the center of Mexico where the big indigenous groups lived, you can spend a lifetime without seeing a black person that is not a tourist from the US(I know I did).</p>

<p>Also, in those areas Spanish and criollos didn’t mixed as much with the indigenous people. That’s why in areas as the mountains in Jalisco a lot of people have blue eyes and light hair.</p>

<p>Also, after the Spain civil was in 1936, the Mexican government of Cardenas received many refugees (he didn’t do that with European Jews, but that’s another topic), so in the last century there was a “hispanization” of Mexico in the sense of Hispanic as coming from Spain. There are actually more voters from Asturias (a region in Spain) in Mexico City than in Asturias, and more gallegos (from Galicia) in Argentina than in Galicia itself, because of the Republicans and Anarquists that scaped from the Franco regime.</p>

<p>There was indeed exploitation in Merida of Mayans last century, and some people don’t speak spanish. It’s also one of the arguments of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas (southern Mexico, border with Guatemala), that the indigenous groups have been exploited for 400 years. They started their guerrilla uprising in 1994, but have lost importance in the media in the last few years, outside France from where they receive lots of support (The widow of Francois Mitterand visited them few years ago, and it turned out her son sold them weapons).</p>

<p>An interesting trivia fact, is that there was a prosecution of Chinese people in Coahuila (north of Mexico, border with Texas) in the end of the XIX century and the 1900’s.</p>

<p>And another “latina” celebrity is Alexis Bledel, the actress of Rory Gilmore. Her family is from Argentina.</p>

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<p>Someone wondered about the origin of the word “spic” to refer (crudely) to Hispanics. Although it is certainly possible the origin was a shortening of the word “Hispanic”, I have always heard that it came from people making derogatory fun of accents, as in “I no spika the English”. </p>

<p>On the topic of blacks in Latin America: there are two other reasons for the lack of purely black people in some areas of South America. First, no one has mentioned this yet, but we should not forget that while Spain was the colonizer and continued to govern the majority of Central and South America, Brazil was colonized and governed by Portugal. Spain and Portugal governed very differently. Portugal hung onto its colonies in S America and in Africa longer than most other Euorpean empires, and tended to use black slaves longer in history than the Spaniards did.</p>

<p>Secondly, there are many different levels of races in South America. In Latin America, there were many levels of mixtures recognized in law. If you were 1/8 black and 7/8 native American, there was a legal category for that. That was both a recognition that such mixtures were occurring, but it also created niches and levels of “acceptance” for such interrmarriages. In the United States, on the other hand, you were either black, or white. Even people who were 1/8 black were considered black in our society, unless you were light enough to “pass”. We had the term mulatto (the words mulatto and quadroon come from these racial mixtures), but the law did not accept such distinctions in the US. (Please realize I am referring to the 1700 and 1800’s here, and not talking about current situations.)</p>

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<p>to my understanding, which may be incorrect, people from spain are spanish, while people from mexico, puerto rico, etc. are hispanic/latino.</p>

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<p>Heres where I am perplexed. Spain is a European nation like Itlay. Usually when you see “minority” classifications they are by race, not nationality or culture, such as Asian or African American. Spain, like many European cultures, is considered Caucasian in race, is it not, with many of Spanish ancestory also being able to claim other racial status if they are also of one of the other racial groups too. So how did Spain, with a huge population of decendants across the Americas and else where, get to be a minority classification where as other Eurpopean nations did not? Does this make sense? Is it because of the unique settling into places like Mexico and Latin America. Yet in many areas of LA and SA there are those of Spanish heritage that consider themselves primarily of Indian, Black, or Caucasian identities. If a URM is an underrepresented minority can an Italian or Jewish American in certain schools in the South be much different that an Hispanic American?</p>

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<p>I think it would be the same for an Italian or a Jewish American in the South, but again it all depends on the university, and I think each person tries to play with the system in such a way thatt benefits them.<br>
So if a person from Spain puts hispanic in the application, it may or may not benefit her. But the thing is that she is not cheating or being dishonest, because she is hispanic.</p>

<p>From Merriam-Webster:
Hispanic</p>

<p>Etymology: Latin hispanicus, from Hispania Iberian Peninsula, Spain</p>

<p>So the people from Spain is Hispanic and Spanish. These are pretty much synonims.</p>

<p>The word in the US has changed the meaning transforming it in the second entry: : of, relating to, or being a person of Latin American descent living in the United States; especially : one of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin </p>

<p>But as with semitic, the correct meaning of the word is the etymological one. All I am trying to say is that a person from Spain can check hispanic just as a Mexican, Cuban or Puerto Rican. Hispanic means from Spain.</p>

<p>If universities have a definition of hispanic that doesn’t include Spain, I consider it would be more appropiate to put Latin American, or because some people think Brazil is not Latin America (although it is because Portuguese is a Romance Language and Belize is not because they speak English) specify by nationality.</p>

<p>The meaning of the adjective hispanic is more or less tantamount to the one of english (as an adjective) according to the same dictionary:</p>

<p>Main Entry: English<br>
Function: adjective
: of, relating to, or characteristic of England , the English people, or the English language </p>

<p>Just as English is something related to England, Hispanic means also related to Spain.<br>
These words have broader meanings, and it would be easier if the schools use more appropiate words to define what they are trying to say. Specially because “hispanic” as Latino is only used in the US, and so people from Spain or abroad might define themselves differently.</p>

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<p>Are you hispanic if you come from Spain?
I don’t know, but are you ANGLIC if you come from England?
No, you are English or perhaps British.
If you come from Spain, then you are SPANISH, or a Spaniard.
If you come from any country in Latin America, then you are whatever those people are properly called.
Cubans come from Cuba, Peruvians come from Peru, Guatemalans from Guatemala, etc.
“Hispanic” is a term coined by people in the United States to refer to all people who speak Spanish.
Quite frankly, this is vaguely racist.
If you are an Australian, a Texan, a New Yorker, or an English-speaking Canadian, you might be very offended if someone called you an ANGLO, and rightly so.
Lumping very different cultures and ethnicities together based on the language they speak is not very sensible.
The term “Latino” follows the same train of thought, and it is even more confusing, since Romanians, Italians, French and Portuguese can also be called Latinos since they speak a Latin-derived language, and were once part of the Roman Empire.
Take the trouble to ask where people are from, don’t lump people together based on assumptions.</p>