just an aside. Growing up in rural Norcal in the 1970’s, people fought to be called “Chicano”.
I try to ask people what nationality they identify as.
Unregistered Bull
Or be a Hispanic guy that dates mostly White women and boy you’ll catch heck!
:eek:
While I’ve always considered myself as being Mexican, my girlfriend from Montery Mexico heard of my grandfather who was Mexican and (shall we say) of native american blood from the same region (Siarra Madres) and desribed him (and me) as not being “truely” Mexican. She had a word, but it dosen’t matter, she had words for lot’s of mix types. It seems that they have classes just as we here in the USA have. She told me that there are many classes of Mexicans, and that she could tell by talking and observing them if they had “outside” blood!
Those Guatamalens and thier strange foods, those Cubans and the way they talk, and don’t get her started on Columbians. I was quite taken a back. She enjoys wacthing UniVision TV and picking out the different nationalities.
Excuse my mis-spellings. . . it’s getting late.
There is one major difference between Latino/-a and Hispanic other than that the latter term includes citizens of Spain – the most populous country in Latin America is not Hispanic.
The folks at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, and a number of similar centers around the country, might be surprised to hear that Chicano is an archaic term:
And to further confuse things. In Denver I saw a wallet on the floor in a store where I had seen a guy struggling with things, so I grabbed it and ran to to checkout. and said “I found this and I think it may belong to the hispanic dude with the red hat” At this point some dude about 5 feet away started yelling. “Thats my brother, Were Mexican!, Does he look like a fucking Puerto Rican to you?” He was really pissed, and I was really confused.
Don’t make the mistake of calling someone from Spain anything but Spanish! I had a friend who, based on her name, was assumed to be Mexican. She came unglued.
Apparently, it’s very insulting for well-t-do people from Spain to be lumped in with Mexicans.
I don’t hear Chicano much anymore, but I hear Hispanic and Latino/a all the time.
It’s not unusual for an organization to adopt a name that’s common at the time and then to see the language change to the point where the word is no longer used. The United Negro College Fund and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are still around but most people wouldn’t consider Negro or Colored as a current term nowadays.
I was going to ask if Portugese-speaking Brazil counted as “Latino”, on the larger assumption that the term referred to Latin-derived languages, which would include Spanish, Portugese, French and Italian.
There is pretty well no ethnic/“racial” term you can use to refer to anyone that someone won’t take as an insult. :rolleyes:
In the cultural context we’re dealing with, “Latino” refers to those of us with ties to “Latin America” – or rather, Ibero-America, though hardly anyone uses that awkward terml. It is preferred by many because it was “home grown” by academics and intellectuals in our homelands, and it has become associated with pride in our mixed hispano-afro-native roots; rather than “Hispanic” which is seen as something the US Census Bureau came up with to lump together Spanish-speakers.
And as some have pointed out, even within our greater culture there is a lot of nationalist/classist/ethnocentrist/downright-racist hackles to be raised by using the wrong referent. A very major one being that non-Mexicans do tend to jump on you if you misidentify them, not so much out of ill will towards the Mexicans as out of wounded pride at the undifferentiation.
Si Amigo
Mestizo.
But actually just about anybody in Mexico with dark skin and a Spanish surname is Mestizo. I dunno, 95%? There are those who claim to be pure Spanish but I think they may not be looking far enough back in their lineage.
Hook 'em back at ya, **jimpatro **. Austin’s my hometown.
I wonder if the term Chicano has greater currency and use among activists and college-educated Mexican Americans. Every Mexican American I’ve known who fits in either or both of these categories uses the term Chicano/a.
But again, as a kid in el barrio, everybody was Mexican. There was a girl in my school who was Puerto Rican and constantly getting into fights because no-one seemed to get the fact that she was not, in fact, Mexican.
Thanks, everyone. I’ve been gone for the holiday weekend and am just now getting back to this post.
You’ve all certainly cleared one thing up for me. Even the Chicanos/Hispanics/Mexicans/Latinos can’t agree on the finer points of the proper words to use. I think I’ll just not make any reference so as to not offend someone until I know what they prefer.
My husband worked with several Puerto Rican’s in Afghanistan which is what started this whole discussion. There were some inconsistencies between them and I thought that the SDMB could clear it up for me. Silly me! 
Seriously, thanks again!
Oh, and I just heard George Lopez use the term Chicano several times during a recent late-night interview (Leno, Letterman, Whatever).
The California Mexican-American community IIRC is the home turf of the “Chicano” term and where it’s got the biggest fans (Cesar Chavez legacy?) and thus in Cali you’ll hear it quite a bit.
Even among us puertorriqueños, while we are just fine and happy with the native-taino-derived boricuas, you still have some who will make a point to differentiate between the island-born-and-raised and the newyoricans – who may not be from New York after all…
The drive to class people into “Us vs. Them” is strong in all groups, apparently.
And just to confuse matters, some additional racial terms historically used in Mexico to describe people with various proportions of various heritages:
(from http://www.lanopalera.net/LAHistory/LASite.html; I tried to find a much more extensive list I saw years ago, but can’t remember the source now)
The following notes on the races and castes of Mexico, which were prepared by Thomas Workman Temple, taken from Vol. II, p. 471, of Mexico a través de los Siglos, clear up some of the confusion:
Español–Spaniard;
Criollo–Child born in Mexico of Spanish parents;
Mestizo or Coyote–Child of Spanish father and Indian mother;
Castizo–Child of mestizo father and Spanish mother;
Español–Child of castizo father and Spanish mother;
Mulato–Child of Spanish father and Negro mother;
Morizco–Child of Mulato father and Spanish mother;
Salta-altras (literally a “throw-back”)–Child with Negro characteristics but of white parents;
Chino–Child of a salta-altras and an Indian;
Lobo–Child of a chino and a mulata;
Gibaro–Child of a lobo and a mulata;
Albarrazado–Child of a gibaro and an Indian;
Cambujo–Child of an albarrazado and a Negress;
Zambo-prieto–Child of a cambujo and an Indian, or a Negro and a Zamba;
Calpan Mulata–Child of a zambo and a mulata.
Ay Carumba!
Actually I’d kinda prefer Tejano if it weren’t for the music tie-in.
Ruby, if the guys were from Puerto Rico, using chicano and Mexican to call them would be incorrect. Hispanic or Latino would be better. Or just Puertoricans, y’know. 
I would guess if you don’t know the country of origin, calling someone Hispanic or Latino would be the best guess. Using Chicano or Mexican already denotes a country or culture.
Personally, I prefer being called Puertorican, and if you don’t know where I am from, Latina. Even calling me Hispanic would be better than to call me white, though.