Please help settle a debate I had with a coworker today. It started because our workplace put up a display table to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. The display included information and items from Mexico, a variety of Central and South American countries…and Spain.
My coworker feels that including Spain in the celebrations is inaccurate and inappropriate. To her, the term “Hispanic” clearly and exclusively refers to the countries that were colonized by Spain - NOT Spain itself. She seemed to think it was, in fact, offensive to include Spain.
I countered by showing that the dictionary definition - “relating to Spain or to Spanish-speaking countries, especially those of Central and South America” - clearly includes Spain, and that while most Hispanics in the US are not descended from people who came directly from Spain, if someone moved from Madrid to New York he or she would be a Hispanic and their heritage would also be celebrated this month.
She thought the dictionary definition was irrelevant because there is a clear contextual/political/social meaning to the term “Hispanic” in American English and Spain itself is not included in that meaning. (I think that’s a fair summation of her opinion.)
I allowed that there may be multiple definitions for the term, but that her definition is probably a minority one and that most Americans would see nothing contradictory about including Spain and Spanish heritage in Hispanic Heritage celebrations.
And on and on the debate went without resolution. So I turn it over to you: IS Spain covered in the term “Hispanic”?
No. Regardless of the technical meanings of the words, “Hispanic” in common use refers to Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas and the Caribbean.
Same way that Arabs are Semites just the same as Jews, but in common use “anti-Semitic” means anti-Jew, and Arabs can be referred to as anti-Semitic without confusion.
Is the co-worker a Latina from the New World who objects to being identified with Spain? Or is she Spanish, objecting to being associated with the mixed-bloods whose ancestors were so rude as to rebel against Spain?
I used to date a Puerto Rican man. I’ve asked for an explanation several times regarding “Latino” vs. “Hispanic” and frankly, I seem to get a different explanation depending on who I ask. It seems safe to just go with Latina/Latino, but I think whatever you do, you’ll end up offending someone.
(Puerto Rican guy’s answer: Just don’t call me Mexican or Cuban!)
I’d go with the same reasoning of the op, it seems the most important aspect of being Hispanic is being from or descended from Spanish speaking countries which would obviously include Spain.
It depends on who you are talking to. Most people would include spain just of the basics if you look at the word hiSPANIc. It practiclly has the word in there. Everyone I have ever met includes it. When I have gone to mexico many of those peolpe included it as well.
Exactly what I was going to say. What does your coworker think the word is derived from? Also, any person that would get offended at a gesture that is being made in an attempt to honor their heritage (even if erroneous, which in this case I don’t believe it is) needs to pull the *palanca *out of their culo.
According to Wiki the definition could extend to Portuguese speaking people as well.
The Philippines and it’s residents are a more controversial area. Filipino originally referred to people of Spanish descent born in the Philippines, but is now used as a broader term for all of it’s residents. Their language and culture are heavily influenced by Spanish occupation but they not considered Hispanic by many.
The Usage Note here has it pretty accurately, for my experience.
It’s worth pointing out that “Latin America” includes some countries where Spanish is not the primary language. This is true whether one goes with a more literal/linguistic understanding (places in the Americas where any Romance languages are prevalent), or with the vernacular US-American understanding of everything south of the USA.
So the sets of Latino and Hispanic countries have substantial overlap, but neither subsumes the other. In the US, it is true, most people for whom one term applies would also be covered by the other. Just watch out for non-Latino Spaniards and non-Hispanic Brazilians.
Spanish-speaking, Spanish-descent people of Philippine nationality aren’t Hispanic? Seems pretty obvious nonsense to me; I’ve never heard anyone say such a thing, but if they do, presumably it is a byproduct of the confusion with “Latino.”
I get the impression that Filipinos consider themselves to be Asian and not Spanish in any way. I don’t know if the Latino part is involved. Some Portuguese speaking people don’t like to be considered Hispanic, I can understand that sentiment, and maybe the people of the Philippines feel that way about it.
Most people in the Philippines nowadays speak Filipino (Tagalog), which is one of the official languages besides English. Spanish itself is not really used, although it has influenced Filipino.
Since people in the Philippines are neither Spanish speaking, nor are most of them of majority Spanish descent (although they often have Spanish names), I would not consider them Hispanic. There may be few people who are mainly descended from Spanish colonists, and these would be Hispanic, but they are a tiny minority.
The coworker is basically right, in that " southern hemisphere spanish speakers heritage day " makes a lot more sense than “entire spanish speaking world heritage day”
Actually, a lot of the time it depends upon what the person who’s talking is trying to say–or imply.
Yes, the American Heritage definition posted by Peremensoe, is what the word really means.
But Americans (and generally Anglo-Americans) have come to use these words because they really want to imply something in particular about another person. Often, neither word denotes what they really want to say, for example when what they want to say is that another person is of a particular “race.” They’ll say “Hispanic” for this, even when the person perhaps doesn’t speak much Spanish. But there many white “Hispanics,” who are just as European as someone whose heritage is from Germany or England. People say Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are Hispanics–as though that means they have something in common with Mexican American mestizos, but they’re white as anyone else with European roots.
I’ve often argued that the U.S concept of Hispanic is akin to classifying British, Irish, Anglo-Canadians/Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, and perhaps English-speaking Indians, Nigerians, and South Africans as “Britannic.”
Maybe if there was a country where a variety of these English-speaking groups migrated to and shared a common media, schools, and so forth that would happen. Perhaps that does happen in places with many expatriates like the Persian Gulf States - I don’t know.
This is he description I have heard also, that there is some anti-Spanish sentiment (against the country of Spain) spanning form the colonial era. To call a a someone from Central/South America “Hispanic” would be akin to calling someone from the USA British or English.