don’t forget the black mexicans. I once told a black-american that there were black mexicans and they didn’t believe me. I had to prove it.
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/feature/ethnic/bv/vaughnindex.html#contents
I believe you. Hispanics, in terms of race(white, black, whatever), would mostly be multiracial. So much mixing of colors over the years. And thanks for the link.
We are the bomb, of course . . but really, “‘Hispanic’ white” is how we are classified by the U.S. Census Bureau . . but I have always hated the word “his-panic” . . . to me, it means “of spanish descent” . . which would only be partly true for 90% of mexicans . . we are, of course, a mixture of indigenous and spanish bloods . . have always preferred “latino”, or even “chicano” which as I understand is much more acceptable here in California than in New Mexico, Texas, or other areas of the U.S. . . I have a friend, born in the U.S. of a Mexian mother and a father born in Spain, but whose parents where of French descent . . he gave up trying find the right label for himself . . .
This is a little off-subject, but I thought it was fitting to share:
“Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.”
President George W. Bush, on not taking questions at a photo opportunity with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien
Correct. I live near Monterey, which was the capital of Alta California. One of our Family friends is descended from one of the important Californio families (the Castro family) and makes it very clear that her family considered themselves spaniards, not mexicans (she says it annoys her when people say she’s mexican when she tells them her family line is Californio).
On Chicano: Many Mexican Americans i know refuse to identify with or be called Chicano. To them, the word is highly political and they refuse to be associated at all with it. They prefer to be called either Latino, Mexican-American, or Mexican, but never Chicano.
I just prefer to be called Bob.
That’s all that matters.
[[I just prefer to be called Bob.]]
Can I call you Señor Bob?
Jill
[Edited by JillGat on 04-30-2001 at 12:12 AM]
I was referring to people i know, not you, Bob 
Settled, presumably, as to her personal beliefs. Many Filipinos of my acquaintance, including my extended family, would answer “Pacific Islander” rather than “Asian” (to the extent that they’d think about it at all). The language and culture share many more affinities with Pacific Island nations than with mainland Asia, except perhaps in the northern provinces such as Ilocos…
Doobieous, chime in here… we had a long old thread a while back on this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=3837
That said, I reckon the reason for separating the Filipinos out may have something to do with their former status as a colony. I’d be curious to hear more about that survey…
Jorge, i knew when i saw you replied to this that in some way you’d involve me :). Rethinking things, i think i do agree with you. There are many more affinities with Pacific Islander culture than Mainland Asia (though, for a while there were stronger connections, but only through the dominion of the Sri Vijaya empire of Indonesia (IIRC, and i think even that’s disputed).
But, by and large, from my observances, we have more in common with hawaiians, samoans, and guamanians than we do (generally) with Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.
Linguistically (while i mentioned in the other thread there are mainlander Austronesian languages, they are however few), that we share more with Pacific Islanders as well, not to mention the growing of certain crops (such as taro).
And there’s also the former colonial remains. Which really puts lowlanders closer to Latinos than to Mainlander Asians (seriously, think about that one).
And i’m sure jorge will dispute anything he disagrees with here with me :).
Could Jerry Garcia be considered a californio? His dad came from Spain in the 20th century.
So I guess pachuco and cholo are definitely out, huh?
Thank you for this note of common sense. What does latino mean, anyway? Does it have to be limited to Iberian? Why?
I’m very puzzled about why Gabriella De Ferrari titled her autobiography Gringa Latina. According to her, she was Latina because she was born in South America, but “Gringa” because her parents came from Italy. HUH?!?!?! What makes Italians any less Latino than Hispanics? I just don’t get it. The only reason Hispanics are called “Latino” is that Spanish originated from Latin. So how could you exclude Italian? Makes no sense at all to me.
The original use of “Latin” as an ethnic term was during the Crusades. The “Latin kingdom of Jerusalem” for example. Most of the “Latins” in the Crusades were French. They were called that because they celebrated the Latin rite of the Mass, as opposed to the Orthodox and other varieties of Christians in the Middle East, who followed the Byzantine or Melkite rites. Therefore Latin means any people who use Latin or speak a language derived from it. Since when did the Hispanics get an exclusive patent to the term latino? It’s the exact same word in Italian. I just cannot accept classifying Latin American Italians as “gringo” which is a synonym for “Anglo.” Especially since Sicily and southern Italy were part of the Spanish Empire from the 16th to the 19th century, at the same time as Mexico.
The French are Latins too. Isn’t Haïti considered part of l’Amérique latine? Zut alors, don’t make this trop compliqué. Anyone of French-Mexican and French-Spanish origin is indisputably 100% latino.
What Cecil says on the topic of racial identification.
A professor of mine jokes that he’s the only true Caucasian in our school, since he’s actually from the Caucasus.
Another professor told us about a conferance he was at,this guy from Texas was constantly griping about “those damn Mexicans!” Another attendee was from Chile, and the Texan guy kept saying, “Well, you Mexicans…” etc etc…even though the guy kept saying, “No, I’m from Chile.” Finally, the guy had had enough, and said to the Texan, “Well, you Mexicans…” and Tex flips out. So the guy from Chile says, “Well, think about it-Texas is right next door to Mexico, and used to be a large part of Mexico. Much farther away than Chile.” Hehehehehe
Sometimes you just got to ask the Mexicans 
According to the INEGI (http://www.inegi.gob.mx/) (Instituto Nacional de Estadistisca, Geografia e Informatica) which in charge of maintaining the census in Mexico, it asked for personal ethnic identification. For the record about 6.1% of the population considers itself American Indian or about 5.3 Million of the population. Since the INEGI only asked in the census to state “yes” or “no” as to whether they were either nahuatl, maya, zapoteco, mixteco, or other indigenous group, I would guess that a figure of 90% considers itself “mestizo” and about 5% considers itself “other.”
XicanoreX
I came across some statistics in a 1998 article:
http://www.britannica.com/magazine?ebsco_id=34115
The Economist; March 7, 1998: “The Right Not to Be Hispanic”
“…a range of cultures among Mexico’s 10 million Indians. Unlike the other 80 million Mexicans, whose blood is a mix of Indian, Spanish and other races, the Indians are direct descendants of the country’s pre-Hispanic inhabitants. They are split into dozens of tribes, but share certain characteristics.”
F
rom the Cecil column I took the phrase ‘Las Castas Mexicanas’ and did a google search. This was the first site that came up:
http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/CULPEPER/BAKEWELL/thinksheets/castas.html
Spaniard and Indian produce a Mestizo
From Spaniard and Mestiza, Castiza
Spaniard and Castiza, produce Spaniard
Mestizo and Indian makes Coyote
Black and Spaniard makes Mulatto
Mulatto and Spaniard makes Morisco
Spaniard and Morisca makes Albino
Spaniard and Albino makes a Black-Return Backwards
Black and Indian makes Wolf
Wolf and Indian makes Zambaiga
Zambaigo and Indian makes Albarazado
Albarazada and Indian makes Chamizo
Chamizo and Indian makes Cambuja
From Albarrado and Indian, a Cachimboreta is born
From Indian and Cambuja, a Wolf-Return-Backwards is born
Wolf-Return-Backwards and Indian makes Hold-Yourself-in-Mid-Air
If you go to the site above, it has links to paintings showing examples.
I see no reason to question my honesty. I asked my fiancee what racial designation she preferred, and she told me Asian. That is not presumably her personal preference, that is her personal preference. If your extended family prefers Pacific Islander, fine, and that actually supports my main point:
Some countries are mostly homogonous. If someone is Cambodian, that tells you both their nationality and their race. Some countries are quite racially and ethnically diverse, such as the Philippines, Mexico, and the US. It seems pointless to appy a single ethnic label to all residents of such countries.
My point was that in the case of a person who comes from a country with such a complex and diverse racial/ethnic make-up, you should refer to a person by whichever term they prefer. If someone of Mexican descent wants to be called Mexican, you do him a disservice by trying to impose a different or another label on him. If my fiancee prefers to be called Asian, then she should be afforded that courtesy, as your extended family should be identified as they prefer.
So when I asked my fiancee what she preferred to be called, I was asking for her personal preference. That’s the only issue I was trying to settle. Because there is no clear concesus about whether the Philippines is an Asian country or a Pacific Island country, I maintain that racial designation should be determined on an individual basis, not by applying a single label to every resident of the country.
As to the “survey”, it wasn’t. On the standardized tests of reading and math skills that the students in my district take, students are identified by race/ethnicity for purposes of demographic tracking. What I found interesting about the list is that Asian and Pacific Islander both had the same group of sub-categories coming off of it, identifying the various nationalities associated with those ethnic designations. But Filipino is listed as a separate category all its own, not listed as a sub-category of either Asian or Pacific Islander. I just found it interesting that Filipino is the only nationality that is considered an ethnic category all its own.
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Yes, Haiti is part of Latin America. When I took my History of Latin American Literature, I had some works assigned who were written by Haitians (or by authors of the french speaking small Antilles islands). We also discussed about Latin American history and Caribbean history, both which include Haiti.
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Gringo/gringa is used to denote people from the US. That’s the way the term is used here, but who knows what are the meanings of the word in Brazil.(except brazilians)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo *
**
OK – although there are US-specific urban legends as to its origin, the word “gringo” originated as a reference to people from outside Spanish-speaking countries. It is said to derive from “griego” (as in “it’s greek to me”). IN a poem from circa 1900 I have read it used by a Castillian to refer to a Catalonian.
In the “Southern Cone” (Argentina/Chile/Uruguay/Paraguay/Parts of Brazil) “gringo” referred to Italian inmigrants since the mid-1800’s (such usage appears in the Argentine Epic Poem “Martín Fierro”) because those were the biggest block of non-Spanish (or non-Portugese) inmigrants in the regions from the 1850s on.
First in Mexico after the Mexico-US wars, and after 1900 in Central America and northern So. Am., it has been used to refers to USA’ers due to the pervasiveness of Yanks as the most commonly encountered non-Spanish-speaking foreigner in these regions.
“Latino” in this context is an abbreviation of “Latinoamericano”, from “América Latina” (Latin America) which originated among various late-19th/early 20th century writers from the region, to distinguish us both from the culture of “América Anglosajona” (Anglosaxon-America) AND from that of Old Europe.
Myself, I have never cared much for “Latino” – I’m Puerto Rican, and (US)American (that’s right, no bloody hyphen!!!), and have very different interests than the Mexican or Cuban – but “Hispanic” is just an arbitrary term from the US Census Bureau that someone else came up with, which is why many US-Latinos dislike it.
jrd