Mixed Native and white (not necessarily Spanish) people are called mestizos. Mestizos happen to be the majority of Hispanics, but they are not every Hispanic.
Hispanics are not a race. As in, one race does not define them. Many Hispanics are white. Many Hispanics are black. or Arab. or Asian. Many are a mix of two or three or all of these.
If you look at the demographic breakdown of Latin American countries, you won’t see something like “80% Latino/Hispanic, 10% black, 10% white.” It’s “80% mestizo, 10% black …”
You go to Mexico and you’ll see blonde and blue eyed Mexicans.
Since you are saying that people on the Straightdope find it hard to believe, you must have encountered this belief on the Straightdope somewhere? Care to share?
Yes, many Dopers know that there are white Hispanics. But if I say, “A Hispanic guy held me up at the liquor store!”, we all get an image of what this person is. Speaking for myself, rarely do I think “white guy”. I think, “Some one with brown skin and dark features, mixed with Native American and/or African ancestry.” Because I see things from the point-of-view of a black American, I tend to see the “African” first.
So it’s a perception thing. I used to work with a bunch of Cuban Americans and they were proud of their Spanish ancestry and “whiteness” (I’d never met a more openly racist bunch in my life). Often I would just hold my tongue when they would get started. The fact is that if those cats had lived anywhere besides Miami, FL, most of those guys wouldn’t have been perceived as “white”. It would have killed them to know that for most Americans, they are no different than the Puerto Ricans, Colombians, and Mexicans they despised. But like I said, I just held my tongue. No sense in getting into an argument over stupid stuff like that.
Considering that race is an arbitrary and wholly artificial construct in the first place, why shouldn’t “hispanic” be a race? Hell, we could make “Wookie” a race if we wanted to, and it’s not like it would be an objectively incorrect label.
As a very pale skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed white woman, I’ve been asked enough times in my life if I speak Spanish because I look like I could be of Spanish descent, I’m not a Doper who finds it unbelievable there are white Hispanics. I apparently look like one.
Race is pretty arbitrary but those who collect these sorts of data nowadays usually have Race & Ethnicity as separate categories. Race has all the usual divisions & subdivisions–to be specified by the user. Ethnicity is either Hispanic or non-Hispanic. Again, the person filling in the form gets to describe themselves as they wish…
That’s the fruits of a cultural discourse wherein it is emphasized that we shall identify and be identified by “otherness” that has ingrained in the community that in the US context “race” encompasses both the physical phenotype and the ethnocultural identity.
Back in our respective homelands we label each other as blancos, negros, mestizos, indios, etc. all the time. Heck, here in PR last year, 3 out of 4 marked “white” in the US Census (in truth, we’re mostly light mixed, but…) and you should have heard the howls from the media mavens and some professors at UPR. (And monstro is right - we like to pride ourselves on how after abolition we never had *legal *segregation… but we did not need it, the rampant racism and its social mores did the job by itself)
But when up stateside, then folk say to themselves, wait a minute… around here “white” means you’re one of The Man’s people; “black” means the African Americans as in Dr. King and Dr. Dre, Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan; when they say “Native American” they’re talking about Sitting Bull, Pocahontas or Wilma Mankiller, not Coahutemoc, Anacaona or Ollanta Humala. Whatever I am/they are, the speaker thinks, it’s not what this society means by those words, so there should be a box to fill correspondingly.
I live in the Imperial Valley. (Close to the Mexico border. Closer. Closer than that. There ya go…) People I meet online don’t believe I’m not hispanic, even though I’m Irish/German. Hell, I’m not sure my husband’s hispanic; he certainly gets annoyed when people talk to him in spanish first. His parents joke that I am more mexican than he is, and he agrees! I certainly love the food
Hey, me too. People always comment on how pale I am, and people also always ask me if I’m Hispanic. There are a lot of fair-skinned Hispanics, but they usually seem to not have a peach/pink skin tone like a lot of white people have, and neither do I, so I think that’s why I get asked that.
Fun fact. What is the “whitest” country in the Americas? USA? No… British-and-French Canada? No…
Argentina is. Mostly Spanish and/or Italian ancestry, but also a bunch of other European ancestries. Uruguay is also a close second or possible first, depending on how you compare censuses.
Strange. Hispanics are seen as white here in the Netherlands. Perhaps because they are a small percentage of the population and historically well integrated. Families with Spanish (or rather, Portuegese) sounding names usually have been here for centuries.
Turkish people though, although they are whiter then Hispanics, are seen as foreign. Perhaps because they are a group largely consisting of first and second generation immigrants, and many still have notable features like heavy mustaches and head scarves in the older generation and a kind of leather look n the younger generation.
