Sure there are white Hispanic people, who says they aren’t?
On the other hand, I have never in my life felt so white as on the Mexico City subway. Nor so tall. Nor so blue eyed and redheaded. It felt like there was a crew following me around shining spotlights on me.
Yeah, and a large part of the perception of that identity of otherness arises when anyone is not speaking English. That otherness has been conflated with mestizo–which is really what a lot of people in the U.S. mean by “Hispanic”–but the word mestizo isn’t part of North American, English-speaking vernacular. Neither is mulatto, even though a large percentage of “African-Americans” have some kind of “white” blood. Purity is defined as “whiteness,” and to use words like mulatto and mestizo would challenge that notion ideologically.
For this reason, even the president is considered “black,” even though he is just as much “white” as he is “black.”
Sure, but the OP’s point is that there are many places in Mexico City, Guadalajara, etc. where you’d hardly stand out, and the OP believes that many people don’t understand that.
Obama talks about this in his autobiography, how he chose to switch from self-identifying primarily as mixed to primarily as black, because that’s how everybody else sees him.
It is my impression that in the US ‘Hispanic’ is a proxy for ‘a degree of indigenous American ancestry from Mexico or points south’, i.e. that people hailing directly from the Iberian peninsula would not be the typical mental image of ‘Hispanic’ in the US. Is that correct?
Are you doubtful that anyone on the Dope believes this? Because I see this attitude expressed with a regularity around here that I find no reason to be so incredulous at the OP’s premise.
But here’s one example attesting to this phenomenon http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13506881&postcount=13.
You’ll find that the poster implied that Charlie Sheen isn’t perceived as white on the basis that one of his parents is part (not even full) Spanish. Please note that we aren’t even talking about Latino in the Carribbean or South/Central American sense. We are talking about Spain-home of Columbus. The poster apparently believes that Sheen isn’t really white because a fraction of his genetics originate from a swarthier part of Europe.
Also, I remember back in 2008, I saw a number of posts suggesting that Bill Richardson isn’t white but rather Latino. Maybe someone with too much time on their hands can help me find those.
Isn’t Columbus from Genoa??
As for the OP, I don’t think a lot of Dopers think this but I can tell you that a lot of people think this. I’m half Mexican and half American/Polish. I tend to favor my mom’s side of the family… Many of my Mexican cousins look like me.
The worst offenders? Fellow Hispanics. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard things that clearly were not meant for me to understand.
There was maybe one comment in the Louis CK thread expression surprise that he was Mexican American. But that was just about him, and it’s ridiculous to extrapolate to a belief about all white Hispanics. Pretty weak shit.
I’ve seen Hispanics with, in my estimation, a larger range of skin tone than any other group of people. From as pale as my Irish mother to as black as Wesley Snipes.
Joe
There are two issues here:
First of all, the 2010 census asked separately about Hispanic ethnicitiy. So it’s not like there was no way for the security guard who was quoted had no way to indicate he was Hispanic, if he wanted to. And indeed the census method is the best way, because then he can indicate both the fact that is Hispanic and his race (if he chooses to), which, as this thread points out, are two separate characteristics.
Second, this was not new for the 2010. It was done in the same way for 2000, and maybe even as far back as 1990. So it should not have been a surprise for anybody.
I’d say this gallery proves my point. Except that I forget what my point is whenever I look at this gallery.
Right. The Census collects a variety of types of info–for a variety of reasons, some of them strictly political, some of them not. (A lot of these reasons have ties to the various histories of the populations of the country, including language background, means of immigration, etc.) They try to use terminology that will be meaningful for whoever fills it out, but because of the complexity of all these things, people inevitably are not going to always be able to check one box in one category to reflect their background. (I imagine the origin of the “Hispanic” category had to do with trying to figure out where ballots needed to be provided in Spanish. And my suspicion is that it was originally the protestations of white Cubans who had a lot to do with the flexibility with regard to the term “Hispanic” in general.)
The above-mentioned security guard could check “Hispanic,” and then “Black” AND “Latino” for example, as people from the Caribbean might want to do.
Thank you. That was very helpful. Perhaps we’ve achieved consensus now.
The Census asks about “race” and “ethnicity.” Ethnicity is where you came from and, of course, can be catatgoized in a number of ways but Hispanic means that the person has some Spanish ancestory. Race is whatever you want it to be. I can call myself black on my census form if that is how I identify myself, even though I am completely Anglo-Saxon in ancestory.
My daughter’s father is darker brown with black eyes and hair, but his mother is pale skinned with green eyes and brown hair. Both Mexican.
So this Doper knew better.
I used to live in an area with a significant Puerto Rican population. The other major population were white folks who descended from the original settlers. Because I didn’t look like the other white people, it was often assumed I was Hispanic; since I worked with the public, I learned to say a few helpful phrases in Spanish, including identifying myself as Icelandic (which often got 
reactions) and requests to speak more slowly. This wasn’t an unusual thing because of the wide variety of “looks” of the local Puerto Rican population-- I had several of friends who grew up in PR before moving to that area, and they varied in looks enough that none of them looked like they might have been the same ethnicity. Between that and having grown up in another Hispanic-heavy population, I tend to associate Hispanic with “speaks Spanish and comes from Latin America” rather than any particular look.
When we went on an archaeological trip through the Riviera Maya, I noticed that I was significantly taller than most of the men and all of the women. Depending on the area, though, I could have blended in a little better than others.
Heh. My mom’s redheaded and has blue eyes…and is half Latina (unsurprisingly, the other half Irish).
Pretty much true. American use of Hispanic & Latino (Latino includes Portuguese folks too, not just Spanish speakers) generally means people from Mexico, centeral and south america, as well as the little islands in that general vicinity that contain Spanish and/or Portuguese people. People wouldn’t look at you as oddly if you meant people from Spain and Portugal as they would if you called someone from India asian, but neither would be the first thing an American would likely think of when hearing the words “hispanic” or “latino.”
nm
And thirdly, the OP specified the members of this community - not the nation at large. I’d like a cite or two myself. Not that I don’t believe it but I haven’t seen it myself.
I haven’t seen it much around here at all, but it is just a matter of semantics. I knew some people who used Hispanic for white+native and just European or Spanish for people without Native ancestry. They would have said there were no white Hispanics because their definitions of the words just didn’t work that way. Nothing sinister or cynical about it, just semantics.
Mostly old people from what I remember.