I saw a story today which hinted that that title might actually belong to Benjamin Cardozo who was apparently descended from Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Of course having no African or Amerindian blood like most people who are thought of as Hispanic, he would have been as ethnically white as everyone on the Supreme Court at the time.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
The question depends upon what you mean by the word “Hispanic.” There is no one definition of the word. Some people use it to mean only people from Spain and New World countries colonized by Spain. Some extend it to include Portugal and Brazil. So it definitely depends on who you talk to.
“Hispanic” is an incredibly dumb definition. People really want to talk about *race *and not whether someone’s last name is Spanish or Portuguese. White Americans whose families moved here from Spain or Portugal have none of the social problems associated with non-White minorities.
When people use the word “Hispanic” they are probably thinking of people from the Americas other than Canada and the United States with at least some Amerindian ancestry. In other places someone of mixed Amerindian and white ancestry is called “Mestizo,” a phrase which liberals won’t use because they think it implies that there’s something wrong with mixing the races. “Mulatto” isn’t a very popular term either.
Because “Hispanic” implies non-white, even though it’s not part of the official definition, most Americans with Spanish and Portuguese ancestry don’t want to be called “Hispanic,” because they want to be considered regular white Americans like people who moved here from other European countries.
I know lots of people who consider themselves Hispanic, and also consider themselves white or Caucasian. And they are, both…TRM
My wife is a Sephardic Jew, and she does not consider herself in any way, shape or form Hispanic; just as I, as an Ashkenazi, do not consider myself German. I would be surprised if Cardozo thought otherwise.
What about blond-haired, blue-eyed people from Mexico or Central America? I’ve met a few. Are they not “authentic” Mexicans or Costa Ricans or whatever?
I wonder if those are the same people who don’t consider Barack Obama to be “black” since he is not descended from slaves.
It has been mentioned it before, “Hispanic” is a sort of kludgy census-bureau category that is hard to nail down.
Among those of us from the relevant demographic group Sotomayor would be likelier to be described as the fist *“latina” *Justice.
In the sense that arises from within the community, “latino” refers to* a cultural heritage* traceable to the Spanish-speaking Americas and Brazil (OK, so some professors fidget about Brazil, I’ll leave that to them). Yes, it usually implies native and black mix in the descent equation but likewise there are plenty of phenotypically “white” caucasian Latinos(*): it’s really the cultural cross-pollination with African and Amerind influences that distinguishes us from the Peninsulares .
(*And plenty of creoles who were amazed that in the US they were considered “not white” when they had been called that back at home all their lives!)
Oh, please. People, not just liberals, don’t use it because few people have ever heard of it.
I don’t think this is true. My husband is Hispanic, and considers himself Hispanic. We have a very typical and common Hispanic last name. He is also blonde and blue-eyed. Contrary to what you say, it annoys him when people do not consider him Hispanic because of the way he looks. It makes him an outsider to a certain degree within his own culture, and I don’t think that is something that he desires at all. Likewise, we know many different “types” of Hispanics (meaning, from different countries of origin), some who look more and some who look less of what we consider to be “typically” Hispanic, and none of them seem at all eager to shed their identification as Hispanics, but rather go out of their way to celebrate it.
Do Puerto Ricans self identify as Latino/a? I always associate that term with places outside the US in the Americas.
Eh… I don’t want to speak for the majority of my country, but I do want to say that yes, in terms of speaking of “Latinamerica” and “Latinamerican culture”, yes, Puerto Rico is considered part of Latin America. Why not? Despite being an US territory for over 100 years, our language, culture, food, music, dances, society, behaviors, etc. have much more in common with the other countries than with mainland US. Other countries also consider us part of Latin America, there is no question about that, like in the case of Brazil (which, IMHO, should be included).
Not to mention, in mainland US, Puerto Ricans are subject to the same groupings as are done for the other groups. Nobody separated me from Cubans or Hondurans or Mexicans… they probably didn’t even know my country of origin, if they saw my last names (or heard my accent) they put me as Latina/Hispanic.
Oftentimes, in such matters, it’s much more important to look at how the dominant culture views the person, than to try and discern how the individual views it, because after all, if someone is being discriminated against on the basis of being “Hispanic,” then what does it matter that they are really not “Hispanic?”
President Obama is not classically “black” in the sense of “descended from American slaves.” Yet he is certainly viewed as being “black.” More importantly, Tiger Woods is half “oriental”, and only a little over a quarter “black,” yet he is viewed as being the first “black” who won the Masters, etc., and is given little or no credit for being the first “Asian” who did so.
And indeed in the US very often when “Hispanic” is used it is merely turned into a shorthand for “looks sort of mesoamerican mestizo” or “has a Spanish surname”. Which does get annoying.
And that’s the point, the dominant factor is the **cultural **aspect: Puerto Ricans, even though a tightly-integrated part of the US politcal and social collective, are Latinos. The ones in/from the Island AND the 2d+ generation in the continent. PR may not have been for the last 111 years politico-economically a part of “Latin America” (the phrase itself originally an academic construct based partly on real geographic and cultural commonalities, partly on arbitrary notions, much as is the concept “Europe”) but culturally not only Puerto Ricans but all the “Hispanic” communities within the US, even the long-established ones, are considered part of the Latino world. (In fact that has been the theme of one small culture-war among ourselves since the 60s as 2d and 3d generation Anglophone NewYoRicans sought to be accepted islandside as part of a greater PR community; the general consensus has been their favor but not everyone’s on board)
To bring it home to my case: whether I am in PR or in Maryland, speaking in Spanish or English, I am an American. And a Latino. And a Puerto Rican. Not a hyphenation, not a combination by thirds, not first/second/third(*), I am each of those things and there is no contradiction in what each means to me.
(*Though our neighbors and friends who are fond of “identity politics” would make a big whoop and holler about that word order I used. They can go jump in the Harbor.)