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This has always bothered me the stupid double standard of choosing Latin American countries based on arbitrary measures.
For one, it isn't based on language. If so, Cayenne would be considered as Latin as Bogota considering that both speak Romance languages. French Guiana is never included in Latino designations. So, it isn't language based since the French Caribbean countries are always excluded. Did they forget France borders Spain just like Portugal and always has spoken a Roman based language?
It can't be based off location, either. Because a country like Belize could be smack dab in the middle of other Latino nations but never be considered Latino. Same with Guyana and Suriname or all of the West Indies.
It can't be racially based either since NO nation in the Americas is homogeneous or a nation-state. There are White, Amerindian, Blacks, Mixed, and even Asian Latinos and these races exist in all of the Americas from Canada down to Chile.
So what makes one a Latino? Can't be that they speak a Latin-based language as many French speakers are excluded and it can't be that their country is in a continent grouped with Latin-America. I am confused by this for about, say 10 years.
LOL @ how Aruba can't even pass the Latino test despite its Spanish influences.
Belize
Jamaica
Bahamas
Virgin Islands
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Antigua and Barbuda
Dominica
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Barbados
Grenada
Trinidad and Tobago
Guyana
Suriname
People born in the American countries South of the USA except for those countries i listed
Didn't realize you were the same poster lol
Glad you at least include French speakers in there. Your list is consistent.
Interestingly there is a Kaseko music group from Suriname who refer to themselves as "Conjunto Latinos" aka "Latin Group". Idk if they're being ironic but I did find that interesting. Their name is Spanish, they sing in Dutch (or Sranan Togo) and they're all Black guys. I can't tell the difference between Sranan Togo and Dutch; it's all a conglomeration of too many vowel sounds. It all sounds like "Vandevoortzingaboombroersma" to me.
P.s. I am of Portuguese ancestry and people have a hard time understanding how that's not Latino. It seems only in New England do people know the difference. In the Midwest and the South nobody seems to even grasp the concept of Portuguese being European.
The basic "requirement" to be Latin is to speak a Latin-based or Latin-derived language as a mother tongue. That includes Portuguese, Spanish, French; Italian, Romanian, and maybe a couple more. It has to be as a mother tongue and not as a second, third, or even fourth language.
Many people like to add having "Latin" bloodlines and/or "Latin" culture, but in reality that's more of a bonus than anything else. Needless to say that if you have a Latin-based language as a mother tongue, you will also have a Latin-based culture, even if you are born and raised in a non-Latin country. That is simply how that works, because you may adapt to the culture of the non-Latin country while you are outside the house/family, but in the house/family you are immersed in the Latin culture. Also, you will have certain experiences that all Latin people have, but that the non-Latin people don't have and that makes you different and you will know it not just because you know who you are, but also because other people will notice it and either comment it or point it out.
In the US Latino is used along with Hispanic to refer to people from Spanish-speaking countries, but in the past all those people were simply Spanish because Spanish-speaking America was part of Spain. In some areas of the US the first Hispanics to arrive (Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Dominicans in the NYC area) were referred to simply as "the Spanish people."
Also, some of the stereotypes that exist about Mexicans (that they are lazy, that they take long siestas, etc) are really stereotypes of the Spanish way of living, especially in colonial times. The French that used to rule Haiti also mocked the Spanish from the eastern part of the island with the same accusations. Moreau de Saint Mery went as far as saying that the reason there were hardly any old people in the French part while in the Spanish part people, even the slave minority, lived well into old age was because the French "lived life with gusto" while the lives of the Spanish resembled "a vegetable" spending much of the day napping and doing the least amount of work possible. Its the same stereotypes the Americans developed about the Mexicans, and like many stereotype they were based on partial truths.
Anyway, then comes the question of why are African and Asian countries with Latin-based legal languages not considered Latin, unlike Latin European and Latin American countries; and the answer is that in most of those countries most of the people don't really speak the legal Latin-based language as their mother tongues but rather as a second language. In many African countries only the upper classes and people in government actually speak the Latin-based official language as a mother tongue. Its not like in most Spanish American countries where most of the people speak Spanish from cradle to grave.
What language you have as a mother tongue has a huge influence on how you see the world, because different languages have different sounds, entonation, syntax; etc that even molds the way your brain is wired and interpret things. Some studies have also shown that second and third generation of people that have been born and raised outside their country of ethnic origin and immersed in a language that is different from their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparent's mother tongue are able to learn such mother tongue rather quickly and with greater ease than non-speakers with no genetic connection. Some scientists think that this is possible because despite being immersed in a new culture with a different language, it takes the brain several generations to unwire itself according to the original mother tongue and completely re-wire itself in the environment with the new language.
In most Latin American countries most of the population has had Spanish/Portuguese as a mother tongue at least for 8-10 generations, and in most cases it goes back into several tens of generations and perhaps hundreds of generation due to having Spanish/Portuguese ancestry even if mixed with something else. This implies an unbroken connection with the Latin-based language and culture for centuries.
It is both linguistic and cultural. The French Caribbean may refer to their Latin roots as such - Latin but not Latino. The latter is more the Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations.
Understand what you mean about hearing Latino references in the English and Dutch Caribbean and that's largely due to movement and linguistic changes/diversity. For example, there are some in Trinidad with recent Venezuelan background who may consider themselves Latinos. However, the nation already has Spanish heritage and some cultural aspects, but it is simply part of the mix. The nation has had as its primary language, Spanish, French-Creole and finally English.
Some islands have little to no Spanish or even French influence and would not want such a label at all...Barbados, for example.
Belize
Jamaica
Bahamas
Virgin Islands
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Antigua and Barbuda
Dominica
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Barbados
Grenada
Trinidad and Tobago
Guyana
Suriname
Dutch Antilles
British overseas territories
Saint Lucia is an interesting one.
How is St. Lucia any more interesting than Dominica? The French Creole is equally important in both.
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