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For the issues facing latinos of African descent (mainly the Puerto Rican experience due to the time period), especially for those of visible African ancestry I have some suggestions.
I highly recommend the novels by Piri Thomas. Down These Mean Streets and Seven Long Times was really an eye opener for me.
Jesus Colon also writes about the realities of discrimination due to being a double minority.
Boricuas is an anthology which features many stories dealing with race. Pablo Guzman has an interesting piece in this one.
Felipe Luciano (co-founder of Young Lords and Last Poets) frequently speaks on the issue of race both in the States and in Latin America.
Most of these sources speak about race and the latino community especially before the CR movement.
For the issues facing latinos of African descent (mainly the Puerto Rican experience due to the time period), especially for those of visible African ancestry I have some suggestions.
I highly recommend the novels by Piri Thomas. Down These Mean Streets and Seven Long Times was really an eye opener for me.
Jesus Colon also writes about the realities of discrimination due to being a double minority.
Boricuas is an anthology which features many stories dealing with race. Pablo Guzman has an interesting piece in this one.
Felipe Luciano (co-founder of Young Lords and Last Poets) frequently speaks on the issue of race both in the States and in Latin America.
Most of these sources speak about race and the latino community especially before the CR movement.
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But then those studies refer to exclusively to PR.
I went to a state university in a southern state in 1956. There were hundreds of students there from many Latin American countries, but all were white. There were no black students admitted at all, from any country. Discrimination against Latins was no more than it had been in the midwest. In fact, perhaps less, because after all, the Latin students were intellectuals from wealthy families, as opposed to migrant pickers.
There were a few Latin students who looked like they might have had some smoky ancestry, but there didn't seem to be any agitation on the part of overly prejudiced students against them. In fact, one rather cute girl was called "the black one", sometimes endearingly.
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My aunt was born in Spain, but she arrived to Cuba when she was 3. She studied in an Alabaman School in 1947. I guess it was a Catholic School. My aunt is not very sociable, but she made a lot of friends there that visited her in Cuba. In fact, she still has a lot friends in Alabama that visit her in Miami.
My aunt looks Mediterranean all the way. When she went to the Jewish Quarter of Havana, they always addressed her in Yiddish. The rest of the family looks nordic or Northern Spanish.
Last edited by Leovigildo; 09-06-2009 at 05:44 PM..
But then those studies refer to exclusively to PR.
The PRs (as far as I know) were the only large latino group present during this time period (before and during the CR movement) that had a high percentage of people of visible African ancestry.
Now in NYC you can meet blacks from virtually any latin country including Italy but this has been a relatively recent development.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
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Originally Posted by Leovigildo
Exitus
The Census Bureau classed White Hispanics as non-whites, notwithstanding their desire to be white or not.
They classed themselves as being White when they could, and that's a fact, which is why one could sometimes see signs refering to Spaniards differently than othe Europeans:
Mestizo-Hispanics didn't become "people of color" until after the civil rights movement.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
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Originally Posted by Leovigildo
Arizona
You can be Hispanic and be Nordic White since Spain suffered many Germanic invasions and immigration from Northern Europe, but I guess that the typical steorotype is the typical Mediterranean inhabitant, just like Italians.
And just as a side note, many millions of Italians are more Nordic and/or Alpine than Mediterranean.
Still another example: in the Old South; dark skinned Anglo kids; i.e. of Italian heritage had to go to the 'Colored' schools.
That would have caused some serious riots.
I know that was definitely not the case in New Orleans which had a sizeable Italian population. NOLA's mayor in the 1960s, Victor Schiro, was a demagoguic segregationist and race-baiter, and New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello was a racist who funded Klan front groups like the White Citizens' Council and the Mississippi Sovereignity Commission. (Italians being Catholics weren't allowed into the Klan but they were allowed into said Klan front groups, which generally were for people whose social position would have made them shun the KKK as declasse and for the unwashed rabble.)
Islenos and Malaguenos (the Andalusians whose roots in Louisiana dated back from when it was a Spanish colony, so called because most but not all came from Malaga) were definitely considered white in Louisiana. Leander Perez has already been mentioned, a vicious bigot who controlled the anti-Long faction in Louisiana politics.
I've read about light skinned or mixed race people considered "black" who passed for white in those years and referred to themselves as Sicilian, Greek, or Armenian.
They classed themselves as being White when they could, and that's a fact, which is why one could sometimes see signs refering to Spaniards differently than othe Europeans:.
Likewise there were also signs referring to Jews differently than other Europeans.
I'm willing to bet that sign came from Texas where the Hispanic communities were treated worse than in the other Southwestern states. In California it was more about money, with a few exceptions like Orange County which had a large Klan.
Spaniards in the U.S. were almost non-existent before the C.R. mouvement.
In fact, they were never called "Spaniards", but Islenos, Malaguenos, Californios, Minorcans or Cubans in Key West.
The "Islenos", "Malaguenos" in Louisiana, that arrived there during the 18th Century, as Mahoun mentioned.
Islenos in Florida, Key West and Orlando, many came from Cuba when Ybor created Ybor city, near Orlando. Islenos comprised a large percentage of Cuban peasants, they were settled there during Spanish times and many went to Florida because of the war in Cuba that lasted from 1864 to 1898.
Minorcans in Florida. They were settled there by the British during the XVIIIth Century, by then Minorca was English. They are assimilated and only a few speak Spanish, but they lost their Catalan. A famous Minorcan is Admiral Farragut.
There was a small colony in New York that disappeared.
Spanish settlers in California, I believe they are a large group totally assimilated, they were called "Californios".
Spanish settlers in Tao, New Mexico. A group of Spaniards that settled in New Mexico in the XVIIIth Century. They have been living there in isolation since then fighting Indians, Mexicans and Americans.
In Texas, I believe there were Spanish "hacendados" that sided with Texas. I don't know much about them.
In some occasions, I've found people with Spanish or Catalan last names in the South that didn't even knew the origin of their last name.
Another group are Basques, some from Spain and some from France. They live in Idaho, Nevada and Montana.
Last edited by Leovigildo; 09-07-2009 at 07:01 AM..
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