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Im really tired of being reading a perfectly interesting thread on city data, and ALWAYS coming across several post that treat "hispanic" as a race. And i mean many. Hundreds of posts are written in every forum of this site everyday just assuming hispanic is a race. People keep assuming hispanic is a race and grouping it together with other races, like black, white or asian. I ve never seen any mistake that was so commonly spread among people than this one.
I mean, i would guess that 80% of americans think hispanic if a race, if i would have to guide myself by city-data. Whatever topic they might be discussing, no matter how smart posters have proven to be regarding other issues, they ALWAYS make this mistake. Its the most common mistake across city-data.
I wonder: would it ever be understood, or americans will keep saying "hispanic" as a way to talk about amerindian, mulatos, mestizos, etc??
Is it too hard to say "amerindian"???
I dont know, im just asking.
Cause its really annoying to be reading and always come across this mistake. No one seems to be able to acknowledge it, either.
I've tried, and I've failed at it before. Americans just don't get it, and probably never will. One of my most favorite questions I've got from people were "Oh my God, you're Hispanic? I thought you were white! Do you know how to speak Mexican?"
First, Mexican is not a language. It's called Spanish or Castilian, and it's a European language from Spain, you know, that large country that borders France.
Second, like you said Hispanic is not a race. Americans think it is a race, and also assume ALL Hispanics are from south of the US and are brown. Yes there's not a lot of us white Hispanics north of Argentina, but we still do exist Americans find that so amazing. They think white people only come from northern Europe and are pale, blond/red/light brown with green or blue eyes
It's because Americans are used to thinking about internal cultural differences in terms of race. It's a part of the paradigm there, and since many people from the countries south of them look different from them and all speak Spanish and have related cultures, it's natural for them to think of that class of people in their society as a race. It's due to their history and sociology.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieLL
Im really tired of being reading a perfectly interesting thread on city data, and ALWAYS coming across several post that treat "hispanic" as a race. And i mean many. Hundreds of posts are written in every forum of this site everyday just assuming hispanic is a race. People keep assuming hispanic is a race and grouping it together with other races, like black, white or asian. I ve never seen any mistake that was so commonly spread among people than this one.
I mean, i would guess that 80% of americans think hispanic if a race, if i would have to guide myself by city-data. Whatever topic they might be discussing, no matter how smart posters have proven to be regarding other issues, they ALWAYS make this mistake. Its the most common mistake across city-data.
I wonder: would it ever be understood, or americans will keep saying "hispanic" as a way to talk about amerindian, mulatos, mestizos, etc??
Is it too hard to say "amerindian"???
I dont know, im just asking.
Cause its really annoying to be reading and always come across this mistake. No one seems to be able to acknowledge it, either.
I think the USA is a very race-centred country since its foundations.
In this country every people has always been classified in a racial group.
In the 70's when the spanish-speaking community began to be important I think the name "hispanic" started to be widely used. But even if the reference was purely linguistic (the spanish-speaking community), since the US is very race-centred most people, medias, etc. couldn't help to link this name "hispanic" with the the most frequent phenotype among the Spanish-speaking people that emigrated to the US.
Since most of these people were usually from rural regions of Mexico and central America where indigenous and mestizos largely predominates, the word "hispanic" became to wrongly mean the "race" of these people which didn't fit in none of the previous categories (I think native American is restricted to those who descend from native peoples of the USA, not all Americas, that is why they didn't included latin American indigenous in this category). And mestizos have their own typical phenotypes that are neither really European nor indigenous, so many though they needed their own category.
I agree with you that if we should categorize these people by their look, the word "hispanic" is a nonsense; it should have been much better to intruduce the word "mestizo" ("mixed raced") into English, which did not existed.
One of the implication of this common thought that exist in the USA is to think that the whole Spanish-speaking world is more or less a copy of Mexico. Mexico seem the reference of "hispanicness", without realizing that many (if not most) cultural and racial aspects of Mexico actually come from the rich indigenous American side of the country. With also European influences from other places than Spain: Some Mexican music has Bavarian influences, mariachi come from a french word "mariage", etc.
I remenber when I was younger, about 8 years ago I was in a youth hotel in Madrid, I had a group of Americans in my room. They were just arrived in Spain and seemed very surprised that it didn't looked like the Mexican image of what they though was an hispanic country. On said he was surprised by the wealth of the city, another one missed the burritos he expected, another one was surprised by the fact it was snowing... They were always comparing what they discoverd with Mexico, as if it was some sort of shock to discover that Spain was European. I think the same reaction could have happened in Argentina, Uruguay or other latin-American countries which doesn't have much of "Mexicaness".
I don't assume that all Americans are as ignorant as they were on this subject, but I think they were just victims of a dominant US mediatic vision of hispanicness that shaped their vision in that way. This mediatic image says "hispanic countries are those poor, hot, tropical countries full of colorfull people, colorfull architecture, slums and cartels with spicy foods, corn tortillas, Rhum, etc." while it does more or less fit to many countries in the caribean, central America and more or less to Venezuela, Colombia (excepted for the spicy thing), etc. But this doesn't have anything with being hispanic or latin.
I agree with you that if we should categorize these people by their look, the word "hispanic" is a nonsense; it should have been much better to intruduce the word "mestizo" ("mixed raced") into English, which did not existed.
Complete aside, but in Canada we English do actually have a word for it, Metis. Irrelevant I know as it's not present in US English, I just thought it was a fun fact.
I have noticed the same as SophieLL. One day a guy from New York asked me if I have white friends, I was surprised about the question and he told me something like: but you Hispanics/latins are not white but molato or coffee colour
I feel that in general in USA people are very "race conscious" everyone is socially placed into an ethnic or race.
I have noticed the same as SophieLL. One day a guy from New York asked me if I have white friends, I was surprised about the question and he told me something like: but you Hispanics/latins are not white but molato or coffee colour
I feel that in general in USA people are very "race conscious" everyone is socially placed into an ethnic or race.
Sadly, Catbelle, many Americans have no idea that Spanish language and culture all came from a certain European country. Many Americans think all Latin Americans originated in Mexico and that Spanish is a Mexican origin language. They don't think that English came from the US (well some do no doubt) but from England, but they can't grasp the simple fact that Spanish is a European language and that the people that came up with the language are European. In fact, Spanish here in the US is also a synonym for Mexican and Latin American
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Americans find that so amazing. They think white people only come from northern Europe and are pale, blond/red/light brown with green or blue eyes 
