Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You're right, there's no pure Latin culture left. The descendants are all what's left. Latino isn't a culture like German or Greek, it's a pan-ethnic group or a group of cultures with a common origin, where culture is more like a family tree. A Spaniard will definitely feel more familiar with an Argentine and a Cuban than with a German. Likewise, the Portuguese and Italians will feel more familiar with Brazilians than with Russians. Romanians and French are somewhat outliers.
It's the similar with Arabs and Han Chinese. There are many similar smaller groupings like Nordics, Slavs, Persians, ect.
I think that there are quite a few different definition for "Latino". IMHO it makes the most sense when used to describe languages having Latin a common ancestor., like the so-called Romance languages do. Now it is inconsistent when used as an ethnic group. Unlike Arabs or Hans, the population sometimes denominated as "latino" are much too disparate. A Portuguese or an Italian aren't necessarily closer to a Brazilian Indian or Afro than to a Russian, Just like none would say a Brit is closer to a Nigerian than to Pole in spite of sharing the same language. Latino used as an ethnicity can make sense in the USA since most of the Spanish speakers there are from geographically close countries, and often the closer two people are the more affinities they have. People living in separate countries are too far apart to be similar.
Your anti-Americanism is boiling over. Have a Coke and a smile.
No anti-American here, I love the States. My comments are just observations.
I'm equally critical of British aspects and Colombian aspects I disagree with and dislike. Have a crumpet and learn to laugh at yourself instead of being overly blindly gun ho like most Americans.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
2,825 posts, read 5,261,618 times
Reputation: 1957
South America has historically much closer ties to Europe than to the US. There are quite a lot of south american in Europe but very few people from mexico and central America,
In Brazil most Spanish immigrants were ‘’Andaluzes’’ (from Andaluzia, south Spain) 750.000 only for Sao Paulo farms.
In the 3 southern States first German, second Italian, third Portugal (concentrated in Florianopolis area)
Sao Paulo first Italian, second Spanish third Portuguese after Japanese and many others nationalities.
The rest of Brazil is huge Portuguese or African or Native Indians depending of the area, certainly minorities of all in whole country.
It's interesting but statistically speaking Brazil had way more Spanish immigrants during the days when Europeans were migrating to the Americas than Mexico.
The only time Mexico had a significant number of Spaniards going there was during the Franco regime, and they were mostly intellectuals, opposers of the Franco regime. While Brazil actually had proper Spanish immigration.
Everything is said is right though. Americans use Latino and Hispanic interchangeably, although many Hispanics in America also identify with the pan ethnicity. Latino has a different meaning all-together.
From my experience, actual people from Latin America do not identify with the term Latino too much, I would say a lot of them don't even really know that such term generally applies to them.
They are more regional sort of like Europeans tend to be. (Bavarians first Germans second, Sicilians first Italians second, Bretons first French second), Latin Americans are exactly the same way. (Porteños first Argentines second. Paisas first Colombians second, Cariocas first Brazilians second).
The people who I have found tend to identify themselves in the US that way seem to be some Texans. But overall the US is much more color oriented which means people identify with this superficial US census color coded definitions (White, black, Latino, Asian)
I have also found that the "Latinos" who care a big deal about being Latino, tend to be people born in the US, not even first generation Latinos who tend to identify with their parent's country, but mostly second, third and so on generation Latinos who often cling onto this stereotypical view of what Latin America is, which in the US case it's a misinterpretation of Mexican culture.
So you have an American with Mexican heritage thinking Latin America is tacos, burritos, enchiladas, cinco de mayo and in their broken spanish express a big deal of pride on being latino, often annoying actual latin Americans.
Watch on youtube videos of Flama about being signs of being Latino, and you'll see Mexican Americans agreeing with the video, while actual Latin Americans take offense and act very annoyed towards the videos claiming it's a representation of Mexican people and not of their countries' cultures.
It's interesting but statistically speaking Brazil had way more Spanish immigrants during the days when Europeans were migrating to the Americas than Mexico.
The only time Mexico had a significant number of Spaniards going there was during the Franco regime, and they were mostly intellectuals, opposers of the Franco regime. While Brazil actually had proper Spanish immigration.
I think because Mexico, Peru and others Spanish American countries always had huge population native American so they didn’t need much foreigner workers.
In Brazil native American population always was small, so first Portuguese imported millions of African slaves and millions of Portuguese people after when independent Brazil imported millions of workers Europeans.
The Spanish immigration in Brazil is underestimated because most last names are equal or was translated for Portuguese. Diaz for Dias, Gomez for Gomes, Muñoz for Munhos, Rodriguez for Rodrigues etc. but they are 18 millions of Spanish descendants in Brazil close the total of Spanish descendants in Argentina.
75% of the city of Miami is from south America. Plenty here.
Miami has more Cuban than all South American together I guess
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Plenty here.
