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I live in California and most Hispanics around here look Mexican which is pretty similar to native Americans (I've been exposed to Natives in Arizona)
But recently traveling around Florida and NYC I've discovered people who you would have never guessed were Hispanic because by looking at them you assume they are black or white, that is until they open their mouth and disclose the fact they are Hispanic.
Hispanic is not a race, it's a culture or ethnicity (which is not necessarily based on DNA or race).
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It does not make sense to me how people that look like all races is lumped into one category.
Maybe stop thinking that all groups of people must be defined by race and only by race?
I really don't remember when "Hispanic" became so prevalent. I think it first started showing up on questionnaires and surveys, along with "White, non-Hispanic." Since I'm not Hispanic in any sense, I didn't pay a lot of attention, but I imagine those English-speaking kids with Spanish last names I grew up with had to wonder if they were now to think of themselves as "Hispanic" rather than "White." That had to have been weird.
It was a gradual process. It started in the late 70s, when the idea was politically fabricated and approved for official government use. That's when people first started to be told that they were "hispanic". 1980 was the first year the term appeared on the census, birth certificates and other government forms. Millennials are the first generation of people that was born "hispanic". But the concept didn't really catch on in the 80s.
It took 20 years before it became a concept that was understood by the general public. The media didn't start to really mention "hispanics" until the early 90s. And even then people were still saying "What's a hispanic?"
And I still recall the first time I heard someone refer to himself as "Latino," it was about 1984. I remember thinking it was a more pleasant-sounding word than Chicano.
I didn't hear "Latino" until 99/2000, and it was essentially a semantic change for the same pan-ethnic "hispanic" concept - but even more ambiguous.
I really don't remember when "Hispanic" became so prevalent. I think it first started showing up on questionnaires and surveys, along with "White, non-Hispanic." Since I'm not Hispanic in any sense, I didn't pay a lot of attention, but I imagine those English-speaking kids with Spanish last names I grew up with had to wonder if they were now to think of themselves as "Hispanic" rather than "White." That had to have been weird.
Hispanic doesn't mean "not white" though, as proven by the forms you refer to which listed "White, non-Hispanic"... which means an alternative is "White, Hispanic". Censuses and other forms usually ask this question separately from race. So you answer yes or no to Hispanic independently from race, and then you can report any race at all (you can even tick more than one box for race if you're of mixed race).
That said, most (not all) Latin Americans are of mixed race, and how they choose to identify is entirely up to the individual. My understanding is that in many Latin American cultures, having Native American ancestry was (and may still be in some areas) considered undesirable, so many families hid that knowledge and now many Latin Americans have no idea they actually have a significant amount of Native American ancestry.
Hispanic doesn't mean "not white" though, as proven by the forms you refer to which listed "White, non-Hispanic"... which means an alternative is "White, Hispanic".
In practice the whitest most European-looking "hispanics" (typical Cubans and Puerto Ricans) are considered to be minorities who are not white at all. They even get called "people of color" when they have no color. So it has a definite racial connotation.
And this is not a concept that historically existed in the United States. It's all very new.
In practice the whitest most European-looking "hispanics" (typical Cubans and Puerto Ricans) are considered to be minorities who are not white at all. They even get called "people of color" when they have no color. So it has a definite racial connotation.
Not officially - not on official, legal forms. Just because some racist idiots out there don't understand that "white" doesn't mean "Anglo-Saxon" or "Northwest European" doesn't make them correct.
Hispanic refers to being born in a country that Spanish is the primary language. All Latinos are not Hispanic and vice versa. Brazilians are not Hispanic but Latino. If you are from Spain, you are Hispanic but not Latino.
Hispanic refers to being born in a country that Spanish is the primary language. All Latinos are not Hispanic and vice versa. Brazilians are not Hispanic but Latino. If you are from Spain, you are Hispanic but not Latino.
It's useless to argue over what the terms mean. There's no correct definition of "hispanic" or "latino". The category was bureaucratically fabricated and made to be ambiguous by design. There's no rhyme, reason, or logic behind "hispanic/latino" ethnicity. You don't even have to speak Spanish to be a "hispanic". It means whatever people want it to mean.
What's important to understand is that it's not an ethnic concept that historically existed in the United States. "Hispanic" is not even part of Texas history. So you won't find any "hispanics" in your genealogy research. Almost any person with a Spanish name in all records was simply "white".
Hispanic doesn't mean "not white" though, as proven by the forms you refer to which listed "White, non-Hispanic"... which means an alternative is "White, Hispanic". Censuses and other forms usually ask this question separately from race. So you answer yes or no to Hispanic independently from race, and then you can report any race at all (you can even tick more than one box for race if you're of mixed race).
I know that Hispanic doesn't mean "not white"...hopefully I have already made that clear. Race and ethnicity SHOULD be two separate questions, but they are still often not.
hispanic just means someone from a spanish colonized nuvo-terre country.
ones ethnicitys can be like:
domincan
venezuelan
honduran
and their race could be something like:
black
caucasion
morena
they would all be considered hispanic.
food for thought, a mexican (mostly caucasion mestizo native descent from bering strait asian migration) needing a heart transplant, genetically speaking is more likely to find a suitable donor in japan rather than the domincan republic (about half african slave descent).
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