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Aren't those ethnic questionnaire based on self-identification ?
Of course it is. Everything is based on self-identification. Who's going to give you a DNA test to prove otherwise? We all see some people identify themselves as "African Americans" who look like they have almost zero African American genes. Besides, the point of my post was that you don't have to be Spanish Speaking or come from a former Spanish colony. He was able to identify himself as a Hispanic without being either, simply by coming from Brazil which isn't Spanish speaking nor a former Spanish colony. He had a Brazilian birth certificate to prove that's where he was born.
Last edited by marino760; 01-28-2022 at 04:17 AM..
I totally agree. People of the Americas being called Latino is also absurd since many don't even know that Latin is the language spoken by ancient Romans, certainly not a race of people. They themselves don't speak Latin and Spanish is not the closest language to Latin so the entire concept of being Latino, falls on it's face.
Of course people of Italian ancestry are more Latin than anyone given the history and genetics tied to ancient Rome, but if you call an Italian a Latino, they would laugh at you and think you were nuts.
The term "Latino" is absurd, because most people fail to understand it the way it is meant: as only if you acknowledge it literally. If you go to the root of the word, it designates the "Latium" which is the region of Rome. Most Italians wouldn't even fit the bill of being called "Latino".
What makes someone Latino has far to do with being a romance-language speaker (Many US hispanics do not speak Spanish) than it does with being from the nebulous geopolitical entity known as Latin America: Post-colonial societies where Native populations haven't been obliterated, unlike in the Northern countries, and also where romance languages are spoken with the expection of Quebec.
Many people get misled by the linguistic aspect for different reasons, and use terms like "Latino", "Hispanic", "Spanish", "Romance languages" interchangeably ad nauseam. Words' meaning change according to their context. CD being an american site with mostly a US-based audience, a Hispanic is someone with an ethnic background from a country in Latin America where Spanish is the official language, who can be of any race but usually of mestizo phenotype and culture
Last edited by paypeeto69; 01-29-2022 at 04:38 PM..
A) what was stated IS true
B) you misunderstand the (admittedly mixed up) context.
Whenever you hear Spain or Portugal mentioned in the context of a mixed heritage,
new world "Hispanic" or "Latino" person... substitute IBERIAN. et voila... the dispute is erased.
Just assume the original poster didn't know any better about the petty differences ...
as though the colonial efforts by the Portugese in Brazil etc were materially different
than the colonial efforts by the Spanish. They were NOT. Clearer?
Then you have people like Don Cheadle who check in at almost 20%....I would have guessed under 10% easily.
Based on what? How dark his skin is?
These are twins, from biracial couple genetically couldn't be closer.
Who would guess the left one is 50% black
Genes aren't the whole story. There is a lot of regulation on top of your DNA that may make you look completely different. How dark someone's skin is isn't a good indicator for anything.
The term "Latino" is absurd, because most people fail to understand it the way it is meant: as only if you acknowledge it literally. If you go to the root of the word, it designates the "Latium" which is the region of Rome. Most Italians wouldn't even fit the bill of being called "Latino".
What makes someone Latino has far to do with being a romance-language speaker (Many US hispanics do not speak Spanish) than it does with being from the nebulous geopolitical entity known as Latin America: Post-colonial societies where Native populations haven't been obliterated, unlike in the Northern countries, and also where romance languages are spoken with the expection of Quebec.
Many people get misled by the linguistic aspect for different reasons, and use terms like "Latino", "Hispanic", "Spanish", "Romance languages" interchangeably ad nauseam. Words' meaning change according to their context. CD being an american site with mostly a US-based audience, a Hispanic is someone with an ethnic background from a country in Latin America where Spanish is the official language, who can be of any race but usually of mestizo phenotype and culture
The term Latino is not absurd. There is a concept of Latin Europe too, countries that share roman languages and a kind of Mediterranean/southern European culture.
Latin America borrows the term from the fact that the major cultural influences are Spain, Portugal and Italy, all of which are part of Latin Europe. It was created to make sure to mark the cultural similarities between the 2 regions.
Because they do... because YOU are wrong in your assumptions and terms.
The "race" they share is the Spanish DNA ... however far back and whatever else is also in the mix.
This is completely wrong. A Hispanic person is of Latin American descent. They can be descended from Spaniards, yes. They can also be Africans (Roberto Clemente was Hispanic) or white (Eva Peron, for example) or Asian (Alberto Fujimori), or of fully indigenous blood, or any descent.
I really don't get the pushback I'm getting from the poster as he is clearly wrong. Even to the extent that there were cases where Mexicans were treated equal to whites, there were also clear cases--to include in systematic cases--where this isn't the case, which makes his unequivocal position wrong. His argument is akin to trying to rebut a point that a black and white painting is white only because it has white in it, whereas the very fact that the painting is not fully white means this isn't the case. The problem with his argument is that it is unequivocal, when there are clear examples to rebut his position.
Do you understand that the generation of Texans that grew up during segregation is still living? And the whole state of Texas watched Mexicans - even "brown" with dark skin - go to white public schools and do everything that was for whites only every single day? We don't have to speculate about what happened during segregation. We know. People were witness to Mexicans being white. They were regarded as white and they did have white privilege.
None of these stories people are telling today are true. It's usually non-Texans that believe this garbage.
They didn't just fabricate "hispanic" ethnicity. They fabricated a whole narrative of historical discrimination around "hispanic" ethnicity that completely didn't happen. When people became "hispanic" they became victims. The myth that Mexicans were segregated in Texas and riding on the back of busses with black people is the biggest lie in Texas history.
Enough with the gaslighting that racial/ethnic issues are only a problem because minorities make it a problem, and not because racism and discrimination are still a systemic problem. "Let's pretend race, ethnicity, and racism don't exist" isn't a solution. While you're sticking your head in the sand by pretending race and ethnicity are just "labels" that don't matter, minorities are still being routinely discriminated against, and it's not going to stop until we address the issue and take steps to fix it. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
"Hispanics" are a politically fabricated ethnic group. A minority group was literally invented from whole cloth. It's not something that had to happen. It was very contrived, and took 20 years to normalize.
In Texas people used to be white or black, nobody was EVER "hispanic". And that's not just a semantic difference. It's a concept that completely didn't exist. When I was a kid in the early 90s, adult Texans were just mystified by the concept of "hispanic". People were saying "what's Hispanic?". They didn't understand what that even meant. And these were people who had grown up around Mexicans/Spanish-American people their whole life.
The invention of "hispanics" in the United States proves a lot of things about race/ethnicity that people don't wan't to admit. We can still talk to the generations that remember when "hispanic" wasn't a thing.
Do you understand that the generation of Texans that grew up during segregation is still living? And the whole state of Texas watched Mexicans - even "brown" with dark skin - go to white public schools and do everything that was for whites only every single day? We don't have to speculate about what happened during segregation. We know. People were witness to Mexicans being white. They were regarded as white and they did have white privilege.
None of these stories people are telling today are true. It's usually non-Texans that believe this garbage.
They didn't just fabricate "hispanic" ethnicity. They fabricated a whole narrative of historical discrimination around "hispanic" ethnicity that completely didn't happen. When people became "hispanic" they became victims. The myth that Mexicans were segregated in Texas and riding on the back of busses with black people is the biggest lie in Texas history.
So you're saying that before the introduction of the "Hispanic" category in the US census nobody could tell the difference between a Caucasian individual of European stock and a person of Mexican origin, the majority of them with a mestizo phenotype?
Your post reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg's recent statement on the Holocaust, downplaying the racial motivation behind it. It is clear that to her, the world is only divided in 2 sides: Blacks and Whites, which is to say victims and racists, those who morally just and those who are morally corrupt, those who are owed and those who owe. To her, only hard feelings or actions against Blacks qualify as racism and are entitled to the privileges associated with it. It appears you share her point of view.
So you're saying that before the introduction of the "Hispanic" category in the US census nobody could tell the difference between a Caucasian individual of European stock and a person of Mexican origin...?
Mexicans were caucasian! They used to be thought of as a nationality group that was of Spanish origin. They were not a different race in Texas.
Yes, people could tell the difference between Anglos and Mexicans, but both were white. Mexicans were NOT considered to be minorities.
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