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.
Obviously Hispanic is not a race-it just refers to people who speak Spanish. If it is a race, then are all who speak English the same race? When we think of Hispanic people, it really depends on what part of the country you live in. In Los Angeles, most think of it as a Mexican (more Native) look, while in Miami it would probably be a Cuban (more white/black look), and in New York probably Puerto Rican.
An English last name would often indicate some relationship with English background. Some of these English descended people have been here hundreds of years; not like people who got off the boat just a few generations ago.
At least some of my English paternal ancestors "got off the boat" around the US Civil War. This is well after my Belgian maternal ancestors who came here during the time of Napoleon. English immigration to the US apparently remained at least somewhat common until the 1890s. Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor, was a Jewish man born in London in 1850. (I had a sneaking suspicion that some of the English who came here after the Revolution were religious minorities. I don't think my ancestors were, but my ancestors may have been Baptists and England might have still preferred Anglicans then)
The English tend to have some horror at "mixing" so it strikes me as possible some might have been more likely to deem a kid "non-English" if they had the child with a non-English person. Likewise people of English descent often just became "white people." At one time one's "whiteness" was even somewhat defined in how similar or different you were from being English. In modern times you had the term "WASP" for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Although the term has such snooty baggage many may not identify with it while others may not identify with it because they're not Protestant. I do not identify as "English American" even though my ancestry is probably as much English as anything. So possibly English-Americans are like me and would identify as just "a white person, non-specific."
Considering how many English came it seems possible to me that 25% of Americans are "English more than they are anything else" but there's really no good reason to identify as that. Even with Scotch-Irish there are certain cultural festivals or displays. English is kind of nothing. Although you do see the Mormons identify as English a fair amount and maybe some Episcopalians do too.
NJphillyfan is correct. When I was majoring in Anthropology we were taught that there were 3 races--Asian, Caucasian, and Negroid. Later, Pacific Islander was added. "Hispanic" is most definately not a race. Just watch a baseball game and you'll see white Hispanics, black Hispanics, and mixed-race Hispanics. It may be hard to believe but the USA is still about 80% Caucasian. (Almost 13% are of African heritage, 6% Asian, and 1% Native American). For whatever reason we weren't taught that a Native American or Indian was a separate race. Just reading these posts makes me wonder about that.
I took a course in college titled "Latino/a's in Communities" where we had a week long discussion on the differences between Race, Ethnicity, and such. Also the difference between Latino/Hispanic.
The end result was that there really are only 3 races, and that Hispanic simply refers to a group of people who speak spanish.
I believe there's 3 races and everything branches off of them, but that doesn't change the fact that Indians, native americans, most middle eastern people, hispanics (whether it's the darker skinned or simply from that culture and speak the spanish language), etc. none of them are treated or looked at as "white" to the average person, especially by white people. Obvious cultural differences, skin color differences, language differences, etc.
Hispanic refers to people who identify with the culture of a Spanish-speaking nation. They may or may not speak Spanish themselves. For that matter a person from a Spanish-speaking nation, even if they speak Spanish, may not identify as Hispanic or be deemed such. For a more overt example I think there are figures for "American Indians of Latin American origin" in the list of American Indians in the US. So some Maya who come here, and there are some Maya who come here, may speak Spanish yet not identify with the culture of a Spanish-speaking society. As it's cultural it's a chosen identification according to the census. If you come from a Spanish-speaking nation, or your ancestors did, you may or may not be Hispanic depending on what you feel.
I will admit though that when I think "Hispanic" I traditionally thought "A mestizo or 'mulatto' of Latin American ancestry." However purely white people from Spain can term themselves "Hispanic" and Chinese-Cubans can be termed Hispanic. Likewise a mestizo from Brazil is not Hispanic.
In terms of race different schemes of the number of races existed and some anthropologists reject all of them. Still one of the more recent classifications I find to think in terms of "races" was Caucasoid - White people. Capoid - Bushman or Khoisan who are quite distinctive from "blacks." Congoid - Basically what we'd call "black." Mongoloid - non-Caucasian Asians Australoid - Australian Aborigines American Indians were generally listed as a kind of Mongoloid. A more recent thing I've seen is to avoid race per-se, but break populations down by genetic lineage. So you have "Haplogroup R1b", which seems to mostly be among Europeans and North Africans, and so forth. This is more based on some kind of science, but maybe doesn't roll off the tongue like races. Also a person having "Haplogroup R1b" may have some other Haplogroup too for all I know or not look "white" or whatever main association my description may have implied.
Last edited by Thomas R.; 04-19-2010 at 02:35 PM..
last time i checked, though, philipinos are not hispanic.
The Philippines isn't Spanish speaking anymore. However in the 1980 Census something like 12% of Filipinos identified as Hispanic. Reportedly only 1% of Filipinos identify as Hispanic today.
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.
