Cultural Q: differences betewen Hispanic and Latino, what do they mean?

[mrwiseman]

I have a question for the Granaboard members who live in the USA:

In a few random sites, I found some people who claim to be "Hispanic", while others refuse that word and say they are "Latino" instead. However, they seem to be using the "Latino" word for Spanish-speaking people only. I've checked the Royal Spanish Language Academy dictionary and I'm a bit confused by all this Hispanic/Latino/Latin/Spanish/Spanish American/Latino American/etc. mess.

Could you please tell me how is the "Hispanic" group in the USA defined? I know it includes all Spanish-speaking American countries, but, besides that, does it include the people from Spain? I think it doesn't; at least I think the vast majority of Spanish-speaking people in the USA came from American countries, and I never heard of a Spanish person living in the USA referred to as "Hispanic".

There's also the "Latino" (Latin) word. The problem with it is that, technically, it means the people from countries where a Latin-derived language (i.e. Spanish, French, Italian...) is spoken. Technically, the Spanish, French, Italians, and everyone in America outside Canada and the USA is "Latin", but I doubt Europeans call themselves "Latino" in the USA. Besides, some (or most? I wouldn't know) people from Central and South America have little in common with Spain besides the language, culturally-speaking.

"Latin American" would mean all Latins who are American, i.e. all of America except the USA and Canada. And this includes Brazil, who is not a Spanish-speaking country. I doubt they mean this by "Latino".

And "Spanish American" would be the group of American spanish-speaking countries, which is what I think people mean with "Hispanic" and "Latino". (I might be wrong.)

I also think there's some sort of racial stuff regarding these words (I apologize in advance if I said something "wrong" without knowing in this post). I don't even know which races are there in the world; all I know is that the Europeans from Spain, France, Italy, etc. are white, and the Latin American people is white (descendants of the Europeans), indigenous (I don't know if this is the right name), or a mix of the two.

I'm confused [img]confused.gif[/img]

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(Note on "Latin": The original meaning of "Latin" was the Latin language (which is NOT Spanish, and it's not very similar to it), the language spoken in Rome. It evolved to Spanish, French, Italian, and other languages in the various provinces of the Roman Empire, which later became some of the Middle Age Empires, or part of them.)

[Dragonrider]

Well, if someone asked if I was hispanic my answer would be yes, if I someone asked me if I was Latino, I'd probably say yes, but that's barely used around here, and if someone asked if I was Spanish-American, that sounds kind of like "From Spain" rather than "Speak Spanish" to me.

I really don't understand it, but I think Hispanic is American that isn't from Canada or the US. I don't understand the Latino thing, as Italians would not be considered Latino, nor would a French person.

[Xellos]

Id on't really think there's a difference, it's probably more of an area thing, like one area says latino, another says hispanic.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 25, 2003 09:15 PM: Message edited by: Xellos ]</font>

[Nevan]

I believe it all depends on who you talk to. In this small redneck town people at my school practice bigotry and call any person who originally spoke/still speaks Spanish a Mexican. Quite sad, I know.

I looked it up in Merriam-Webster and here is what I got:

Latino
1 : a native or inhabitant of Latin America
2 : a person of Latin-American origin living in the U.S.

Hispanic
: of, relating to, or being a person of Latin American descent living in the U.S.; especially : one of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin

So they basically are the same.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 25, 2003 09:14 PM: Message edited by: Nevan ]</font>

[F4ll3n 4n93l]

if i had to guess, hispanic is probably mainland and latino is the rest, or hispanic includes cuba and puerto rico. latino def includes mexico.

[Shiinigami]

Isnt it same whites & caucasians?

[mrwiseman]

Oh, so they are interchangeable. I thought there were a funny thing going on with these words, because I bumped on some news about some Mexican or Puerto rican writer that refused to be called a hispanic, claiming that she was not Spanish.

IRT DR: "Spanish-American" sounds kind of Spanish, but would you answer positively if I asked, "?Eres hispanoamericano?" It seems to sound different in Spanish (probably because the proper English translation should've been "Hispanic-American", not "Spanish-American", but that's what the dictionary suggested to be).

[Dragonrider]

I do think they are mostly interchangeable.

Except Caucasian and white aren't interchangeable, I don't think. A caucasian can be from anywhere from West Asia, to North Africa, to Canada, to India.

Whereas most people from say, India, would not be considered white by most people, they are technically caucasian. Although, really, races have mixed so much that race has become an almost subjective, cultural, and mental view of things rather than a scientific or objective one.