Hispanic vs. Latino an Identity Debate

Hispanic vs. Latino

In these times of political correctness and cultural awareness and sensitivity, it is very important to know the right term when discussing a people or their culture. It is very easy to offend without intending to so or to cause emotional pain through ignorance. This is why it has become increasingly important to know the right cultural term for a given population. People with Mexican heritage have interchangeably been referred to by the terms Hispanic or Latino for many years. Lately, it has become necessary to create a single identifying term so that the group feels unified and no one feels at all slighted by a term they deem to be in any way offensive to themselves or their culture. Many cultural critics have argued that the term Hispanic is more offensive that Latino because it the term was created by the government and Latino was the term that the original culture chose to identify themselves with.

The term Hispanic was adopted by the American government in the 1970s to assist in keeping track of population growth during the period of Affirmative Action. The Nixon administration created the term to correspond to anyone who belonged to a culture that predominantly Spanish-speaking. "The key was the language not the country of origin" (Hispanic). Prior to the creation of this term, the government used the labels "persons of Spanish surname" or "persons of Spanish mother tongue" (Beretto). The label was given to those based on the potential ethnicity of their name or if their first language was Spanish. By creating the term Hispanic, the government was trying to create a word that would service a greater population of people and be more accurate, utilizing a person's self-definition rather than observation.

According to a poll that was first published in Hispanic Magazine in 2000, 65% of the 1,200 registered voters polled said that they preferred the term Hispanic. Only 30% preferred the term Latino (Granados). Most registered voters of Mexican descent are second or third generation Americans. Sergio Bendixen, president of Hispanic Trends, argued that this is because these generations of Americans tend to be more assimilated than their first generation counterparts.

Some regions prefer the term Latino over the term Hispanic, but these are in the minority. Mostly, these regions are not settled by first generation immigrants. Daniel Cubias makes the point that, "Latin American-descent populations are diverse and, at times, rivalrous to an extent that makes inter-ethnic, inter-national, and/or inter-identity formation difficult, to say the least" (Cubias). The idea here being that with such interactions, there is little chance of unification. He adds that, "People will call themselves what they want because of the time, place, and circumstance of their life experience." The term Latin America encompasses such a vast area that, he argues, it is difficult to create a singular dialect let alone create a singular identifying label.

To some the terms are interchangeable and feel no stigma associated with either term. Although the most specific term possible is always best, e.g. Spanish American, Puerto-Rican American, etc. On some occasions, such as when discussing a larger group, one or the other aforementioned terms are more efficient. In the United States, the terms are used interchangeably, usually with little or no negative response. However, some people feel very strongly about the issue. There are people who feel adamantly that the term "Hispanic" is incredibly offensive. One, author Sandra Cisneros, said, "It's a very colonistic term, a disrespectful term, a term imposed on us without asking what we wanted to call ourselves" (Granados). Her opinion is that the dominant culture, in the case of the United States of America this would be the white culture, invented the less ethnic term Hispanic in order to rob later generations of their identity. This term, she argues, is designed to literally whitewash a subordinate culture. Puerto-Rican American activist Roland Roebuck would agree with her. In an interview on National Public Radio, Roebuck said "For me, Hispanic refers to white, Spanish-speaking individuals. So the whiter you are, the more inclined you will be to identify yourself as Hispanic" (Martin). Of course, there are also those who find the term Latino offensive because it is not specific enough in its description.

One of the possible reasons for this opinion of the term Hispanic can be traced back to the word's etymology. According to Granados, "The word Hispanic is derived from the word Espana, the country that led the conquest of the New World and whose language and culture has dominated Latin America." In essence, the term Hispanic then is a constant reminder of the genocide of the Latin American people by the Spaniards. "The word Latino traces its roots back to ancient Rome and some say it's more inclusive, encompassing Latin American countries such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and others." The term is a reminder that the Spanish language originated in Latin, along with the other romance languages such as French and Italian. It is a unifying term rather than a reminder of war and bloodshed.