My theory on why a certain group hates another

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Deinonychus

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05 Mar 2021, 11:09 pm

To be honest I don't actually care about those statistics, they make no difference to me either way, but...

robotrecall wrote:

my conclusion of that is that most Hispanics are white, from Spain and Portugal.

...there it is again. :lol:

Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but I'm of the opinion that words are supposed to actually mean something, and this one is kinda personal to me: "Hispanic" refers to either "Spain" or "Spanish [language]". Neither one of those things includes Portugal.

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funeralxempire
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05 Mar 2021, 11:16 pm

toadsnail wrote:

To be honest I don't actually care about those statistics, they make no difference to me either way, but...

robotrecall wrote:

my conclusion of that is that most Hispanics are white, from Spain and Portugal.

...there it is again. :lol:

Take it up with those who coined the term, not with those who use it as it's understood.

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Deinonychus

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05 Mar 2021, 11:21 pm

funeralxempire wrote:

Take it up with those who coined the term, not with those who use it as it's understood.

Who coined it then? Has it been coined? I'm not familiar with that usage (only the occasional misuse instead). As far as I know, no dictionary seems to be either.

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robotrecall
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06 Mar 2021, 9:27 am

toadsnail wrote:

To be honest I don't actually care about those statistics, they make no difference to me either way, but...

robotrecall wrote:

my conclusion of that is that most Hispanics are white, from Spain and Portugal.

...there it is again. :lol:

My bad. I meant Latinos and Hispanics are mainly white, from Spain and Portugal, then Mestizo, then other ancestries. I forgot about that my apologies.

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06 Mar 2021, 10:18 am

toadsnail wrote:

Hispanic, as I understand it, isn't a racial term. It means having origins in a country or culture that is primarily Spanish-speaking. Anywhere from Spain to Uruguay. Portugal and Brazil are NOT Hispanic.

The majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the USA are most certainly mestizo, regardless of how they fill out a census form. To conclude that all of those people must be solely of Spanish ancestry is ludicrous.

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06 Mar 2021, 2:13 pm

toadsnail wrote:

funeralxempire wrote:

Take it up with those who coined the term, not with those who use it as it's understood.

Who coined it then? Has it been coined? I'm not familiar with that usage (only the occasional misuse instead). As far as I know, no dictionary seems to be either.

That's how the term is used by the US census, it is not technically correct but when it's used for decades with that meaning that meaning will be the one many people are familiar with.

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Deinonychus

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06 Mar 2021, 2:37 pm

funeralxempire wrote:

That's how the term is used by the US census, it is not technically correct but when it's used for decades with that meaning that meaning will be the one many people are familiar with.

Maybe you're also getting the word mixed up with "Latino" then, because that ^ is actually not true. (I did look it up before proceeding with my pet-peeve crusade.) Also I guess Brazil may have been vaguely sort-of implicitly included in some sort-of equivalent category in past incarnations of the census and other similar surveys, but I doubt Portugal ever was.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -hispanic/

Quote:

In 1976, the U.S. Congress passed the only law in this country’s history that mandated the collection and analysis of data for a specific ethnic group: Americans of Spanish origin or descent. The language of that legislation described this group as “Americans who identify themselves as being of Spanish-speaking background and trace their origin or descent from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central and South America, and other Spanish-speaking countries.” This includes 20 Spanish-speaking nations from Latin America and Spain itself, but not Portugal or Portuguese-speaking Brazil.

That's the "official definition" (or the closest you'll get to one).

And this is from the latest census form, if I got it right:

The wording even seems to (implicitly) exclude Brazilians from the "Latino" grouping, which does seem to make sense to me, although that's not a semantic issue like it is with the word "Hispanic", and it does get a lot more complicated. Portuguese speakers (and their respective descendants) can choose to answer "yes" if they want, but, as the article says, they rarely do.

It's kind of annoying to hear the word "Hispanic" used in that overgeneralized way, because my understanding is that the confusion originates from willfully careless usage, sort of like "Hey John, could you come here and do this for me please? -- Sure thing, but... my name is Jack. -- Whatever, same thing." It carries that connotation even if it's not meant that way.

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naturalplastic
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06 Mar 2021, 4:02 pm

toadsnail wrote:

To be honest I don't actually care about those statistics, they make no difference to me either way, but...

robotrecall wrote:

my conclusion of that is that most Hispanics are white, from Spain and Portugal.

...there it is again. :lol:

Not necessarily.

"Hispania" was actually the name of a province of the ancient Roman Empire.

Like Iowa is now a state of the US.

The Roman province of "Hispania" consisted of the entire Iberian peninsula. All of what is today Spain, AND Portugal.

Ergo any United States citizen who came from a New World country founded by either of the two modern countries on the Iberian peninsula can rightly be labeled "Hispanic" since both Spain and Portugal were part of ancient "Hispania".

Arguably Portugese speaking Brazilians would be just as "Hispanic" as Spanish speaking Mexicans/Dominicans/Argentinians etc.

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06 Mar 2021, 4:33 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

The Roman province of "Hispania" consisted of the entire Iberian peninsula. All of what is today Spain, AND Portugal.

Ergo any United States citizen who came from a New World country founded by either of the two modern countries on the Iberian peninsula can rightly be labeled "Hispanic" since both Spain and Portugal were part of ancient "Hispania".

Arguably Portugese speaking Brazilians would be just as "Hispanic" as Spanish speaking Mexicans/Dominicans/Argentinians etc.

Actually, even resident aliens are encouraged to fill out census forms, not just citizens.

More importantly, the words Spain and Spaniard and Spanish also derive from the Latin Hispania. Would it be accurate to call the modern-day Portuguese Spaniards, or say Brazilians are speaking Spanish? Remember, when the Iberian Peninsula was under Roman rule, neither Spanish nor Portuguese existed as distinct languages.

The modern terms Hispanic/Hispanicity derive from the Spanish term Hispanidad. Though Hispanidad ultimately comes from the Latin Hispania, the Hispanidad is the Spanish-language equivalent of the Anglosphere (the collection of places and cultures where that one particular language prevails). So, no, it would be inaccurate to refer to someone from Portugal, or Brazil, or the Azores, or Cape Verde as Hispanic, as these places are not part of the Spanish-speaking world.

It would also be a bit lazy to call Hispanics "Spanish people," as that refers specifically to Spaniards from Spain. Hence, the term Hispanic. Though it's interesting to note that many mestizos from different Latin American countries will refer to themselves collectively as "Spanish" when speaking English.

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06 Mar 2021, 4:40 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

That's one of the things the word could have meant, and that's one of the reasons why I did look it up to be sure. It doesn't seem like modern-day use is ever derived from that ancient name though (even if the word is). Instead, the etymology of that mis/use seems mostly if not entirely based on what I described in my previous post (not on the ancient concept of Hispania in any case). That's why it really does sound annoying to me when it's used in that sense. As far as I can tell, that mis/use is far from reaching critical mass, and it generally doesn't seem to be recognized by people who do pay attention when using the word.

Pet peeve stands. :ninja:

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funeralxempire
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06 Mar 2021, 4:48 pm

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

Though it's interesting to note that many mestizos from different Latin American countries will refer to themselves collectively as "Spanish" when speaking English.

That's how my one ex referred to herself, her parents were Colombian and Guatemalan respectively but she always described herself as Spanish.

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06 Mar 2021, 4:57 pm

funeralxempire wrote:

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

Though it's interesting to note that many mestizos from different Latin American countries will refer to themselves collectively as "Spanish" when speaking English.

That's how my one ex referred to herself, her parents were Colombian and Guatemalan respectively but she always described herself as Spanish.

Thats odd. Even White Anglosaxon Americans and Canadians dont call themselves "English". An indeed many, even light skinned, Hispanics resent being called "Spanish", and use that very argument ("you dont call yourself 'English' do ya? Spain is in Europe! I am from [whatever country in the Western Hemisphere they are from]!").

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06 Mar 2021, 5:11 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

funeralxempire wrote:

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

Though it's interesting to note that many mestizos from different Latin American countries will refer to themselves collectively as "Spanish" when speaking English.

That's how my one ex referred to herself, her parents were Colombian and Guatemalan respectively but she always described herself as Spanish.

For what it's worth the Amish call us 'English'.

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Deinonychus

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06 Mar 2021, 5:23 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

I guess it depends on how important the person feels those distinctions are to them personally.

Like, it's not common at all for Brazilians to say "they're Portuguese" in a way that implies that the word includes Brazilians in general. But if someone got it mixed up somehow and referred to me as "Portuguese" because I'm from Brazil instead, I don't think I would mind it. Brazil does have a lot of Portuguese heritage, both cultural and genealogical. We don't see or hear much from/about Portugal these days, but there's still a vague but widespread sense of being part of the "same community" in a way.

If someone assumed that I speak Spanish though, that would piss me off. :lol:

Even if I knew that it's actually more than reasonable for that given person to make that mistake (like, I really wouldn't expect someone from, say, Korea, to know what language is actually spoken here). I guess it's just because there's no sense of connection to "Hispanidad" at all. So in the end it depends on what each person feels like they're connected to or not. (Also, in that one case I imagine the main reason for saying "Spanish" rather than "Spanish speaker" is because it's a good-enough shorthand, and maybe "Hispanic" kinda feels like it implies a US resident, because that's where the grouping is most frequently used).

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ezbzbfcg2
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06 Mar 2021, 5:39 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

Thats odd. Even White Anglosaxon Americans and Canadians dont call themselves "English".

It's not odd at all. English is also the name of the language, so it would be a bit weird to refer to ourselves as "English" while speaking English. Now, if Americans and Australians and Britons began moving to Japan en masse and learning Japanese as a second language, it's entirely possible they would (while speaking Japanese) refer to themselves all as "English" (i.e. native English speakers or recent descendants of native English speakers regardless of which English-speaking country).

When Latino/mestizo/Hispanics are speaking the English language, they will often, indeed, refer to themselves collectively as "Spanish" (i.e. descendants of Spanish-speakers). The more accurate term would be Hispanic, but they seem to avoid that term.

naturalplastic wrote:

An indeed many, even light skinned, Hispanics resent being called "Spanish", and use that very argument ("you dont call yourself 'English' do ya? Spain is in Europe! I am from [whatever country in the Western Hemisphere they are from]!").

But they evidently don't seem to want to refer to themselves as HISPANIC either.

robotrecall
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07 Mar 2021, 11:51 pm

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:

toadsnail wrote:

The census data states otherwise. I didn't say all of them, I said majority of them. It's ludicrous to state they're all brown too, because some Latin American countries have been colonised by people from European countries. Mexicans are mainly mestizo, yes, which is half white half native. A chunk of them are mestizo, but the majority are a shade of white. There's different shades of white you know.

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