“The term is a U.S. invention,” explains Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center....If it's an invented, created category, the questions become: Who is using this category and for what purpose? What are the alternative categories, and who has something to gain/lose from using those categories? What is the political dynamic that feeds the dominance of this political categorization and suppresses the alternatives, and what changes would cause those alternative categories to become prominent?
“There is no coherence to the term,” says Marta Tienda, a sociologist and director of Latino studies at Princeton University. For instance, even though it’s officially supposed to connote ethnicity and nationality rather than race — after all, Hispanics can be black, white or any other race — the term “has become a racialized category in the United States,” Tienda says. “Latinos have become a race by default, just by usage of the category.”...
If most Hispanics are united in something, though, it’s a belief that they don’t share a common culture. The Pew Hispanic Center finds that nearly seven in 10 Hispanics say they comprise “many different cultures” rather than a single one. “But when journalists, researchers or the federal government talk about” Latinos, Lopez acknowledges, “they talk about a single group.”
June 23, 2013
"If all ethnic identities are created, imagined or negotiated to some degree, American Hispanics provide an especially stark example."
"As part of an effort in the 1970s to better measure who was using what kind of social services, the federal government established the word 'Hispanic' to denote anyone with ancestry traced to Spain or Latin America, and mandated the collection of data on this group."
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 228 of 228Ritmo regaled: Ein reich, ein volk, ein ANTWORT
Since die Antwort is a feminine noun, the correct slogan would be Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Eine Antwort
I've been looking for clues as to whether you were a polyglot. Thanks for playing!
Chip S. said...
Most of the Latin American nationalities have their own culture
And yet they largely share a common religious and linguistic heritage.
Yes, but that's not a culture.
Then there are the cultural differences b/w MN and MS.
But they both share an american culture, no?
And then there's Belgium.
What, you mean the Spanish Netherlands?
The basic point is that "culture" isn't a discrete thing. You can aggregate up from very specific locations and dialects to as high a level of similarity you think is relevant for the question at hand.
Hey, I'm going by what the "expert" in the article said, as well as what "Hispanic" people have told me for years in contrast to Ritmo just blurting talking points.
BTW the linguistic thing can be tenuous.
A Mexican pronounces "ll" as a Y, a Colombian as a J.
We can split hairs all day on this. My point, then as now, is that Ritmo, as per usual, was blowing smoke.
You want to agree with him?
Be my ghost.
One other thing I'm going to post about the silly idea that liberals proclaim and the mainstream media parrot, tehat teh Republicans are the party of racists.
Since 1900, every single black Democrat elected to the House has been from a majority black district. Every single black Republican elected to the house has come from a majority white district.
Can you say Allen West? Just one example.
And another truth- A black republican could not be elected in a majority black district. Anyone want to deny this?
Affirmative action isn't a little thing, it is racial and gender discrimination by the government.
"It's a small corrective impulse to address the even greater and opposite evil, which was so profound that it would have destroyed the Republic. It almost did, in fact. Just one or two battles more.
This is small potatoes compared to that. There will be no Civil War and dissolution of America over affirmative action. You have to be realistic enough to understand that."
Congrats, no insults, awesome.
Now let's review your logic and facts. Affirmative action is not as bad as slavery, so what? It is morally and constitutionally wrong for the government to discriminate on the basis of race and gender. Besides being morally and constitutionally wrong, affirmative action is used by the dems to buy votes, distorting the democracy in a particularly corrupt, repugnant way. Corruption is the enemy of democracy cuz it is the cause of two of the most common ways to dictatorship: one party democracy via governmental vote buying and revolutions by dictators, ostensibly in reaction to pervasive government corruption.
Yes, but that's not a culture.
I realize that the primary mode of argument on this blog is to just assert the relevant facts, but this is too much.
culture: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time <southern culture>
This particularly cracked me up:
BTW the linguistic thing can be tenuous.
A Mexican pronounces "ll" as a Y, a Colombian as a J.
I've been to Colombia. Guess what? There are regional dialects w/in that very country. Just like the US!
I get it, dutch. You hate Ritmo, and you think everything he says must be wrong b/c he said it.
Well, no, actually.
Hey, I'm going by what the "expert" in the article said.
Here's what the "expert" said: "If all ethnic identities are created, imagined or negotiated to some degree..."
"Created" = "made" = "artificial" = humanly contrived".
"Hispanic" had originally been a catch all category for Spanish-speaking immigrants primarily from Latin America (or their descendants) - a term since superseded by "Latino", which has stronger overtones of alleged cultural unicity. I believe both terms are pretty much artificial. "Latino" in particular as currently used is a North American (not Latin American) is a political construct of the U.S. (primarily non-hispanic) cultural elite. It serves the multiculturalist, political purposes of this elite, but no doubt also serves broader purposes of political and social sectors "within" the "Latino" "Community".
The term "Latino" was laughed at just a few years ago in Latin America as a bizarre, inapt - even ignorant- term used only in the U.S., but I see it and hear it increasingly being adopted by the local cultural elite in Latin America, which elite in my opinion is merely echoing the themes/framing defined by the U.S. cultural elite, by whom such local cultural elite has been intellectually influenced, some would say co-opted. That is my perception.
I do not believe there is an ethnic or cultural group that can reasonably serve as a basis for cultural or ethnic identity that can be meaningfully defined as "hispanic" or "latino". Puerto Ricans are culturally distinct from Argentines who are culturally distinct from Mexicans. Others may disagree. There is obviously some common cultural heritage among Latin Americans - almost entirely a result of the common cultural and linguistic heritage from Spain. IMO, that common heritage is no greater (but perhaps no less) than that existing between Jamaicans, Australians and even many Indians (from India), all of whom we could describe, on linguistic grounds and on the basis of some commonality of heritage, as "Anglos" - a term which would naturally exclude inhabitants of Great Britain or their descendents.
GGonzalez
Steve Koch said...
Ritmo,
When you don't insult people, you raise your game to a whole nother level.
Ritmo is actually quite intelligent but he has an annoying habit of wanting to be recognized as super intelligent at all times. I've never gotten along with the type who don't suffer fools. If they're not introverts, they tend towards assholier-than-thou behavior in public places. That guy with the mexican wrestling mask was another classic example.
Nice post, Gabriel.
Chip S. said...
I get it, dutch. You hate Ritmo, and you think everything he says must be wrong b/c he said it.
No, you don't get it.
Regarding Ritmo, I could care less. He says something stupid - and he does, quite often - I'll say something.
Believe me, he's got people waiting in line for a crack at him so I save anything I've got for something particularly egregious.
Mostly, I just scroll past him or flip to another post.
You want to take somebody else's part with me because it's a hot Sunday, have fun.
If you pay attention at all, you know I fire a couple of harpoons at most in his direction.
Hatred I save for people higher up the food chain.
Interesting discussion, but the stuff about Lee Atwater is bunk. The Left has been smearing him for 20+ years now for an interview in which he was explaining how he and Reagan didn't employ a racial-code-word Southern Strategy.
Again, all that fine "nuance" and "high-information" thrown right out the window.
I'm also laughing at the notion of "black" and "Latino" being cultural designations. Right. I'm thinking of that coherent culture of Mexican farmers, Patagonian ranchers, and Cuban fishermen, all linked by their common European language, mixed ancestry, and a full set of limbs.
I don't get why this is so complicated. My ancestry is Korean. You can say I'm "Asian," but don't say it's a "cultural" designation, because my peeps have little in common with Japanese or Vietnamese aside from eating rice. That term really only means one thing--I share physical similarities to those people in east Asia.
Brazilians are not not hispanic cuz they don't speak spanish.
And yet they (Brazilians) do speak Portuguese, which is a language of the Iberian peninsula on which both Spain and Portugal reside. Indeed, Portuguese is basically the same speech as Galician, which is a dialect of Spanish spoken in the far northwest of Spain.
Nor is “Hispania,” from which “Hispanic” derives, a new word — it greatly predates the (medieval) origins of the Spanish nation.
For instance, here is the word as it appears inscribed (in Greek) on the famous Antikythera Mechanism, built during the first century BC: ΙΣΠΑΝΙΑ (referring to the whole peninsula, not what we think of today as Spain).
Thus, insisting that “Hispanic” can only refer to specifically modern Spain along with its Latin American derivatives — and not also neighboring Iberian peninsular Portugal and its — would appear to be linguistically unsound.
You're asking for logic from people legendary for their illogic.
Lusitanic is the proper word for Brazilians and other Portuguese-speaking peoples.
The Lozada article poses timely and significant questions, for which he no doubt will get much flack. The Althouse questions are also worthy, as usual. The article should be of special interest in New Mexico, though it will probably be ignored. That’s because Hispanics are 46 percent of New Mexicans. More important is the Hispanic demographic change between the 2000 and 2010 censuses. Of New Mexico Hispanics, 62 percent in 2010 trace themselves to Mexico. The percentage was 43.1 in 2000. Note the change is not quite 20 points. (This is from the Census question about family origin for Hispanics.) In 2010, therefore, 37 percent of New Mexico Hispanics are those answering “other” on the census question, meaning they see their heritage in Spain 350 years ago. These folks are the traditional New Mexico Hispanics. The cultures are different, I’m told. A friend in Santa Fe (an Anglo, the New Mexico word for people neither Hispanic nor Native American) with deep knowledge of the state sees racist behavior. Another friend, a Hispanic from the north sees a rural ghetto defined by liberal Whites from elsewhere.
With 9.4 percent of New Mexicans being Native Americans, New Mexico is the nation’s number two majority-majority state behind only Hawaii.
...he has an annoying habit of wanting to be recognized as super intelligent at all times.
Recognition of me is not the point. I couldn't care less about that. Recognition of the better argument is. Regardless of who makes it.
And Chick, you bring up pedantic points all the time. Correcting German grammar would be one of those times.
You just don't do it in a competitive or passionate way, as if decent knowledge or sound reasoning in politics is a civilizational option. But I'm not so sure this species has that luxury.
I've never gotten along with the type who don't suffer fools.
This actually comes off sounding kind of funny. So is it that you suffer? Do you like fools? (Pardon me, I guess I've just never found the idiom intuitively meaningful when actually sounded out literally). In any event, good thing you can get along with another blogger (to whom you link), who feels the same way as I do on that.
Was I wrong to expect better consistency from you?
Was I wrong to expect better consistency from you?
I think you just didn't like the comparison to Machos.
Here's a little gem I pulled from the Twilight Zone. I was going to tweak the monologue but decided to chirb-it intact: The Real Deal (Ending monologue from the episode called "The Obsolete Man" aired June 2, 1961).
The TZ monologue is actually on topic.
The Hispanic construct leads to all kinds of nonsense. Do Argentinians, for instance, get to "count" as Hispanic and get affirmative action preferences upon immigrating to the U.S., even if their ancestry is German, or not?
More irritating is the fact that, long after Jim Crow, the government and the affirmative action/minority political action grievance groups are perpetuating the One Drop Rule, by which, yeah, given enough intermarriage and whites as a category will disappear in the U.S. according to census definitions.
That guy with the mexican wrestling mask was another classic example.
Except he is really intelligent.
I think you just didn't like the comparison to Machos.
You think wrong, dude.
Why is it that you never have enough criticism for me, but it's you who's clinically, socially impaired?
Does coming on here help you feel as if you're rebelling against your diagnosis? Is it some sort of "free-zone" for you, where you can pretend and project all sorts of erroneous social situations that you'd get called out for, IRL?
I'm trying to be nice here, but you seem to think that massive denial, fantastical thinking, and completely ridiculous accusations are fun.
Is engaging in bs therapeutic for you, allowing you the escape from a social reality that is otherwise, way too difficult, stifling and painful to accept? I could help you understand and navigate that reality, if you wanted, but instead you deny it like a kid who denies that he can learn from people who know more than him. And hence, your resentment.
Does that help you feel more secure in your denial of how you flirted with Inga?
No one likes a weasel, Chickie.
My grandfather, who died when my mother was two and whose culture I have zero knowledge of or influence from, was born in Spain. I wish I had the guts to apply for Hispanic scholarships and small business loans.
The concept of diversity which does not recognize individual dignity (intrinsic and independent of incidental features such as skin color) serves to devalue human life.
That said, dividing people into manageable and therefore exploitable classes is not a new phenomenon. Neither is advancing political, economic, and social standing through the arbitrary exploitation and discrimination of individuals.
Normalizing premeditated murder also serves to devalue human life.
The Left is fundamentally corrupt.
"The exclusion of Brazil from the legal definition is idiotic. What separates Brazilians from other South Americans apart from language? And yet a descendent of Venezuelans who speaks only English is "Hispanic," while a descendent of Brazilians who speaks only English is not. And a Spaniard who speaks only Basque qualifies. "
Don't be a stupid Gringo.
We Brazilians are not hispanic, period.
Portuguese is not "just a language", it is the core of our culture, together with the contributions of african, native-american (different tribes in comparison to hispanic coutnries) and european immigrants (we are a coutnry of immigrants like the USA).
Just like Portugal is not Spain, Brazil is not Hispanic America. Different culture, different language, different race composition.
The fact that we are surrounded by hispanic countries is irrelevant - there is hardly any contact with their culture - with the exception of one or two novelas, or one or two music band, in general, we hardly consume anything hispanic.
You're more likely to see a Brazilian teenager consuming asian pop culture (thanks to the large portion of Brazilians with japanese ancestry) than hispanic culture.
Even the geographic contact is minimal, because the Amazon and the Andes separates most of Brazilian territory from hispanic countries.
Why is so difficult for Americans to accept that we are not hispanic? I don't see people saying japanese culture is "just like the chinese" culture.
Again, don't be the "stupid gringo"- things like this is what creates this stereotype abroad.
"Indeed, Portuguese is basically the same speech as Galician, which is a dialect of Spanish spoken in the far northwest of Spain."
Man, so much bullshit about my language and culture in this post. Amazing.
Galician IS NOT a dialect of Spanish. Both Portuguese and Galician have as origin the language called Galician-Portuguese (or simply Old Portuguese), THAT PREDATES SPANISH.
"Nor is “Hispania,” from which “Hispanic” derives, a new word — it greatly predates the (medieval) origins of the Spanish nation."
Although Portugal was, indeed, part of the Roman province of Hispania, its region already had the MUCH OLDER term of LUSITANIA. That's why portuguese people are LUSOS, and Lusitania is a alternative name for Portugal. For a while Brazil was called "Nova Lusitania".
Of course I shouldn't even bother talking about this, because since the Middle Ages HISPANIA (Spain) only refers to all Iberian Kingdoms under Castille WITH THE EXCEPTION OF PORTUGAL.
So, it's obvious that neither Portuguese or Brazilians are Hispanic. Period.
"So an Argentine is hispanic and a Brazilian is not? Ha, that's funny."
Why is this funny? In fact, we are Brazilians BECAUSE we kicked the hispanics out of our territory.
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