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Latinitas Noticias: Is Hispanic the Same Thing as Latina?
Is Hispanic the Same Thing as Latina? Not quite.
By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2009, at 6:40 PM ET
Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he would nominate 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The New York Times wrote that Sotomayor, if confirmed, would be "the nation's first Hispanic justice." But Sotomayor has referred to herself in the past as "a Latina judge." Do Hispanic and Latina mean the same thing?
Not exactly. Hispanic is an English word that originally referred to people from Spain and eventually expanded to include the populations of its colonies in South and Central America. Latino is a Spanish word—hence the feminine form Latina—that refers to people with roots in Latin America and generally excludes the Iberian Peninsula. For many, Hispanic has negative connotations because of its Eurocentrism. Others prefer it because it's gender-neutral. Latino, meanwhile, is perceived as a more authentic-sounding, Spanish-language alternative. Generally speaking, Democrats use Latino more often than Republicans, who favor Hispanic.
For years, Spanish-speaking people in the United States were identified according to their ancestral nationality. In the 1970 U.S. census, for example, people were asked whether they were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or "other Spanish." (The question caused much confusion because many Americans from the middle or southern regions of the United States identified themselves as "Central or South American.") The word Hispanic was not used until the 1980 census, after the Office of Management and Budget imposed rules standardizing ethnicity statistics. (The change came after a federal committee on minority education complained about the lack of useful data.) In 1997, the OMB changed its classification to "Hispanic or Latino," explaining that "Hispanic is commonly used in the eastern portion of the United States, whereas Latino is commonly used in the western portion."
Click here to see the article and a photo of Sotomayor at Slate Magazine's website.
By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2009, at 6:40 PM ET
Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he would nominate 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The New York Times wrote that Sotomayor, if confirmed, would be "the nation's first Hispanic justice." But Sotomayor has referred to herself in the past as "a Latina judge." Do Hispanic and Latina mean the same thing?
Not exactly. Hispanic is an English word that originally referred to people from Spain and eventually expanded to include the populations of its colonies in South and Central America. Latino is a Spanish word—hence the feminine form Latina—that refers to people with roots in Latin America and generally excludes the Iberian Peninsula. For many, Hispanic has negative connotations because of its Eurocentrism. Others prefer it because it's gender-neutral. Latino, meanwhile, is perceived as a more authentic-sounding, Spanish-language alternative. Generally speaking, Democrats use Latino more often than Republicans, who favor Hispanic.
For years, Spanish-speaking people in the United States were identified according to their ancestral nationality. In the 1970 U.S. census, for example, people were asked whether they were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or "other Spanish." (The question caused much confusion because many Americans from the middle or southern regions of the United States identified themselves as "Central or South American.") The word Hispanic was not used until the 1980 census, after the Office of Management and Budget imposed rules standardizing ethnicity statistics. (The change came after a federal committee on minority education complained about the lack of useful data.) In 1997, the OMB changed its classification to "Hispanic or Latino," explaining that "Hispanic is commonly used in the eastern portion of the United States, whereas Latino is commonly used in the western portion."
Click here to see the article and a photo of Sotomayor at Slate Magazine's website.
Comment
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Comment by Leslie on June 5, 2009 at 2:34pm -
What a great article! I grew up in Corpus Christi, TX commonly referring to myself and my peers as Hispanic. Corpus is an interesting place to be Hispanic/Latina. Just a very few of my classmates spoke Spanish at all, and even then, only at home. The rest of us learned our colors and numbers just like the kids up north - from a book. In Austin, I hear students going back and forth with teachers and friends and when they speak to me, assuming I know Spanish, they are surprised that I don't.
The term Hispanic, being an English word, was easier for us kids to say in our natural English accents. (Try saying Latino with no accent... it can be kind of embarrassing.) And, growing up somewhat distant from our cultural roots (many of our parents refused to teach us Spanish because they were so discriminated against as children themselves because of their accented English) an English word for who we were made sense.
But during college, I started to realize that though I grew up with basically no major experiences that defined me as Latina, except folklorico classes and my tortilla making, but English speaking grandmothers, that I was still a thread in the Latino community, I just didn't know it. Once, I walked into a class at UT and discovered that there were 5 other Latino students and all of us were shocked because it was the first time that any of us had seen that. Gradually, it has become more important to me to distinguish myself and to highlight and promote my heritage because I see that outside of CC, TX, who and where you are from, makes a big difference in ones personal definition.
So, now I use the Spanish, geographic and gender precise term to describe myself: Soy Latina.
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Comment by Rosemarie Montez on June 2, 2009 at 6:47pm -
Very insightful! I have actually had various conversations about the definition of a Hispanic vs. a Latino(a) and it seems that the word Hispanic is supposed to be 'politically correct' and used in a rather formal way (found useful within statistics and surveys or just about anything coming from the government). It is rather general, but effective in reaching most audiences. Don't you think?
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