My husband grew up in California. He has a deep appreciation for Mexican food, lives for a good boxing match, and has an abiding reverence for family. He is protective of our children and me. My husband’s Spanish, while not fluent, is stronger than mine. He speaks to my grandmother in Spanish when I cannot.
My husband sounds like many Latino men, except that he is not Latino. He is a “generic” American mutt. His family tree has branches extending to Scotland, Ireland, England, and other Nordic areas of Europe. His mother was a MacDonald. He has freckles and hazel eyes. I, too, have European ancestors and freckles and according to the national census, we’re both white. What is it that makes me Latino, but not him?
Everything I have read explains that Latino is a culture, not a race. If you look at our community, we come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of us have thick curly hair; some of us have straight. Some of us are blonde, others brunette (and some of us will never tell). We are a rainbow of eye colors and skin tones. Many, if not most of us, have European ancestors. Is it our indigenous or African ancestors who make the difference?
Spaniards don’t necessarily have indigenous or African blood, so that can’t be the deciding factor, unless we are excluding Spaniards from the Latino community. If language is the deciding factor, why isn’t anyone who speaks Spanish categorized as Latino? What about those generations of us who weren’t taught Spanish because of shame and oppression they experienced in their lives? Is it possible to be disowned by your heritage?
So what is it that makes someone Latino? How do we define ourselves? Is it something you can convert to, like Judaism? Can you become Latino by virtue of assimilating the culture?
I have no answers, only curiosity. I am very interested to hear what other people think.
by Melissa Garcia Logan
About Being Latino Contributors
One thing to add: While you mentioned that Spaniards don’t necessarily have Afircan blood, Spain was occupied and invaded by the Moors for hundreds of years, so there is considerable North African blood in the Spanish gene pool, in addition to German Visigoth, Celtic, and Roman.
Great post, very thought provoking!
Hi, Melissa. Your question is identical to the one that Jews have been grappling with for generations. Many have come up with answers, but none of them really covers everyone who considers himself/herself Jewish or who is so considered by others. Moreover, many of these proposed definitions exclude large numbers of individuals who self-identify as Jews. The one country in the world that has undertaken the legal task of defining Jewishness by statute, has failed miserably.
In search of the very same answer to that question I’ve done a bit of research on the topic. While the terms Hispanic and Latino have been interchangeably used in today’s society so that they may be inclusive, and I have no aversion to that nor should I, they are actually very specific. Being Hispanic actually denotes contemporary Spain and recently countries formerly ruled by Spain. The term Latino is a shorten term for “Latino Americano” meaning Latino Refers to people origination from Mexico, central and south America, and/or Spanish speaking descent which does not always mean originating from Spain. From my perspective Latinos are typically a people of many different national and ethnic origins. We are not from one nationality or one culture, but are from many different origins. As a group, Latinos represent a mixture of several ethnic backgrounds, including European, American Indian, and African and while the United States census does not include Brazilians I feel as if many of us Latinos do. Eventually the the entire world will be Latino