[muBXvWIC]

What are your thoughts on this label the USA insists on using in order to classify those that descend from a Spanish speaking country. Is it a good term to use or is just too broad of a term to actually mean anything? Do you think it should be done away with altogether or is that impossible to accomplish now that it is ingrained in the minds of many Americans thanks to main stream media?

[DianaDrk]

In Florida, Hispanic extends to including people descended from Portugal and Brazil. If your parents/ancestors are Portuguese and/or Brazilian, then it's likely they will profile you as Hispanic. Florida is the only state with this exception.

[Uzezqelj]

The USA labels of both "Hispanic" and "Asian" are both pretty retarded with lots of loopholes that can be places in both.Both labels also smash in various groups of people who often have little in common with each other,racially or culturally.In fact,"White" and "Black" are also a lil questionable.The only ones that really make sense,imo,are Native American and Pacific Islander.

[freddystone]

It´s a linguistic concept, but many Americans seem to think it hase some sort of racial significance.

[LorencoLoricelli]

I'm against the Hispanic label, and it should be taken away. I have meet many peoples who think of Hispanic as one single group of peoples, when in fact they're are a whole different groups of people from different countries. Hispanic heritage month is suppose to be for the success of Hispanic in the USA, but do you think a Colombian would care about the success of a Puerto Rican or a Cuban would care about the success of someone from Nicaragua. Many peoples use the term as if all those peoples from Latin America are one big happy family, which is not. From my experience I doubt that a Argentinean and a Uruguayan would feel like one big happy family. The label is also being misused in the medical field. I was reading a science article about some sort of problem with peoples blood cell, and the article stated that Hispanic are one of the peoples who are most likely to have that problem. I bet most of the Hispanic that were tested were Mexican mestizos, so it wouldn't be the same for someone from another Latin American country with different racial background. There's a website that has a lot of information on why the Hispanic label should be taken away. I'll try to find the website, so I can post it on here.

[Paiblyelaxy]

Hispanic is waaay too broad. Its like calling "Westerners" or "Easterners" a biological race. "Hispanic" is just the 3rd macro cultural grouping, there are Black, Caucasian, and Mongoloid (and everything in-between) Westerners, Easterners and Hispanics. Its more like a world view.

[Czrzftmz]

Hispanic needs to be taken away, i dont know what mexican history of the southwest of the USA have to do with other hispanics. Mexican history in the USA is much bigger than the recent latin americans that started to enter, our history and success shouldnt be lumped with other Hispanics, Univision is not hispanic, its mexican, Telefutura is not hispanic its mexican.

[styhorporry]

Also the label seem to be use to cover the birth rate, income, graduation rate, etc. of peoples from different countries as one, which is wrong. All those statistic saying that Hispanic have the lowest income, highest birth rate, etc. are wrong because they're not one single group of peoples. Most of the Hispanic in the United States are Mexican, so the so called problems that the Hispanic community in reality it has nothing to do with other Latin American groups that are successful in the United States. For example: They been saying that in the United States Hispanic have the largest birth rate, but if you were to look at them individually, and not as a whole you would see that some Latin Americans like Cubans are amongst the peoples in the United States with a low birth rate. Another thing would be when they say that Hispanic are mostly democrat, but that's the opposite of Cuban. Most of the Cubans in the U.S.A are conservative republican. Peoples from different countries in Latin America should be label with the country that they come from, instead of creating one single label that cover peoples from different countries.

[Tactattcahhaw]

Also the label seem to be use to cover the birth rate, income, graduation rate, etc. of peoples from different countries as one, which is wrong. All those statistic saying that Hispanic have the lowest income, highest birth rate, etc. are wrong because they're not one single group of peoples. Most of the Hispanic in the United States are Mexican, so the so called problems that the Hispanic community in reality it has nothing to do with other Latin American groups that are successful in the United States. For example: They been saying that in the United States Hispanic have the largest birth rate, but if you were to look at them individually, and not as a whole you would see that some Latin Americans like Cubans are amongst the peoples in the United States with a low birth rate. Another thing would be when they say that Hispanic are mostly democrat, but that's the opposite of Cuban. Most of the Cubans in the U.S.A are conservative republican. Peoples from different countries in Latin America should be labeled with the country that they come from, instead of creating one single label that cover peoples from different countries.

I agree with you, thats why the label needs to stop, one should represent their nationalities, mexicans are the biggest business and home owners, not hispanics. Bill Richardson the man who was running for president was of mexican ancestry, not hispanic, if he wouldve been president he wouldve been labeled hispanic.

In spain mexicans dont like being associated with south americans from Colombia and Ecuador, mexicans in Spain are the most successful latin americans, low birth rates, higher education, dont live off of the spaniards and so on.

Puerto Ricans in the USA have a high welfare rate, but since they get lumped with Hispanics, they think its mexicans

[xFZ3k8Mw]

Hispanic is more than just a classification for Spanish speaking groups, it's also a political term that has great influence in the politics of the United States. In case the Cuban-Americans were to be excluded from it they would lose the backup this term gives them when pushing their agenda within the American political system.

[ignonsoli]

Hispanic I think it's just a word to identify Mestizos/Mulattos(Latino looking). Yes I know Hispanics can be of every race, but it's usally used to identify people who look Latino. For example if Andy Garcia kept his mouth shut, no one would guess he was from Latin America, people would assume he was Italian or something like that.

[dhrishiasv]

Hispanic is more than just a classification for Spanish speaking groups, it's also a political term that has great influence in the politics of the United States. In case the Cuban-Americans were to be excluded from it they would lose the backup this term gives them when pushing their agenda within the American political system.

What agenda? The label hasn't helped Cuban American politician in any way. Last year or a couple of years ago there was a Cuban American politician who wanted to bring the Arizona immigration law to Florida, and many non Cuban Latin American were against it. I doubt that she would be getting any vote from non Cuban Latin American who are oppose to the Arizona immigration law just because she's label as Hispanic by the United States government. Do you really think a non Cuban Latin American who's a democrat would vote for a conservative republican Cuban politician just because he/she is label as Hispanic by the United States government?

[rojettafoxx]

Many Latin-Americans (especially those recent immigrants) are very republican in views and this includes Mexicans. The immigration deal is what pushes them mostly for democrats.

A 35 year old Cuban stepping on US land having more rights for political reasons than a 19 year old raised since the age of 1 in the country (and I've seen this be the case for many other Latin-Americans, it's not just Mexicans) will create dramatic differences in support

[asivisepo]

This has been discussed over a million times already; anyways the "Hispanic" label should be done away with immediately and Mestizo, Triracial and Mulatto should be included in the U.S. Census..

[RagonaCon]

This has been discussed over a million times already; anyways the "Hispanic" label should be done away with immediately and Mestizo, Triracial and Mulatto should be included in the U.S. Census..

But then, we'd lose Black Americans in the Census count. That is one of the main reasons we do not have those legal labels here. In fact, several African American congressional representatives had fought those measures fearing "defection." So we don't have such amalgam identifiers -- still an ODR-conscious society to some small extent. Remember, it was only in 2000 that respondents could select more than one "race."

[Kristoferson]

These labels are very arbitrary. To lump people south of the Rio Grande with the name of a colonizer of centuries ago is something I don't agree with, to begin with. They should have chosen another name IMO.

[spiveker]

Puerto Rican




Argentine




Panamanian




Uruguayans




Chilean




Bolivian




All of the people above are of different ethnic backgrounds and different nationalities, yet they would be lumped as part of one big Hispanic family if they stepped foot on U.S. soil. In my opinion, it's very dismissive to their roots, identity, culture, and ancestry.

[DailyRingtone]

What are your thoughts on this label the USA insists on using in order to classify those that descend from a Spanish speaking country. Is it a good term to use or is just too broad of a term to actually mean anything? Do you think it should be done away with altogether or is that impossible to accomplish now that it is ingrained in the minds of many Americans thanks to main stream media?

Idk, I think the term serves it's purpose, of grouping together speakers of Spanish, but I think it is often misused. The term can definitely fall out of use in no more than a generation if media was more educational, and had proper usage. The average American isn't probably well read though, and they are likely to not really know much about the world, and what ethnicity is which, some Americans still view MiddlEasterners and Arabs as the same thing as Indians, so they call Indian people Arabs, or they don't realize that Hinduism is a religion and describe Indian people as Hindu looking, of course if the media cared for us to know, we'd know, but everything else is politics and interests. The best we can do is be educated ourselves and understand what we are talking about, especially when it comes to labels for large groups of people.

[JamesTornC]

here's a pomeranian!!

[jhfsdhf]

To tell true I couldnt care less about those labels, If gringos want to name me latino, if they want to call me hispanic or Mexican it wouldnt make any difference to me.

It is a liitle similar to how the word gringo is used in mexico.

Any person of north european traits who speaks another language that isnt spanish is frequently labeled just a "gringo" for the average mexican, eventhought such individual is russian, french, swedish dutch of Australian, day to day people in Mexico think they all are just gringos...