What alternatives can be proposed?

erm, the term 'latin languages' is synonymous with 'romance languages' (i.e. spanish, portuguese, italian, french and romanian)

following the various conquests and subsequent colonization efforts, the people of european, primarily iberian, extraction referred to themselves by nationality generally, and regionality specifically (e.g. espanol and andaluz, respectively) -- purely indigenous peoples were called 'indios' and those of mixed race were called 'mestizos'

logically, as the numbers of the latter increased over time, they took to referring to themselves as latino-americanos or hispano-americanos, now shortened to latino and hispanic

being one of these, i don't find the terms particularly offensive -- what would you rather we do? would 'mexican-american' suffice? or do we need to be even more pc and culturally specific (i.e. moche, quechua, aymara, nazca, jivaro, mayan, olmec, toltec, mexica, aztec, oaxacan, nahuatlese, etc)?

^Aye, we are getting into PC country, where the semantics are getting too effing confusing. African-american, mexican-american and so on are just ugh.. I suppose white guys are supposed to be called euro-americans. *sigh* I did not know the origins on the term, so thanks.

Well said, Diogenes. Except that you and jwray seem to have forgotten, as has the rest of North America, the people that were here first.

What label would you apply to them jwray? Or are you simply assuming that all of the 'indigenous' people have been successfully assimilated?

Hint: they have not been. Go take a ride down highway 1. Yeah, they have by force learned the new language, but they have not forgotten their own language or culture.

Open your minds and realize that these labels you keep throwing around are as meaningless as the hair on your knuckles.


I get where you're coming from dude. Yes, the term LatinAmerican is pretty silly. But no more so than Hispanic, or Mexican, or Spanish, is to describe the group of people you're referring to. And if it ever comes up in local conversation, those folks that abandoned Canada for the swamps of Louisiana - we're just fine with Cajun. NOT Creole. (Labels die hard, don't they? )

>> ^Diogenes:
erm, the term 'latin languages' is synonymous with 'romance languages' (i.e. spanish, portuguese, italian, french and romanian)
following the various conquests and subsequent colonization efforts, the people of european, primarily iberian, extraction referred to themselves by nationality generally, and regionality specifically (e.g. espanol and andaluz, respectively) -- purely indigenous peoples were called 'indios' and those of mixed race were called 'mestizos'
logically, as the numbers of the latter increased over time, they took to referring to themselves as latino-americanos or hispano-americanos, now shortened to latino and hispanic
being one of these, i don't find the terms particularly offensive -- what would you rather we do? would 'mexican-american' suffice? or do we need to be even more pc and culturally specific (i.e. moche, quechua, aymara, nazca, jivaro, mayan, olmec, toltec, mexica, aztec, oaxacan, nahuatlese, etc)?



It's not offensive, I'm just annoyed by the misnomer of applying the "latin" label to only a subset of romance-language speakers across the pond from where latin was spoken. We already have some more accurate labels for region of citizenship (mexican, honduran, central american, etc) and genetic origin (hispanic, native american, mixed)

The labels you reference are European, right? Mexican? Honduran? Those labels are the geographical result of european conquest. Unless your purpose is to classify the world as Isabella did, why would you use those terms? At least the term Latin does not distinguish between the regions. It is the most generic term that can applied from a European POV. Either choose the local nomenclature or don't. The point I tried to make earlier is that most people tend not to define themselves by such limited definitions. Do you call yourself a White Liberal European? I suspect not. And I'm guessing that you don't use your locality of birth as an identifier (as I tried to earlier in a weak attempt at humor).

I will always be a Saints fan, but I don't identify myself as a New Orleanian except in very specific contexts.

Central American / South American could be substituted for the current usage of "latin" in nearly all cases without an increase in confusion, and it would be more objectively accurate. But yeah, people can call themselves whatever they want, I don't care.

White = white
Black = black
Mexican/Honduran/Ecuadoria/Spanish speaking brown guy = Hispanic
Olive skinned = Mediterranean
"Slanted" eyes = Asian
Brown = Arabic

Oh, I could go on. Just keep it simple. White, Black, Hispanic. And location dependent, Native (Native American).

Slanted eyes? Are you trying to get Asian sifters to bust out the nun-chucks on you?

>> ^jwray:
Central American / South American could be substituted for the current usage of "latin" in nearly all cases without an increase in confusion

Except that most of Mexico is in North America.

I had a friend who identified as Hispanic, he argued that "Latino" was a stupid attempt by the earlier French occupiers to linguistically categorize themselves with locals to defuse anti-imperialist sentiment.

At the time Latino was the PC word of the day, I carried his argument around with me for years to defuse an word-coping. These days I tend to talk about people by something like "cultural nationality" If somebody lives in the US, speaks Spanish at home and has most of their relatives in Mexico I think of them as culturally Mexican, weather they are legally citizens of Mexico or not.

I don't tend to think of, or care about, anybodies legal citizenship. I do tend to think "nosotros somos americanos".

Technically Central America does not include any part of Mexico, but the distinction is arbitrarily drawn along current political boundaries, while the former influence of the Spanish empire runs through it all. If cultural and linguistic grouping were concerned, Mexico would be considered a part of Central America.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Slanted eyes? Are you trying to get Asian sifters to bust out the nun-chucks on you?


That's why I put it in quotes. It was the easiest way of saying Asian without saying Asian. I meant no offense by it.

Would you have preferred short and small-dicked people? I mean, what other way is there to describe Asian people if not by their most prominent characteristic (their eyes)?

>> ^jwray:
Technically Central America does not include any part of Mexico

My understanding is that it is customary to use either the Isthmus of Tehuantepec or the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt is the northerly inland border of north/central America, which, either way, makes a good chunk of Mexico part of central. While Mexico is not considered a "Central American country" since most of it is in North America, everyone I know who lives or grow up in Mexico is of the very clear impression that their country is in both north and central. While I was living in Mexico I flipped through some of the standard elementary curricula, and was surprised that they used the Volcanic Belt as the geographic border, which actually puts DF pretty close to the line.