09-10-03 16:06, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
> On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 21:09:23 -0500, "Patrick C. Ryan"
> <proto-language@...> wrote:
>><PCR> In the politically correct USA, Latino is the favored term to designate Mexican
>>Amerindians, who speak Spanish (even as a second language).
> Your attempt to reintroduce "race" into the question (by claiming that
> "Latinos" must be _Amerindian_ Spanish speakers) is wishful thinking [in
> fact only 1.2% of "Latinos" identified themselves as "American Indian or
> Alaska Native" in the 2000 census], and the fact is that "Latino" is
> fundamentally a _linguistic_ category.
As a result, it cuts across other categories: there are White or
Caucasian Latinos, American Indian Latinos, Asian Latinos, Black or
African American Latinos, Some Other Race Latinos, or any of the
possible combinations thereof. Notwithstanding the cautionary clauses in
its official definition, "Hispanic or Latino" is popularly claimed to be
a "race", and is _officially_ claimed to be an "ethnicity". The unique
status given by the US Census Bureau to the "Hispanic or Latino"
category means that there are essentially two kinds of humans: Latino
and non-Latino; either of them may be of any "race". The whole thing can
easily be reduced ad absurdum in many different ways simply because the
definition itself is entirely unscientific and fraught with
inconsistencies. "Latino" is a pragmatic label -- nothing more than that
-- and it's local in the sense that it's meant for internal use within
the United States only.
Questions ands Exercises:
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Can Portuguese/Galego/Catalan/Basque speakers qualify as Latinos? Give
reasons for your answer, whatever it is.
Are (any or all) Brazilians Latinos? (Cf. João's message.)
Why should an American Indian be a Latino if he speaks Spanish as a
second language, but a non-Latino if he has some other second language?
What's all that got to do with genes?
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Answers on postcards.
Piotr