Re: [tied] Glen, regarding...

Dear Piotr:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Glen, regarding...


> 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.

<PCR> I absolutely agree. Would you accept Amerindian as a more logical substitute?
. . .

> What's all that got to do with genes?

<PCR> Surely you would allow that Amerindians have a gene set distinguishable from non-Amerindians.


> Piotr

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE@... (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)