[ACC25122]

First, most Latinos rarely call themselves Hispanic. (We’re not from Hispania, after all.) That is an outsider’s label foisted on us to make us seem ‘more white’ and thus less threatening or alien to whites, just like calling us ‘Spanish.’ The answer you’d get would depend grwatly on which national origin the Latino person was part of, plus how long they or their family had been in the US. In some countries like Argentina a ‘white’ identity is common. In most others it is not. In Latin America, there is an idea called ‘puro de sangre’ (purity of blood) meaning the relative amount of ‘white’ Spanish ancestry one has. But you can also ‘whiten’ yourself by education, wealth, or social lifestyle or status. An Indian can be considerd ‘white’ if they choose to not ‘live like an Indian’ in a traditional way in an Indian village. The soccer star Pele is considered ‘white’ in his home country because he is very wealthy even though his skin color makes him a black man to American eyes. But once Latinos come to the US, they are confronted by a society that judges you by the old one drop rule, that if you have any nonwhite ancestry at all, you are not white. And confronted with this idea, just about all Latinos, even ones as light skinned as say, Martin Sheen (real name: Ramon Estevez) choose to identify with other Latinos. Doing differently would make you a coconut (brown on the outside, white inside) or a ‘Tio Taco’ (Uncle Taco, the Latin equvalent of an Uncle Tom). There may be some light skinned Latinos who identify as ‘white’ but I would bet you that’s only because they were not raised around other Latinos at all and so have no accent. Thus they can ‘pass.’

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Name : ACC25122, Race : Mexican and American Indian, City : Phoenix, State : AZ, Country : United States, Occupation : Grad student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

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