[Gringa]

I am a white college student from the United States, but I feel that I have some reason to answer, as I am a Spanish major, and we are currently debating this in a culture class. The debate is ongoing about what a ‘Hispanic’ is – the origin of the term is someone from Hispanola, otherwise known as Spain. What the term means now is another debate. Similarly, the term ‘Latino’ comes from ‘Latin,’ being that Spanish is the offshoot of colloquial Latin from the Roman presence in Spain (circa 400 AD). The question is, is ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’ really a race? I would say not. The same with ‘hispanohablante’ or ‘spanish speaker’ – I am a spanish speaker, but my family came over here on the Mayflower from England.

Even lumping the term ‘Hispanic,’ assuming this means someone from Central or South America, the Carribean, is somewhat like saying all whites are the same, whether from the United States, Canada, Germany, England, France, Spain (yes, the Spanish are considered ‘white’) – I certainly wouldn’t lump those groups together, the same way I think it is limiting to assume that Mexicans, Argentinians and Nicaraguans are the same. They share some culture, some language and history, but I would not say they are the same. So yes, there are black Hispanics, and as they have a similar history to ‘U.S. blacks’ in the slave history, they too have a different cultural heritage than the ‘Indian’ Hispanics and Spanish descendants.

User Detail :  

Name : Gringa, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Unitarian, Age : 25, City : St. Louis, State : MO, Country : United States, Occupation : student, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, 

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