White Hispanics (1977) are people in the US with roots in Latin America who consider themselves White by race. Among US Hispanics (aka Latinos), about half do.
Latin America has long had White people. Like in Anglo America, they came from Europe, took Native land, brought in Black slaves and built their societies on racism. But the term “White Hispanic” was rare in English before 1977. It was then that the US government came out with Statistical Policy Directive #15. It said in part:
“Hispanic. A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.”
From that came the terms “White Hispanics” and “non-Hispanic Whites”.
In 2012 the term “White Hispanic” became more widely known when the New York Times called George Zimmerman a “white Hispanic”. It had rarely used that term before.
Hispanics who identified as White on the US Census in 2010:
- 85% Cuban Americans
- 53% Puerto Rican Americans
- 53% Mexican Americans
- 40% Salvadoran Americans
- 39% Guatemalan Americans
- 30% Dominican Americans
It comes to 53% overall.
Compare that to how many identify as White in Latin America (numbers according to Latinobarometro and, for Puerto Rico, Hector R. Cordero-Guzman, PhD):
- 71% Puerto Rico
- 17% Guatemala
- 15% Mexico
- 12% Dominican Republic
- 10% El Salvador
In some cases, like Cuba, it does seem that it was mainly Whites who came to the US. But in other cases, like Puerto Rico, the mix of races seems to be pretty much the same.
“White” does not mean the same thing from place to place. People who are “White” in Puerto Rico are not necessarily “White” in New York. In Latin America, Whiteness can be affected by class. How “White” a given Latin American country is depends on who you ask.
Compared to other US Latinos, White Hispanics are more likely to be:
- suburban,
- lighter skinned,
- better paid,
- better educated,
- better represented in the media.
They also experience much less prejudice from Anglo Americans. Some, like Louis C.K. (pictured), even enjoy White privilege. Many White Hispanics are racist against darker Latinos. Crossing the US border is hardly a cure for racism.
Assimilation: Some say Hispanics are moving towards becoming Anglo Americans, like Italians once did. Others say the numbers on segregation, intermarriage, etc, do not support that. It may be too soon to tell. Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva says that some White Hispanics will assimilate, but most will become Honorary Whites along with most Asians and mixed-race people.
Enlargement of Whiteness: Unless the US sinks into banana republicanism or worse, Anglos will be politically driven to enlarge their idea of what “White” is to take in at least 75% of White Hispanics by 2100. They did it in the 1800s to take in poor Irish Catholics. They did it again in the 1900s to take in “alien races”, like Jews and Mediterraneans. By 2075 few White Hispanics will be foreign-born, many will have an Anglo mother or father. By that time Africans will be pouring into the country. The anti-Black racism that the US is built on will do the rest.
See also:
- Welcome to Hispanic Heritage Month 2014
- The term “Hispanic”
- Race in the Dominican Republic
- growing up Latino in the US
- The Third Enlargement of American Whiteness
- George Zimmerman
- banana republic
- racial futures for the US:
- Racial Future #1: Painter: The Fourth Enlargement of American Whiteness
- Racial Future #2: Bonilla-Silva: The future of racial stratification in the US
- Racial Future #3: Smedley: The future of American racism
- Racial Future #4: Feagin: Toward a Truly Multiracial Democracy
- The clash of civilizations
- The end of white America?
By 2075 few White Hispanics will be foreign-born, many will have an Anglo mother or father. By that time Africans will be pouring into the country. The anti-Black racism that the US is built on will do the rest.
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Do the rest of what?
Are you assuming black people will make no changes in their own behavior?
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I wonder if it will make a difference for blacks in 2075 if the majority of black Americans will be voluntary immigrants (many who would be brain drain), or their children or direct descendants, ie, if they exceed the ones who are descendant of former slaves. For one, will they be perceived as foreigners? Will a recent African immigrant be viewed as more “American” than a 7th or 8th generation Asian-American, esp. if they arrived young enough to get most of their education here?
If you look at it, the stereotypes towards Asian-Americans changed considerably between 1968 and 2014, ie, after the ones who were descendant from the 19th century coolie trade or 20th century exclusion era immigrants started to be exceeded by ones who came by voluntary brain drain in the late 20th century.
For Hispanics, one sign of what the next generation will bring is to look at their current marriage patterns. Do white Hispanics tend to marry other white Hispanics, non-white or multiracial Hispanics, or non-Hispanic whites? That will probably give you an indication where their children are heading (of course as a whole – there will always be exceptions).
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When a white supremacist says they are “white” it has a different definition than when any other person says they are “white.”
Their definition is a FUNCTIONAL one in addition to being morphological.
Kiwi
@ Abagond
So we know that a significant portion of white Hispanics are not really “white”
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Correct; and neither are most white people; especially if you don’t REACT to them like they are.
They are counting on you to FUNCTION as a “black person” so they can be white.
If you don’t do it, it is often they who begin to “act like a black person.”
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By 2075 Subsaharan Africans (which is more specific and more correct) will not only be pouring in the USA, like mentioned in the US, but probably in each an every country on earth. Because of the huge fertility differential between subsaharan Africa and the very rest of the world it might be possible that each and every country (including countries like India, China, Pakistan) have a population majority with recent subsaharan african ancestry by 2100. The world follows clearly a subsaharan supremacist agenda, which says that subsaharan Africans shall conquer the whole world.
Also it can be expected that the current culture, which also promotes subsaharan supremacy will continue (but of course not only culture but human biological diversity gives subsaharan Africans an advantage). Thus men of subsaharan Africans will continue to be the most successful in the partner market; interracial violence will continue to be a story of subsaharan african perpetrators and european/asian/native american victims. Above all subsaharan Africans will continue to have the most children, everywhere, which will eventually lead to a situation where everything non-subsaharan african is wiped out. Then the whole world is like Nigeria or DR Congo.
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Kiwi
@ thwack
, I think most of it still comes down to appearance. Many whites claim that Asians “act white”, yet Asians are not accepted as whites.
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Not accepted as white by whom?
See, the very fact you are seeking “acceptance” from someone else disqualifies you from being supreme in their eyes.
The Jews built another layer of exclusivity on top of the existing white supremacist structure.
Don’t hate the players, hate the game.
PS– check out the obtuse angle of attack “Eric Sieven” used to drop his shaking clenched pale fist bomb?
An entire paragraph of twisting and maneuvering just so he could say:
“which will eventually lead to a situation where everything non-subsaharan african is wiped out.”
See how much work the racists are willing to do to practice racism?
I think he deserves a golf clap and some lemonade?
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George Ryder
@Kiwi & thwack
the Jews have always been discriminated against openly, what is this layer of exclusivity you speak of?
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First of all, eff Rayful waller;
2nd, the layer of Jew exclusivity Im describing is similar to the one homosexuals are currently constructing.
George, are you a Jew?
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@Kiwi
how is it a negative stereotype when one simply reports the fact that fertility is right now much bigger in subsaharan African than in the rest of the world?
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“By 2075 few White Hispanics will be foreign-born, many will have an Anglo mother or father. By that time Africans will be pouring into the country. The anti-Black racism that the US is built on will do the rest.”
I doubt it. In 2014 people do not immigrate to America for trivial reasons, nor will they in 2075. People don’t move here for the weather. They typically come here for a single reason – economic opportunity. They come here for a job. And by and large the job’s they come here to perform fall into two categories – unskilled manual labor and highly skilled jobs that America doesn’t produce enough qualified applicants to perform. To live in America you have to have a job. Even if you sneak in across the border, you’ll starve without a job. For instance, many central American immigrants went back to their home countries after the housing crash, because construction jobs disappeared. So the future of immigration to the US has nothing to do with population growth in Africa and everything to do with job creation in the US. And even then only certain types of jobs could draw people from thousands of miles away to move to the US, because unlike Mexicans, most people wishing to come to the US have to have a visa and a job waiting for them and that means they have to have an education (or are going to university) and marketable skills. They have to have money for travel. The Atlantic Ocean is too big to swim across. Therefore massive waves of African migration to the US are unlikely unless they’re waves of software engineers, doctors or students.
If for instance India and China shared a border with the US, it’s conceivable that millions of unskilled Chinese and Indian laborers would have poured into the US, just like Mexicans have done. They would be picking our fruit, minding our children, washing our cars, processing our meat and chicken, helping us move, building our houses, etc, etc. But they don’t , they haven’t and they aren’t. Instead what we see are highly skilled Indians and Chinese moving to the US and then bringing their families over once they’ve established themselves. Its an expensive, lengthy and self-sacrificing process.
That said, predictions for the future of America are tough to make even for 5 years in the future. Americans of all ethnicity’s, even black Americans, are weary from years of uncontrolled immigration. I wouldn’t be surprised if limits were placed on immigration and stricter deportation laws enacted in the future. It may be that those already here are granted worker visas but its hard to imagine in the future a more lenient immigration system than the one the US operates right now, which is the equivalent of no system at all – just a mess.
Here’s a prediction – birth rates in Mexico and central America are barely higher than US birth rates and dropping. The massive waves of rural 18-24 year old Mexican men born to large families in the 1960’s and 70’s, with little education or skills have dramatically declined and are continuing to decline. The average Mexican born in the last 20 years is from a smaller family (2 kids), lives in a city, is better educated and has greater job prospects in Mexico than ever before. The 30-year wave of migration between the US and Mexico has now passed, and is not likely to ever happen again. Does that mean the US will start importing cheap labor from overseas. I don’t think so. I expect to see automation and machines taking over more and more unskilled, low-skilled jobs. Bank tellers replaced by ATM’s, cashiers replaced by do it yourself machines, I read that within 20 years a third of all current US jobs will be able to be performed by machines or robots – including fast food workers, sales clerks, warehouse workers and so many other entry level jobs. Postal delivery is likely to be automated, delivery vehicles may drive themselves, Amazon may send deliveries by drone. Personally, I buy most everything online. You’d think that would be a boon for warehouse workers. Guess what, warehouse workers will be first up for automation. If you don’t have an education you will be locked out and so will your children. And these are just the changes we can predict for labor automation, we can also expect genetic manipulation to create further rifts in our society (think Gattaca). The change is happening right now.
The future of America 5 years from now is unpredictable, 20 years its near fantasy and 2075 is a waste of time. In the end there is only one future to be concerned about – the future of your kids. Make sure that when the line comes down separating the haves from the have-not’s your kids are on the have’s side. The other side sucks – I know.
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@ Kiwi
You took the words right out of my mouth. Crime rates actually go down when African immigrants move into an area. Unfortunately our friend Erik would most likely react out of emotion & kickstart a white-flight movement at 1st sight of said African neighbors. This truth, along with the fact that middle class people do not commit crime regardless of race show that racism is purely fear based and not factually based.
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I never would have guessed Louie C.K. was Mexican-American, I guess like Emilio Esteve and Cameron Diaz. Interesting post.
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@biggfriez: Incisive post.
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@Kiwi
I simply responded to it as I read it. I could though have missed a sub-context. If i read it correctly then I stand by “I doubt it”, otherwise I defer to your interpretation.
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George Ryder
i still don’t follow u thwack, trying to connect the dots tho…
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George, you can construct a race out of any characteristic you want as long as the members PRACTICE fidelity to the characteristic to the exclusion of all other matters.
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Irish, Italians, and Jews came to America mainly as uneducated, poor laborers that filled the slums of big cities. But in one generation, if not two, they had assimilated into whiteness and become suburbanized.
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Regarding the Irish and Italians, the Catholic church played a HUGE role in organizing and training these “marginal white” into an effective counter force against WASP domination of politics and the economy.
Why do you think the KKK had a problem with Catholics?
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The key historical example of what happens to a multi-racial language group would be that of French Speakers in Louisiana, which were a large portion of the population in the 19th century and into the early 20th century. In the 19th century, there were many multiracial families, but Jim Crow basically forced them to split apart. Those who were mostly white and chose to pass as white mostly have white descendants (Anatole Broyand is not the only one like that.). Those that did not choose to pass as white likely had black descendants. I know Louisiana born people who had a French-speaking creole grandparent but who themselves identify as black.
But Jim Crow forced families to become black or white. What will happen in the 21st century? There may be another resurgence in the multiracial activist movement and the choice facing white Hispanics might be whether to become multiracial American or whether to join the White Anglos. The former will be a growing force, maybe even the norm by the close of the century. The latter will be desperate to hold on to their identity. My niece’s baby I about 1/2 European, but the rest is Black, Chinese and Native American. He is growing up in an area which is having a growing number of multiracial families.
Anyone find statistics on their 21st century marriage choices for White Hispanics? That might give a clue.
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You just answered your own question from back here
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Reblogged this on Dennis R. Hidalgo and commented:
I knew this was coming. Next, dissertations and studies on this rare breed. I like how this entry say that “White” is not the same here or there.
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@Jefe, Hispanics who identify as white generally marry other Hispanics who identify as white or non-Hispanic whites.
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^ That chart looks strange. It looks like Hispanic Blacks marry Hispanic Whites to a large degree, but Hispanic whites generally do not marry Hispanic blacks. That is theoretically not possible, unless Hispanic whites outnumber Hispanic blacks 100 to 1 or something. Are mestizos generally categorized as white? they might maintain a non-white identity for several generations even if they identify as white on paper.
In any case, if Hispanic whites marry Hispanic whites or non-Hispanic whites, their children will be more assimilated to the Anglo American social structure – it looks like they will likely simply be white in a few generations.
Hispanic blacks will simply be black in a few generations, thus maintaining the black / white divide while Hispanics assimilate.
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No, it’s possible. =) The “Black Hispanics” are a minority of people who identify as Hispanic in America. So their rates for intermarriage can be relatively high even while those of other Hispanics (white or mestizo) can be low.
I believe that under the census rules when this study was done Hispanic was considered an ethnicity/social identity and not race. So likely “White Hispanic” includes every Hispanic who does not openly or primarily identify as black. So just like American Indians, whose total population is also low, Black Hispanics were the other group who had a majority of both genders who married out.
I agree, the black white divide will be maintained. I don’t have time to find it now but roughly (?)around the same time this chart came out, the NYT magazine had a story on how Cubans who had recently moved to the US found themselves putting on ideas of “whiteness” and “blackness” and identifying that way. A few friendships were stressed or lost; a few families changed how they thought of themselves.
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When white people say “Im part Native American”, I retort: “so you’re part Mexican?”
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I read that it was Anglo-America’s attitudes about race that caused the Louisiana creole population to disappear into white and black, even cause many families to split apart. But assumed that it was largely due to Jim Crow. So, even without Jim Crow, the same thing will happen to Hispanics?
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[…] White Hispanics (1977) are people in the US with roots in Latin America who consider themselves White by race. Among US Hispanics (aka Latinos), about half do.Latin America has long had White people. Like in Anglo America, they came from Europe, took Native land, brought in Black slaves and built their societies on racism. But the term “White Hispanic” was rare in English before 1977. It was then that the US government came out with Statistical Policy Directive #15. It said in part: "Hispanic. A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.”From that came the terms “White Hispanics” and “non-Hispanic Whites”.In 2012 the term “White Hispanic” became more widely known when the New York Times called George Zimmerman a “white Hispanic”. It had rarely used that term before.Hispanics who identified as White on the US Census in 2010:85% Cuban Americans53% Puerto Rican Americans53% Mexican Americans40% Salvadoran Americans39% Guatemalan Americans30% Dominican AmericansIt comes to 53% overall.- Click through for more – […]
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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These categories are required by the 1964 Civil Rights act to track racial discrimination.
The next Civil Rights monitoring that needs to be increased are for both the LGBTQ communities and religious communities. And, oddly enough, it’s some of the religious communities who persecute the LGBTQ communities.
If racial labels are required to help reduce racism and discrimination. Shouldn’t LGBTQ/Cis labels be required to reduce homophobia, and transphobia?
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@jefe “I read that it was Anglo-America’s attitudes about race that caused the Louisiana creole population to disappear into white and black, even cause many families to split apart. But assumed that it was largely due to Jim Crow. So, even without Jim Crow, the same thing will happen to Hispanics?”
Yes. What I’ve experienced is that we eventually find out who the racists are in our families and the family who is against racism gets tired of the racism then no longer puts up with being around the racist family.
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I’ve seen very nice ‘White’ Hispanics as well as very mean 1s. It’s a Gray world that i’ve learned to navigate and not jump to conclusions.
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Most Hispanics want to be white anyway. White supremacy has brainwashed most of the world. Everyone thinks the whiter you are makes you more intelligent,attractive and your life has more meaning than the “darker races”. It’s really sick to watch so much self-hatred among Hispanic people. smh
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@DennisRHidalgo
Rare? Not hardly. Abagond was just too uncharacteristically lazy to post some famous ones. So I will!
SOME FAMOUS WHITE LATINOS
-Mariah Carey
-Shakira
-Christina Aguilera
-Enrique Iglesias
-Demi Lovato
-Selena Gomez
-Thalia
-Selma Hayek
-Desi Arnaz (probably)
-Joaquin Phoenix
-Jessica Alba
-Rosario Dawson
-Victoria Justice
-Frankie Muniz
-Freddy Prinze jr.
-Geraldo Rivera
-Amara la Negra
-Raquel Welch
-Jorge Garcia (probably)
-Michelle Rodriguez
-Cameron Diaz
Probably any light-skinned Hispanic you’ve ever known or seen
White hispanics I think are pretty common. They have blood from the Spaniards or other white descent. I didn’t count on this list any people who descend only from Spain or no descent from a Spanish-American country (should I have?) for instance no Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas or Charlie Sheen, although I guess Americans tend to consider them Latino anyway. Main source on nationalities is Wikipedia categories. Probably means probably, but couldn’t be verified. For instance Jorge and Desi both have Latin American descent, but I don’t know for sure at least now if they have Spanish (European) descent;they could be Native American for all I know but they do look white. Jorge has curly hair something Native Americans aren’t thought of as possessing, so did he get that from a European ancestor?
I remember I was watching an episode of Tyra and this Brazilian guy was talking about how “Hispanic” and “Latino,” “Latin American” don’t exist there and that he is considered white. And why would they? That’s strictly an American concept so we can categorize people who are from that culture south of the US since we now think of them as almost one culture since most of them speak Spanish or in that case Portuguese. But apparently there the whites are whites, blacks black, mestizos etc..
Most of them do not seem to fully “assimilate,” if by that you mean aspire to be solely Anglo. A lot of them, maybe not the George Zimmermans, do not consider themselves white nor do they trust whites. Unless they do try to seem whiter the American way and by American standards (submit to White-Euro-Caucaso dominance or just perchance look really white like Cameron Diaz) they do not become “honorary whites”. Hispanics of any race are never “white enough”, rich enough to be counted as “real whites” in Anglo-America except for stuff like the census, so like mulattos they tend to identify with their “non-white” culture, which is just so much warmer and more inclusive than white American culture anyway.
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Totally forgot about Brazilians. They’re consider hispanic too or to me they are since what these days we count Hispanics as having a common language in Spanish especially if Latin American excluding English, French, Dutch or any other except Portuguese because it’s so similar to Spanish.
It’s all kind of nuts ha
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@Symphonic Zambophones
I think many on your list, but not all, identify as white hispanic. Some of them are part white but do not identify as white. You did mention that in a later paragraph, but I think “white” is not just being partially or primarily of European descent, but identifying as white as well.
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@ Symphonic Zambophones
A White Hispanic would at the very least have to identify as White if not pass as such. As far as I know, Mariah Carey, Rosario Dawson and Amara La Negra do not see themselves as White.
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Hello everybody,
This is from the perspective of a predominantly European looking Guatemalan (very few in our predominantly Mayan nation). I must say that yes there is a lot of racism in Latin America, but it is different from the one in the US. After all we DO have our own history, race relations, or intermixing despite the best efforts of the US to intervene in their neocolonial ways. Also perspectives have changed a lot from the baby boomers to the younger generations.
But as a fair generalization I feel confident in saying that the Anglo world has, is, and will always be more racist.
Latin America is changing. We have more female leaders than other supposedly more democratic, industrialized nations. We also have increasingly more political leaders that are NOT predominantly European looking. Wealthy people are sadly overwhelmingly non indigenous and non African (Catholic Mediterraneans; Christian Northern Europeans or Lebanese; and Jewish)
We won’t see it, but there is and will be a lot of changes where Mediterraneans and Europeans (in non-anglo countries) are not the majority.
Personally, one of the things that I’ve been doing to fight the latent and economically successful racism still around in this country is voting with my very, very limited income. I go to an African American dentist and my doctor is a Latina. I also try to eat at business owned by minorities (mostly Mexicans and Salvadoreans in the Bay Area and when I used to live in Chicago it was Puerto Ricans, all these business owners did NOT look like me but are very representative of the majority of their own country). Maybe that is something that other people can do…
BTW I do not identify myself as a spaniard nor an italian nor a sephardic jew nor even exclusively as a native Guatemalan (some of my admixture according to 23andme). I am something else, something new. I am not Mayan because I do not speak a Mayan language, just like I am not Italian for the same reason. I also do not have the same culture nor the same history as the various nations that are in Spain (Basques, Catalans, Andalusians, etc.). We are a NEW syncretism of cultures and we appreciate now more than ever the non European cultures that we have inherited (Mayan culture is what makes my country so unique and beautiful).
As slightly related to this topic I must add this non sense I read the other day in the new republic. It was a response to a book. The article is titled the Miseducation of the Tiger Mom. There are other responses to that book that are very interesting, for example the one I read in the Huffington Post.
Of course conservatives love the book in question…. based on the positives responses linked from the wikipedia page for the book… It speaks volumes to their color blind, fantasy world they love to impose.
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@Jose,
Are you saying that the analysis in the New Republic article is nonsense, or that Amy Chua’s book is nonsense?
I think this is the article you refer to
(http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117021/triple-package-amy-chua-and-jed-rubenfeld-reviewed)
What is the Huffington Post article you are referring to? This one?
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/khanh-ho/what-amy-chua-didnt-tell-_b_4789488.html)
In any case, we need a piece on Amy Chua. I know Abagond has strong opinions about her work.
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at Jefe
Chua and her husband’s book is nonsense (anecdotal and full of biased sampling). You are right the way I said it stated the opposite. Sorry about that (I learned this language when I moved here at the age of 22; I am 38 now).
But in my defense all my other comments more or less hinted that I do not believe there is and would never be any objective superiority in any, any culture, ethnic group, religion, life experience, hair color, 2D:4D ratio etc. At its worse all that line of reasoning of human superiority amount to just lies people with the possibility to profit use for their own material gain (as an ex: the whole argument used by those two law professors). But hey, even we made only one change to the world and made all humans to look Han Chinese, we have hierarchical societies and the same people will still make the same arguments to justify their privileges (doctors, wealthy people, CEOs, etc.)
Regarding the university where both authors work, Yale is a strange place. Some of the things that have come out of it like the mildly retarded George Bush Jr, or these two raging privilege fighters: Tal Fortgang (of check your privilege fame) and Amy Chua.
Hope Amy Chua comes up in a future post. She reminds slightly of that Malkin character, although the latter is a lot more disparaging and racist.
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I do not think that Louis C.K. is considered Mexican by most Mexicans. I guess he has some, some fleeting roots in the country but they are not very deep rooted nor extensive (time-wise speaking). His paternal family immigrated there very late in the history of the country and is very, very unlikely that Louis CK has any indigenous blood (90% of present day Mexicans have some degree of indigenous blood, including me a Guatemalan with a paternal grandfather).
He reminds me of Christy Turlington. She wouldn’t be considered very Salvadorian by most Salvadorians. My wife is Salvadorian and she is definitely more representative of how most Salvadorian women look like on average (she is more beautiful than Turlington too 🙂 ) I think we should not confuse nationality with ethnicity. If one of my kids was born in Kazakstan she or he would probably never be considered a Kazakh, just like ethnic Russians are not Kazakhs no matter how many centuries they have been there. They could be Kazakh citizens but that is about it.
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at Kiwi
One of the arguments against Amy Chua’s argument is that Mexican Americans are one of the most successful American groups IF you take in consideration the educational background of their parents. First the overwhelming majority of Mexican Americans do not look Western European at all and second I think the study was done in L.A. (by two ethnic Chinese). This is a city that has received Mexican immigrants from mostly very indigenous or predominantly indigenous Mexican states (anybody can google this and read the research I am referring too).
I am not an expert nor am very highly educated by it all sounds plausible with the only tools I have: logic and reasoning.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/uc/2014/04/starting_from_the_bottom_why_mexicans_are_the_most_successful_immigrants.html
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@Jose
Not attacking you, just trying to clarify what you wrote.
Amy Chua is a slated subject for a future post. She’s ripe for some more dissection.
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One issue is that people consider native Latinos white in the US.
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I can promise you that NONE of you can tell just by looking at a person whether or not they consider themselves “white” or even “Hispanic” and how they will self-identify on the census. In my own family people identify differently. My father insisted he was “white” although he is dark skinned and he admits that his mother’s side “looked Indian”. He also insisted he was “Mexican” even though he only has U.S. citizenship. He has no love for white Americans. My guess is that he would probably identify as “mestizo” if he hadn’t grown up in the U.S. before the civil rights movement, if he had ever had a chance to learn in school about Mexican American history and Ethnic Studies. He admits that “in Mexico Indians are treated worse than Blacks here”.
My sister also always said we were white, got mad at my mom for criticizing “white people”, and made fun of my brother and me for listening to rap. At the same time she criticizes racism and identifies as Mexican American. My guess is that her attitudes come from being born at the time of the civil rights movement (while the U.S. was still super old school racist) and growing up in a very racist state, again with no access to Mexican American history or Ethnic Studies in school.
My mom did not identify as white and criticized white people and racism a lot. So did her parents. They were all on the lighter-skinned side for Mexican Americans. My brother and I did not consider ourselves white. I think this is due to my mother’s influence and our experiences growing up in California and experiencing racism in the 1980s and 90s. My mother, sister, brother, and I all have similar coloring.
For the record, I do not agree with either the “Hispanic” or “Latino” racial projects and do not identify with either label. My dad remembered the “Hispanic” label being introduced at a government conference in the 1970s and he stood up and told the room that he wasn’t “Hispanic,” he was Mexican. He said people came up and thanked him.
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Abagond
there are not enough Louis C.K. in Mexico to give the average Mexican a “white” pass.
even if Latinos call themselves “white” in their own countries, they are still racialized by white north Americans and Europeans.
The term Latino/Hispanic covers alot of ground as the 3rd “race” in the US — I don’t understand this desire to partition majority mixed people into only 2 races.
Since when are mixed Native Americans (ie Mexicans) considered “white” by the Becky’s and Biff’s of the world.
Anyway, funny story from Brazil:
Brazilian sends letter of support to Nazi party in Germany; receives response “We don’t accept Latinos”
http://blackwomenofbrazil.co/2015/01/09/brazilian-sends-letter-of-support-to-nazi-party-in-germany-receives-response-we-dont-accept-latinos/
“The police are investigating the case of a Nazi pool in Santa Catarina and found letters of support sent to the Nazi organization in Germany.
The famous owner of the letter is a history teacher, Wander Pugliese.
And the response from the German Nazi’s:
“We don’t accept Latinos, you are all birds of a feather…a bunch of black favelados (slum dwellers)”
Supporting Nazism is therefore supporting prejudice to your own people.”
video of the “white” Brazilian Professor Pugliese talking about the military coup of 1964
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8adWv8lfStU)
(I wish BR was still commenting so that we could get more information on this one)
nothing like the smell of white European ethnocentric racism to push these mushrooms back down to earth – Brazilians also get the wake up call when they go to Spain.
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I first posted this under “Asian Americans” but it’s definitely good to read if you see nothing problematic with the terms “Hispanic”/”white Hispanic”/”Latino”:
“All Students Count: Changing the AAPI Narrative”
http://www.asamnews.com/2015/03/19/all-students-count-changing-the-aapi-narrative/
“Many in the education community are talking about the need for disaggregated student data – meaning that instead of simply bubbling in Hispanic or African American on school documents, students will have the option to identify as their unique subgroup – be that Mexican or Nigerian. Such disaggregation has significant implications for how we think of diversity within communities of color, and will help us create better support systems to meet the unique needs of individual ethnic subgroups.”
Would be so great to get accurate info on specific ethnicities that actually exist, and especially to see what the numbers are without Cuban exile Republicans and other privileged Latin American immigrants.
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“No Explanation Why Jeb Bush Listed Himself As Hispanic”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-voter-registration-hispanic
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LOLOLOL
“Jeb or ‘Heb’? Jeb Bush Marked ‘Hispanic’ On 2009 Voter Registration”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/jeb-or-heb-jeb-bush-marked-hispanic-2009-voter-registration-n336421
“”I would assume it’s the way Hispanics can check either black or white – it’s more of an identity thing,” said Republican Danny Vargas, who recently announced his campaign for the Virginia House of Delegates.
“He has lived with Latinos so long that he’s able to feel like he’s part of the family,” said Vargas. “The man’s got a good heart, and anyway, the more the merrier,” said Vargas, who is of Puerto Rican descent.
René Rocha, political science professor at the University of Iowa, said people can use identity “instrumentally.”
“We don’t usually see someone of European descent identifying as Hispanic, but if just highlights how malleable these identities are and how they can change based on a person’s personal or social circumstances,” said Rocha.”
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