ethnicity
Nightmare on Your Street: You can say that I’m a DREAMER (video)
In DREAMER, an ordinary Latino dude comes home from work and discovers he has been replaced by a whiter version of himself. And Ms. Latino Dude? Don’t ask! [Written by and starring Eddie Mujica; directed and edited by Chris Sturgeon.]
The most popular names in California? Garcia, Hernandez, y Lopez
We’ve been mocking Ancestry’s DNA test commercials for a while because we can.
Ancestry also has a lot of vital data from its members and research, like what surnames are most popular in the 50 states.
Turns out California tops Texas in the Reconquista; the most popular names in Califas are Garcia, Hernandez and Lopez. Texas has a SMITH stuck between Garcia and Martinez, while New Mexico represents with Garcia, Martinez and Chavez. Make your own jokes about Arizona.
PREVIOUSLY ON ANCESTRY DNA:
Mas…The most popular names in California? Garcia, Hernandez, y Lopez
Regular gente plus Los Cenzontles: ‘I’m a Mexican-American’ (videos)
Mexican, American or both? Residents of Elkhart County, Indiana, talk to The Elkhart Truth.
And this wonderful music video from Los Cenzontles expresses the same sentiments in song:
Mas…Regular gente plus Los Cenzontles: ‘I’m a Mexican-American’ (videos)
Can you spot the Latino in this photograph?
I’m pretty sure I was the only redhead at the NYU Latino Law Students Association Gala in the spring of 1990. The food was delicious, my date looked stunning, and I was glad I had jumped on the opportunity when I received the LALSA invitation.
My journey to that moment began 25 years earlier. I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1965: a third generation Chilean on my father’s side (whose people came from Odessa), and first generation on my mother’s side, who arrived when she was 12 from Hungary.
We left Chile in 1970 after the election of socialist president Salvador Allende. For Mom, socialism was close enough to the Soviet regime she’d fled in Hungary.
I started kindergarten at P.S. 81 in the Bronx. With a curly mop of flaming red hair and speaking only Spanish, I immediately embarked on a lifelong career of not fitting in. I learned English fast, but I still felt like an outsider. I got into X-Men comics because I identified with the mutants.
My name is Vero and I’m a Mexican-American (video)
Vero Higareda made this video for a class she’s taking at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Like so many others, she has been told that she doesn’t look Mexican.
This L.A. pocha wishes she could speak better Spanish (video)
Los Angeles pocha Natalie Munguia didn’t learn Spanish when she was growing up, and now she feels left out, as she explains in this video for Sociology 244 at Whittier College. FYI, here’s the course description:
Mas…This L.A. pocha wishes she could speak better Spanish (video)
Hate Crimes in America by the Numbers (infographic)
Who are the top haters? Where do they hate? What do they do?
A huge infographic at Criminal Degree Hub, a website for students in Criminal Justice, breaks it down, with references and everything. Here’s the complete chart — click to enlarge:
Latino? Hispanic? Spanish? What’s the difference? (videos)
Hispanic, Latino and Spanish are often used interchangeably in describing ethnicity. But what’s the right terminology? Feminist, vlogger and “critical thinker” Kat Lazo sets people straight. Nice Venn diagram, too.
Mas…Latino? Hispanic? Spanish? What’s the difference? (videos)
From New Zealand: What exactly is ‘privilege’? (toon)
What exactly is “privilege?” On a Plate cartoonist Toby Morris breaks it down.
Ask A Mexican: Hispanic? Latino? Chicano? What’s the deal? (video)
In an Hispanic Heritage Month Latino Heritage Month special video episode, POCHO amigo Gustavo ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano answers the perennial question: Hispanics? Latinos? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
What’s in a trend? Google tracks ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’ over time
Hispanic or Latino? This question comes up all the time, and not just during Hispanic Heritage Month, which we insist on calling Latino Heritage Month.
Is there a trend? We asked the Google NGram Viewer to search their big index of published books to see how many times the word “Latino” and the word “Hispanic” were used over time.
Mas…What’s in a trend? Google tracks ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’ over time
Official spokesman for U.S. Hispanics quits: ‘It’s a bullshit job!’
(PNS reporting from MIAMI) Gerardo Lamas, the official spokesman for all Hispanics in the United States, resigned Wednesday night.
“This is a bullshit job and I’ll never be able to please anybody,” he told PNS in a late-night phone call. “I mean, I’ve been at this for a while, and let me tell you, it hasn’t gotten any easier. Que effin’ lastima, right? I’m throwing up my hands!”
“The truth is it’s ridiculous to expect one person to be able to speak for millions from diverse backgrounds, geopolitical situations, economic castes and region-specific cultures,” he said. “Rachel Maddow calls, Fox News calls, Esteban Colberto calls, and even your guy Al Madrigal from The Daily Show calls. Thank God for Caller ID!”
Mas…Official spokesman for U.S. Hispanics quits: ‘It’s a bullshit job!’
Hari Kondabolu: 2042 — the Year of the White Minority (video)
Indian-American comic Hari Kondabolu is looking forward to 2042, when white Americans will only be 49% of the population.
Local Chicano decides to start calling himself ‘Hispanic’
(PNS reporting from IRVINE, CA) Roland Vega, 33, formerly known as “Rolando,” has come to an important moment in his life: He’s transitioned from a “Chicano” to a “Hispanic.”
The decision to change the way he self-identifies came as somewhat of a shock to his family and his homeboys, but not necessarily to Vega’s former Hispanic fraternity brothers.
He made the announcement on Facebook Sunday night.
“You know, Roli — er, I mean, Roland — was always the most radical Chicano in the fraternity, but c’mon man, he was studying accounting. I kinda always knew he was going to end up a Hispanic,” said Ed Taboada, Vega’s college roommate.
Mas…Local Chicano decides to start calling himself ‘Hispanic’
White Boy ChIcano (a poem)
White Boy Chicano
It’s an identity crisis
My parents are Mexican migrants, who stay busy all the time
Spanish is my first language, then almost losing it because of time
My TV only showed Mexicans involved in crime
The stereotypes didn’t represent me
My school peers didn’t believe me
I wasn’t Mexican or White
Being a gringo and Mehican left me asking,
Who am I? Where do I belong to?
Pinche White Boy
Americans demand answers: Is my new neighbor Latino? (video)
What do they look like? How can we tell? Is my new neighbor a Latino? Please tell me #whatlatinoslooklike.
PREVIOUSLY ON WHAT ARE YOU…
Mas…Americans demand answers: Is my new neighbor Latino? (video)
Census Bureau considering new race/ethnicity questions
The tricky choose-your-own race/ethnic questions in the 2010 United States Census didn’t work out as planned.
“As many as 6.2% of census respondents selected only “some other race” in the 2010 census (photo, top), the vast majority of whom were Hispanic,” the Pew Research Center reports.
The 2010 Census form asked two questions about race and ethnicity. First, people were asked whether they are of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin.
Then they were asked to choose one or more of 15 options that make up five race categories — white, black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.
A separate question about Hispanic origin has been asked of all households since 1980, and the census form specifically instructs respondents that Hispanic origins are not races.
To address concerns about a rising share of “some other race” selections, a combined race and ethnicity question is under consideration for 2020 (photo, bottom), in which people would be offered all the race and Hispanic options in one place.
They could check a box to identify as white, black, Hispanic/Latino/Spanish origin, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander or some other race or origin.
Don’t call me a ‘Mexican,’ America! Also, I’m not a ‘Latino’
It’s a phenomenon older than the United Estates of America. We’ve named it Looking Down On More Recent Immigrants Syndrome:
- In 1751, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, a North American colonial with British roots, disparaged “stupid” and “swarthy” recently-arrvied German immigrants, who, he wrote, were too dumb to learn English, and did we mention they were “swarthy”?
- Discrimination against Irish Catholic immigrants by their English Protestant predecessors was one of the reasons 200 fresh-off-the-boat Irish United States Army draftees switched sides and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. These deserters/heroes formed the famed Saint Patrick’s Battalion (Los San Patricios.)
- Hoity-toity German and Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the U.S.A. in the 18th and 19th Centuries were ashamed of the Hebrew homies who arrived later from Eastern Europe; the assimilated Jews banded together to “Americanize” the Russian and Polish immigrants in the 1880s.
Last week three latter-day Looking Down Syndrome sightings lit up our screen, INSISTENT MESSAGES from people who want you to know THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE OVER THERE — those Mexicans and/or Latinos.
Mas…Don’t call me a ‘Mexican,’ America! Also, I’m not a ‘Latino’
Um, excuse me…we prefer to be called ‘white folk’ (photo)
We can’t track the original of this photo to give its creator props, so we’ll just heartily thank all Internet-enabled photographers, wherever they are. And whatever they want to be called, tambien. After all, what’s in a name?
PREVIOUSLY ON WHITE PEOPLE:
Me? In London, I’m a ‘culturally-American Mexican’
Where are you from?
That is a simple question, isn’t? Well, for some of us, the answer is not so straight forward.
My experience in London in the past four months has included fascinating dialogue with people I have come across. It is one thing I have come to expect from such a global city where you are bound to meet people from so many places around the world.
Such interactions have sparked in me the need to explore my conception of identity as part of my own self-discovery process. Primarily because most of us conflate place of origin and ethnicity with identity.
If I claim to be from a certain part of the world, what does that mean about the way others expect me to look, speak, act and be? In engaging in this inquiry, the first realization I have made is that the answer to the question of “Where are you from?” is very telling not only about one’s own perception of identity but also of the one imposed by others.
Your skin, your hair — what ARE you, anyhow? (video)
A spoken word meditation on skin, hair, race, ethnicity, categories and stereotypes from Amani Hayes-Messinger. Since you were asking, she’s from Boston.
PREVIOUSLY ON STEREOTYPES:
Everyday racist bullsh*t (AKA ‘racial microaggressions’) [photos]
Fordham student Kiyun asked her school friends to “write down an instance of racial microaggression they have faced,” then she took their photos.
Here are (what may be/could be/possibly look like) four of the “Latino” photos [click to enlarge.] The rest are here and here.
Mas…Everyday racist bullsh*t (AKA ‘racial microaggressions’) [photos]
Aamer Rahman: What’s the deal with white people? (video)
Australian comic Aamer Rahman — half of Fear of A Brown Planet — discusses the pitfalls of trying to joke about race, color and ethnicity.
PREVIOUSLY ON MAKING FUN OF WHITE PEOPLE:
Mas…Aamer Rahman: What’s the deal with white people? (video)
Feminists: The struggles of immigrants are our struggles, too
I’m often asked, “Where were you born?”
My answer? Houston, Texas.
“Where were your parents born?”
El Paso, Texas.
“Where were your grandparents born?”
El Paso, Texas, Balmorhea, Texas and Ft. Davis, Texas.
That is when people usually start to get frustrated and ask, “Well, where is your family from originally?”
The actual meaning behind this statement is “You are a brown-skinned woman and brown-skinned women are not native to the U.S.”
My answers explain that I am not the stranger. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah were all once part of Mexico, after all.
Mas…Feminists: The struggles of immigrants are our struggles, too
Breaking: Marketing to Latins? Talk Latin to us, activists say
(PNS reporting from UPTON ABBEY, MI) Frater Cassius the Yon was adamant.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” he insisted in a rare English-language interview Sunday. “There is no such thing as Latin dancing, unless you mean the “dance of death” from the Black Plague. And Latin music is Gregorian chants, Enya and Necrodeath. Ain’t nobody got no time for that! Tempus fugit!”
Mas…Breaking: Marketing to Latins? Talk Latin to us, activists say
White Hispanics: ‘Hey! We’re not ALL murderous douchebags’
“White Hispanic” is one of mainstream media’s hottest new buzzwords, a term that has leaped off of old census forms and job applications to join the ranks of “twerking,” “3-D printing,” and “Death to Edward Snowden!”
The mainstream media needs to distinguish between different colors of Latinos because it was too polite to ask “Why is Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, so… DARK for his name? And isn’t Aaron Hernandez, that allegedly trigger-happy New England Patriots player, a little… LIGHT for his?”
I guess I could be called a “White Hispanic,” as my dad’s from Colombia and my Yiddishe momme reps Brooklyn. I really wish it didn’t take two high-profile killings to bring Latino-and-white people into the public eye, but Linda Ronstadt (photo) and Joan Baez aren’t making new albums and Little Ricky’s been off TV for a while.
Mas…White Hispanics: ‘Hey! We’re not ALL murderous douchebags’
Student stunned to learn blue contacts don’t make her look white
(PNS reporting from SAN ANTONIO) Marisa Rodriguez just wanted to look “fresh” for the summer.
What she didn’t want was the public humiliation from finding out the blue contact lenses she bought at the Mothers’ Day car show and swap meet at Traders’ Village didn’t actually make her look fresh, or more white.
“It happened at school when one of my classmates laughed at me when I asked him if he noticed something different about me,” the Harlandale High School junior tearfully told PNS.
“Justin is a bully, he just laughed at said I had a nopal on my forehead and that I looked lame with these blue contacts!”
Mas…Student stunned to learn blue contacts don’t make her look white
Breaking: San Diego firm offers Thailand plastic surgery tours
(PNS reporting from SAN DIEGO) Horton District travel agency Mad Mad World Tours is now offering a new cosmetic surgery/tour package featuring makeovers in beautiful Thailand, the company announced today.
The tours, organized in partnership with the Bod Thai Clinic of Bangkok, Thailand, promise an all-expenses-paid two-week luxury trip to the southeast Asian country and a procedure called a frental nopalectomy. The forehead surgery promotion targets upscale Mexican-Americans.
Mas…Breaking: San Diego firm offers Thailand plastic surgery tours
How many generations until Latinos become ‘Americans’?
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I consider myself Latina, close to my family’s Mexican culture; I’m bilingual and I’m happy with that identity. But, more often than not, it seems like everyone else is trying to corral me into some other identity, telling me that mine is not sufficient.
The neighborhood where I live (photos, above) is a perfect example.
It’s split in two: one part of it is gentrifying rapidly, and the other is filled with Mexican and many immigrant families. I where it’s more Mexican, which makes me — in all my professional hipster-ness — stand out sometimes, but people still speak to me in Spanish and often I just become part of the scenery. But then there are other times.
So let it be written: Now I am become ‘Hispanic’
In The Beginning: For 37 years I lived my life without realizing I was Hispanic.
A few days ago, while waiting for the bus, I overheard a conversation that changed my life. A gentleman was speaking Japanese with several ladies, and when they reverted to English, the ladies asked him, “Well if you’re not from Japan, what nationality are you?” He replied that he was from Brazil. This did not surprise me, as there are over 1.5 million Brazilians of Japanese descent.
His response did make me wonder, however, about how Americans define “Hispanic,” whether this gentleman would consider himself Hispanic, and whether he met the U.S. government’s definition(s) of Hispanic.