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
The competition is set for the parking lot behind the bleachers in hot and windy El Monte, East Los, Califas. Can tattooed veterano Rizer put down his mocoso and beat hipster Ben, even if Ben is wearing his magic $3 thrift shore shirt? It’s a thrill-packed race up to the chain link fence and back again and there’s a hyna standing by with prizes. Skip Ventura of Varsity Punks reports.
(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!’
Last month we published the powerful essay Maybe I grew up in a Latino and African-American neighborhood by Navarro, the Chicago-based hiphop artist formerly known as Scheme. Now it’s back, with music:
Me llamo el Señor Chang y seré su profesor de español en este semestre.
Indian-American comic Hari Kondabolu is looking forward to 2042, when white Americans will only be 49% of the population.
(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
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
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)
Keep your eye on El Gordito. He has a great future ahead of him in Mexican politics!
PREVIOUSLY ON THESE KIDS TODAY:
Mas…Mexican Junior Olympians race for the Medalla de Oro (video)
A year-long study has shown that potential buyers were less likely to contact Craigslist sellers with brown skin and/or tattoos.
And when contact was made, according to the research, the prices offered for identical items were less.
Sociological Images has the story:
Mas…Study shows brown skin, tattoos will cost you money on Craigslist
Being brown, growing old, living as a short person — Johnny Sanchez shares TMI about the intimate secrets of Mexican-American men.
It’s not that Latinas don’t love hearing how their individual characteristics pale in comparison to stereotypes thrown around on talk radio…well, actually, they don’t love it. At all.
NOLA student Sophia Garcia says the stereotypes that bother her most are the ones she hears when she share her “opinions” — that she’s being overly “spicy” and “ghetto.” Who would be bothered by that? Probably anyone.
What you think?
PREVIOUSLY ON STEREOTYPES:
After the Cuban Communist Revolution, auto sports were banned as elitist, but now they’re back. Hot rods are drag-racing down the streets of Havana — with the blessing of the Party! FUSION reports.
PREVIOUSLY ON CUBA:
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.
It’s a phenomenon older than the United Estates of America. We’ve named it Looking Down On More Recent Immigrants Syndrome:
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’
This white privilege comic is awesome.
Unfortunately, Internet trolls and racists ran off the poor girl who created it.
You can see the whole thing here, and we promise it’s worth the click!
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:
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:
POCHO’s Subcommandanta del Ñews, Sara Inés Calderón (@SaraChicaD on the Twitter), wants to know why Latinos shame each other over culture.
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
When you ASSUME you make an ASS of U and ME. Also him and her. He and she tambien. Both of them. [Video by Elaine Del Valle.]
PREVIOUSLY ON YOU DON’T LOOK/SOUND/ACT LATINO:
Mas…I’m a smart, attractive Latina — so ‘Y Am I Single?’ (video)
“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’
(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
They’re confused, the poor marketeers. They try so hard to sell fish esticks and bleach and PETA to “Hispanics,” but they are low and slow on the learning curve.
Nearly Half of Second-Gen Hispanics Feel Like Ads Don’t Target Them, laments the tradezine Adweek.
You mean pochos with limited/zero Spanish aren’t picking up trendy brand tips watching telenovelas on Spanish-language TV? And nobody reading this story really cares all that much about Juanes’ aftershave? What’s an earnest marketeer to do?
Los Pochodores are here to help with the Pocho Ocho best ways to reach out to that elusive “Hispanic” market:
(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
 |
 |
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.
POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz‘s recent article about the word gringo ignited a shitstorm of debate. White people came out of the woodwork to declare how they’ve been traumatized all these years because of it.
This got me thinking about racial slurs and how we use them in these oh-so-modern times. Rand Paul used the term chili-choking pepper bellies the other day when he was talking about immigration reform. What’s the gringo equivalent of a chili-choking pepper belly? Twinky-gagging sugar gut? Sounds stupid, right?
“You cornbread-gobbling butter stomach!”
Mas…Hey, honky! The origin of the world’s most heinous racial slur
Back in October, Florida created a new set of educational policies which permits/expects blacks and Latinos to test lower on standardized tests than whites or Asian students. Since they’re expected to test lower, Florida thereby eliminates the embarassing “achievement gap” and the white education bureaucrats can “stand their ground.”
While we’re at it, why don’t we segregate each classroom per race? We can even have separate bathrooms and drinking fountains per race. Seems legit!
I am actually the product of the Florida school system. This ethnic divide rule reminds me of my first year at the University of Central Florida. Though I had a great high school record and was making straight As, I had to take mandatory seminars teaching me how to do well in school.
Did everyone have to take these courses? Nope. Well, why would a straight-A student have to attend such seminars?
Because I am Latina.
Mas…I could have been an astrophysicist, except I’m a Latina
