Talk:Hispanic and Latino Americans

HIspanic and Latino fix

since latino is a U.S. construct word, latino has the same meaning as hispanic according to the U.S. census, therefore someone should change the frase "hispanic and latino" to "hispanic OR latino". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jan Gabriel Viljoen (talk • contribs) 20:21, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The U.S. Census has always maintained the term Hispanic OR Latino, with no differentiation of definition. In the body of the article the statement is made that “some authorities of American English The terms Hispanic and Latino are held to be mutually distinct by some authorities of American English, as seen in the following quotation:….. However the is no such quotation at the referenced source. Maybe it was there, I don’t know. Maybe dictionary.com (the referenced source) was contacted and they corrected. However if there is no legitimate source the quotation should be removed as encyclopedic content must be verifiable, and the title of the title corrected as you say. Tierraman (talk) 04:36, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Haity and Brazil

that article clearly show that near 200.000 Brazilian American do not count as Hispanic and Latino Americans, but say nothing about near 500.000 Haitian American, what about they?--Feroang (talk) 00:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

You'll find the list of Hispanic or Latino peoples in the article, with links to the sources. SamEV (talk) 21:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

There's a tiny error in this article, Spain is a country, so there's no such a thing like "the countries of Spain"--Cobretti124 (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't find "the countries of Spain" anywhere in the article. SamEV (talk) 21:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems to accept racial categories as fact i.e. is POV

This article consistently uses United States definitions of race as though they are fact; there is no deeper discussion of the fallacies of race systems. It broadly proclaims, Hispanics are not a race. Sure, there are a couple references to make this kosher, but so what? They are hardly from neutral/hard science sources. In fact, the one source for this that is not the census bureau itself uses the census bureau as a source. It also cities "accepted social science" (i.e. what other people have said and is _regarded_ as true by a certain group of people irrespective of its actual truth value) as its source. There should at least be some hard science based on actual evidence in this article as opposed to the personal opinions of a few people that have come to be the party line.

I want to be clear I am not taking the position that Hispanic is a race category. I am saying that race itself is entirely a social construct masquerading as science and has been exposed as such. To say that something is or isn't a race presupposes that one can actually form a correct opinion which one can't. Theshibboleth (talk) 05:39, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello Theshibboleth.

Regardless of whether races exist or not, or make sense or not (each has its internal logic), there do exist such constructs called "races", with specified memberships.

The OMB and Census Bureau define the racial and ethnic groups for use in US census-taking and define, one could say created, the group "Hispanic or Latino". Whenever races are spoken of in this article they're not spoken of as a metaphysical fact. Instead, the official races are being referred to, and hence the need to cite official sources directly. The statement that this group is not a race is referring very specifically to the OMB/CB definitions, in which this group is defined as an "ethnicity", and is clearly stated to not be a race.

If this article were to go deeper into a discussion of race, it wouldn't be of "race" in a general sense, but instead it would be that construct of the OMB and CB called "race". But that's, IMO, a moot point, because a deeper discussion of race seems out of scope in this article. Links are given to Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, a more appropriate venue for discussing what you term "the fallacies of race systems". Links are also found for Race and ethnicity in the United States, and Demographics of the United States, in this article.

All of that said, you seem like a good editor. If you'd like to help improve this article, you'd be very welcome to. SamEV (talk) 23:09, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I may end up being inconsistent here, but I don't see any reason to remain consistent for consistency's sake alone. So here it goes... If this article is about the Census Bureau's constructs of race, ethnicity and Hispanic or Latino, then it should clearly state that.

However as an American of European descent I am aware that many "white" Americans consider Hispanics and Latinos to be racially distinct from whites. On the other hand, it is my understanding that in Hispanic cultures one might consider oneself to be white while at the same time being Hispanic and one might even share the genetics of a person of a different race which is unusual (though not impossible) in the traditional American system.

I certainly don't want this article to take the "white" point of view on race, nor would I want it to take on any other view exclusively. In my own view it would ideally present the truth, but because of WP:NPOV for the purposes of Wikipedia it ought to instead make clear distinctions between the various conceptions of race. At present it seems to accept the Census definition as the definition. That would be fine if this article was strictly about the definition and the demographics of that specific group that chose to be listed under that definition. However, this article also talks about many other individuals who might not be considered Hispanic/Latino by certain groups or who might not even consider themselves Hispanic/Latino, specifically I am thinking of Charlie Sheen although there may be other examples. Theshibboleth (talk) 00:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, this is strictly a US group, one which has never been defined as a "race", and which is itself 'racially' diverse. How far one can get away with saying that it is a US Govt construct, I don't know. Fifty million Americans do perceive themselves as Hispanic/Latino by now.

The subject of inclusion of individuals is actually a separate matter and one which deserves further discussion.

BTW, don't hesitate to offer proposals for how to modify specific statements that you think could use editing (or edit them yourself, if you'd like). SamEV (talk) 07:40, 13 May 2011 (UTC); 07:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

naming

assuming that the terms are synonyms, we should just pick one and be done with it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.170.229 (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2011 (UTC)