Just goes to illustrate something important: words, themselves, are not vessels of
meaning.

animaux wrote:

On Fri, 27 Dec 2002 18:25:15 +0000 (UTC), (Victor M.
Martinez) wrote:

animaux wrote:
Well you should know by now there are differences and I don't find it
unreasonable to say someone is black or latino. My mother is married to a black
man, we are white. It's obvious.

Obvious you say? What do you call a brazilian black man then? Black? Latino?
Hispanic? What about a cuban mulato? A caucasian argentinian? A mestizo
mexican? An amerindian peruvian?
What do the words mean anyway? Latino derives from latin, so all folks who
speak a language derived from latin should be called latinos. That includes
the french and the italian, btw. Hispanic comes from Spain, so I guess folks
from spain should be called hispanic too, but not brazilians since they were
a portuguese colony.
To me, a native spanish speaker, the word "hispano" means from Spain, so it
does not apply to me. Latino brings to mind a more "tropical" culture than
mine and I don't identify with the label at all. If you have to put a label
on me, call me mexican, which is what I am. But I still dislike "racial"
labels. Anybody read that article in the Lancet (or was it the JAMA?) about
the fact that there is no such thing as human races from a genetic standpoint?

Cheers.

ooops, hot button. Never mind.