Is an Anglo someone whose first language is English or someone whose ancesry is Anglo-Saxon or British? My parents are from Central Europe but in Canada I qualify as an Anglo in most places except in Quebec where the authorities would classify me as an allophone, for political reasons to water down the Anglo presence.
Is a white South African an Afro? I guess not but why not really?
How about Latinos? I gather that Brazilians do not consider themselves Latino. What about Italians and other non-Spanish speakers of Romance languages? Are they Latinos?
What about people in the Spanish speaking countries of Latin America of various African, European, Middle Eastern, Asian(Fujimori), or Native Indian origin, or mixtures. Are they all equally Latinos?
What about famous Latinos of obviously British origin like one of the fathers of Chile, Bernardo O'Higgins, or one of the leading literary figures of Argentina, Benito Lynch, or President Fox of Mexico. Are they Latinos?
If they are Latinos, then can second and third generation children of Latino immigrants in the USA become Anglos and cease to be Latinos? In other words is the designation of ethnicity based on ancestry and if so how do you figure out what the prevailing ancestry is? Or is it based on where you live and choose to belong.
About french (because i am one of them) we don't consider ourselves as latinos but latin, especially gallo-roman (1/2 gaulish and an 1/2 roman). The same with italians, they are not latinos but latins. I think it's about people with hispanic origins who are living in America. We don't use that word in France and i don't think it's used in Europe.
Brazilians speak portuguese, that's why i guess they consider themselves differently in comparason of spanish speaker in America, but i don't know very well the subject.
A firend of mine who is from US (San Francisco) told me they only consider latinos those who are form South America and US, they consider latinos, italians, french, spanish....
I think after many generations, if your ancestors were are for example hungarian and come to France, you become culturally french.
First of all, in France a Black is called a Noir, whether chanteuse, joueur de foot, homme politique or TV personality, just like a Black in English. It is the Blacks in the US who choose the name Afro-American.
But my point really is, if a Latino is someone whose culture has superseded his/her ancestry as an identifier, why would the same not happen in the US where the Anglo-American culture dominates. People in Latin America probably expect their immigrants to assimilate to the dominant culture. Why would they expect anything different to happen in North America?
The California Constitution recognised Spanish as an Official language in 1847 and, more or less at that same time, a law authorised French–English instruction in public schools in Louisiana. Since both those languages were spoken in those states centuries before English arrived do you feel these are foreign or immigrant languages in those states? Should they have some kind of official recognition? Obviously, English is the dominant language in the US and all will learn English, but does that mean all French and Spanish-speaking long established communities in the US are immigrants? The same goes for many other languages in the US such as Native American languages that were there long before the Europeans arrived. What happens if more than 33% or 50% of the people in a State --or a district or community-- speak another language at home that isn't English and many of them have been doing so for the past 300 or 500 years in that same place? Which is the autonomy given to US States on this issue?
In the U.S., I suspect these terms have as much to do with one's socio-political identification as with one's ancestry.
None of these terms has a precise definition, which is exactly why they are widely used. The doctrines of political correctness require terms that have no literal meaning, and can be assigned constantly shifting meanings based on context and the winds of fashion.
If you require precision, rather than politcal expediency, you must use other terms.
Spanish is spoken in California because of the immigrants from Mexico. There was never such a strong Spanish or Mexican presence in California unlike some areas around the Rio Grande, even though Mexico claimed California as part of its territory befor ceding to the US after the Mexican-American war. In any case, the role of Spanish in California and elsewhere will be determined by the people who live there today. The history is largely irrelevant. Similarly, if Arabic becomes an official language in Spain it will be because of immigration, not because of the history of El Andalus.
I totally agree with you as far as determination by the people. The fact is there are communities who have been speaking European languages, other than English, in the US for hundreds of years.
The fact is not a Spanish village spoke Arabic in Spain since the 1609 expulsion of the Moriscos, except of course in the North African Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and you still won't find villages where Arabic is spoken by more than 10% of recent arrivals. By the way, I wouldn't mind, at all, if Arabic was taught to Arab-speaking kids as part of their school curriculum. The way English people are flooding into Spain (more than 10% of the population in some southern Spanish province, including parents with kids) I think English will become official before Arabic does, because of immigration of course. I've seen English bricklayers on the costa who couldn't speak a word of Spanish! So they are also building for their richer countrymen. I remember asking an address to one and having to switch to English. He was quite surprised at my Australian accent since I was born in France but I grew up in Sydney, of Catalan parents, of course. I've been living in Catalonia since I was a teenager.
Another question. Why does English-speaking immigration add to the Anglicisation of California and Spanish-speaking immigration subtract to the Hispanisation of the area if more Spanish was spoken there when the first English-speaking gold-rushers arrived? I suppose lots of the English-speaking population came in wagons and, lately, in planes from the East coast. We, citizens of the world, have seen a lot of American history on TV. In Spain it's always dubbed.
They choose the name afro-american to remind where they came from from and because they did not want U.S people to not forget why they have been sent into America. T
They have choosen their "name" bacause they did not have the choice.
sorry for mystakes, i use my keyboard too fast
First of all, as far as I know an Anglo is or used to mean someone of English or British ancestry but the term Anglophone refers to a person who's english speaking and usually lives in a country in which other languages are widely spoken too.
Now I'll add to the confusion of the names a given race can be called.
'Black' peoples' skin colour usually range from dark brown to light brown-- to paraphrase what a couple of little kids told me after I informed them that the usual term used is 'black' not "brown" when they didn't understand why and insisted on referring to themselves as "brown people'. I guess we should call people whatever is the widely popular and respectful term in our own countries and familiarise ourselves with the most acceptable term that's used in other countries, outside our group of friends, associates, chat forums and so on-- and also use terms that the person tells us they'd rather called.
I could add even more confusion and say predominantly 'white' looking people can be called "Euro" to identify the original physical characteristics of Europeans before migration to Europe. Predominantly 'black' looking people can be called "Afri" to refer to the original physical characteristics before migration to Africa... so then a 'white' person from Africa would be called Euroafrican". A 'black' person from Scotland would be called "AfriScottish". Native people originally founded Canada--a name that derives from the Iroquois word "kanata" which means "village" or "settlement"-- so they'd also probably be fine with a person with Asian features being called AsianCanadian. Incidentally, many scientist support theories that say native peoples' ancestors crossed the Bering Strait from Asia to settle into Canada and the Americas long before any other nation migrated, I suspose the terms Native or Aboriginal are preferable names because of their centuries of settlement in the Americas, and many don't even look Asian. In Australia we can clearly see from their features that the Aboriginals have African ancestry, same for the Philippine Aboriginals who are referred to as Negritoes by the fairer-skinned, straight-haired Fillipinos. Politically correct terms are constantly revised, and like in any giving language, new words and new meanings are added and some old words become the in thing again; everyone is not going to agree or identify with the same name for their race and so goes the endless possibilities.
Well, that's my little two cents.
Marie,
We all have African ancestry if you go back far enough. What you can "clearly see" and what is are two different thngs. The Australian Aboriginals are no closer to the Africans genetically than you are and probably further removed. They have been in Australia for over 50,000 years.
I do not know about other dark-skinned curly haired people in the South Pacific but I suspect that they are genetically closer to Europeans than to most Africans. Do not be fooled by appearances.
Steve K
Oh my goodness, I beg to differ, there are tribes in Africa who have identical features to Australian Aboriginals and share cultural traits, and those similarities are not limited to them only, of course. It seems to me that you should take your own advice and <<Do not be fooled>>
Oh and Guess what? One can never be sure of a posters cultural background and I guess you didn't imagine it and maybe others did ... but I'm of African and Indian descent, I would add Portuguese (my grandfather's side), but that's not visible, so I don't.
Marie,
I should have not made any assumptions about you but it does not really affect the issue at hand here. Nor do I connect cultural traits with physical appearance.
Read The History and Geography of Human Genes by Cavalli-Sforza and others. The Aboriginals came to Australia in several waves a long long time ago. Africans today are genetically closer to Europeans than to Australian aboriginals, although in fact these differences are really insignificant. Culture is the main determiner of people's behaviour and it is not tied to appearance or genetics.