Transcript: "Foro 22" KWHY-TV, Los Angeles, CA.
Air date: May 23, 1999. Length: 3:08 minutes
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Today we will talk about a subject that raises a lot of interest in our community, and that many of my students ask me frequently: Which is the correct term to use to describe a person of our culture? Do we use Hispanic or Latino?

In the case of my students, the majority Anglos, they want to show interest and respect. But the term that describes who we really are has been so politicized many do not know which way to go.

One of the most important elements as members of a minority group we must understand is when we allow others to define who we are -- we are obviously losing power. For that reason we need to understand which of these two terms better define our cultural identity and history.

The term 'Hispanic' describes a person who comes from Spain, or something that belongs to Spain. Originally the terms come from our history. We had 'Iberoamerica', that was Portugal and Spain in their American colonies. Later we moved to 'Hispanicamerica', which was the culture and territories of Spain in America.

Later the concept of Latin America was created, which is from where Latino comes, from Latin American. This term was not originally Spanish but French. Invented by economist Michel Chevalier. http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=6143

It was adopted because during the war of independence between America from Spain, it was necessary to create an identity not dependent on our European roots. Because not all of us living on this side of the Atlantic have European roots.

Latino thus implies, not necessarily from Spain (although it does include Spain). It includes all cultures that have Latin roots in their language; which are France, Italy, Spain. Also many other regions that do not speak Spanish.

One of the elements that Latin American includes, that Hispanic does not, is the concept of Catholic religion. Because in order to establish a difference with Hispanic, Latino includes people whose languages derive from Latin who follow the Catholic religion as well.

Some people, many people, in our community identify themselves as Hispanics. Because obviously many of us have Spanish ancestors. Many people also identify themselves as Latinos because our culture, we think, does not depend on Spain to have its own identity.

It's interesting the concept in English, for example "Americans", who are basically Europeans as Hispanics, decided early on to create a specific term that separates and offers them a new (independent) identity.

Hispanic is synonym of European because a person from Madrid is as Hispanic as a person from Costa Rica or Mexico. But the term Latin American includes all of us, but makes us native. It places our feet on American soil.

And it is similar to the Spanish term "estadounidense" for American. This is the origin of these words. If you identify yourself as Hispanic, you are correct. If you identify yourself as Latino, you are correct.

I identify myself as 'Boricua', which for me it's also correct; from Borinquen. Vega (c) 1999.

Africa Latina - 1999 "Live"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0pVo5ySzUc&feature=email

Latina to Supreme Court:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/28/sotomayor.latina.r... (less info)