Hispanic Or Latino?

This theme touches one of my hot buttons. In my opinion the correct answer to "are you hispanic/latino/a (or any of the variations) is best answered by one, or a combination of: "none of your business;" "why should anyone care?;" "I don't give a shit, why should you?"

And in my opinion you are absolutely right. However, in the UK these days exists something called "equal opportunity". In practice, it means you have to fill in a questionnaire as a part of any official job application. It's mandatory, and of course, it's meant to prevent discrimination. The questions asked:
  • Your race and ethnic origin (choose from 30+ different categories)
  • Your religion
  • Your sexual orientation and gender
Basically, the questions that are forbidden at job interviews in the US, as I've heard. So far no genius came with the brilliant idea to ask if you're into breastfeeding, but I'm sure it will come soon.
 
II would understand "latino" as "being from Latin America". That would definitely mean "not Hispanic". But I don't really like the term "latino". It's confusing... While I agree this shouldn't be anybody's business, and even a bit rude, there are certain contexts where I find it quite valid - such as Genetics.
 
I have no idea.

I say I am Argentinean, and leave to problem to others.

i also say, i am Argentinean Italian descendant, If I have a little more time.

Or decline to declare, that's another option.

But. actually, it is not the , because you leave others to decide for you.

I decline to declare most of the times. But if I have room to write I write what's above.
 
Dada is correct.
However the,Equal Opportunity Law has existed in the U.S. for the last 50 years at least The reason for it is very fair and just .
It is to insure fair hiring practices for all minority groups.In the beginning they were: Black/Hispanic/Oriental/American Indian
If not there was no way of knowing if members of these groups were being discriminated against No data base existed.
France actually had a problem in this aspect once as they do not ask these questions and can not prove that they have been discriminated against due to race.
An anecdote.
In 1972 working in hiring for Marriott Corp.,we were fined for not hiring blacks in our dishwashing area.They were all Latins.It was almost impossible to get U.S. blacks to wash dishes in NYC at the time.Many Panamanians are both black and speak Spanish and English.Their parents having immigrated from Jamaica .We switched some of them from cleaning to diswashing.Problem solved.
 
The practice of racial quotas was recently imported to Brazil via public universities. In a country such as Brazil, where almost everyone has at least some slave and/or amerindian ancestry, and siblings can look like they are from completely different races, the results have been tragic/comic.
Cases of one brother being accepted via racial quotas while the other (from same parents) gets rejected, are not uncommon. It also challenges the whole concept of race. Recessive genes can be a bitch.






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Camberiu ,
"Imported racial quotas via public universities" or the Affirmative Action Law for Universties enacted by Dilma in Aug.,2012 to her credit
putting an end to almost " racial apartheid" in Brazilian university education?
 
Camberiu ,
"Imported racial quotas via public universities" or the Affirmative Action Law for Universties enacted by Dilma in Aug.,2012 to her credit
putting an end to almost " racial apartheid" in Brazilian university education?

It started in 2007, when my alma mater, the University of Brasilia, started applying racial quotas, when accepting new students. Other public universities followed suit and eventually Dilma turned the whole process into a Federal Law for all public universities.

Since most Brazilians are at least partially descendants of slaves and Amerindians, and public records of those ancestors are limited or absent for obvious reasons, Brazil had to develop a highly sophisticated ancestry classification system. After years and billions of dollars spent in research, they developed and rolled out the groundbreaking Eyeball Mk1 race identification system ™, where a bureaucrat comes, looks at the candidate, pulls out a table with a skin color scale, and classifies the individual according to race.
Star Trek stuff. Really great for race relations. Specially when one sibling is accepted under the quota, and the other isn't.
 
I check all the boxes or none of them on those surveys depending on the mood. My dad's parents were 2nd generation Filipinos of Basque origen. Depending on how the question is worded and your definition of ethnicity I could qualify as part latino, part pacific islander. What will never vary with any interpretation is that I am whiter than vanilla ice.
 
I read somewhere that Latino means you're from Latin America. Brazilians are also considered Latinon but not Hispanic. Hispanics are people from a Spanish speaking country. Hispanic nor Latino do not make up any of the four races. They're ethnicities. Those surveys that ask you to fill in your race should be about identifying your race and ethnicity, which can be two different things. There are Asians in Argentina and Jamaica, and Eastern Indians in Nigeria. I consider those surveys to be useless.
 
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