Before 1970, the US Census Bureau classified Mexican, Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants as whites. Each community of Latin American origin would go by their nationality and by the region where they lived in the United States. But all that changed in the seventies, as activists began lobbying the US Census Bureau to create a broad, national category that included all these communities. The result was the creation of the term “Hispanic”, first introduced in the US Census in 1970.
Then it was up to Spanish-language media to get the word out. The network that would later become Univision released this series of ads calling on “Hispanics” to fill out the 1980 Census. The ads feature “Hispanic” sports stars and… Big Bird:
By the 1990s, Univision was creating the images and sounds associated to Hispanics in the US. The 1990 Census ads feature the likes of Tito Puente and Celia Cruz telling Hispanics to fill out el censo:
Maria Hinojosa interviews author and scholar G. Cristina Mora about origins of the term, the people that crafted it, and what it actually means to be Hispanic in the United States today.
G. Cristina Mora is a sociology professor at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses mainly on questions of racial and ethnic categorization, organizations, and immigration. Her book, Making Hispanics provides a socio-historical account of the institutionalization of the “Hispanic/Latino” panethnic category in the United States.
Videos courtesy of Univision Communications and the Univision News library in Miami, Florida.
Photo courtesy of El Telecote archive on Found SF
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I’m wondering if the activists that lobbied for this term were mostly latin@. Any ideas?
As a Brazilian who self-identifies as Latino, I don’t like the term “Hispanic” at all. Has a colonial history as excludes 370k Brazilians living in the US. There is no reason to split us up, Latin American is one.
Again, facts are facts. Hispanics from Spain call them what you want populated Latin America or South, and Central America, Guaemala and the Islands. They stopped us Natives from eating our heart for lunch. That did not change our ancestrly or surname. Hispanic is a surname, not an invented term such as PC “Latino” We must be proud of our ancestry, or we are going to laghed out by knowledgeable people that kow history, and respect ancestry.
Somos indios todos.
We are White; Brown: Black and Biracial or Mextizos, but we are Latinos.
Always a watered down conversation. Ugh. I’m still Latina!
Ain’t none of ’em white.
“Hispanics” can also be from España, no?
Cuban or Afro Cuban is my preferred denomination. “Latin American” seems inaccurate, as we are not part of the Americas, but rather the Caribbean. “Hispanic” insists on lumping our various nationalities and cultures into one big “Burrito”. No.
Just a way for the government of the USA to classify people. Not a very good one at that.
you can call me the Kimchi Chicano
Latino is too broad a term, implies we speak Latin. Hispanic gives credit to the language but excludes Brazil. LatinAmerican covers everyone but it’s too long. For 52 years I have called myself “Mexican born, USA by choice”, which is the truth. “LatAm” is a great option!
The words “Latino and Hispanic, encompasses all of the latin/hispanic World. They include all of the Caribbean islands all the way up to the tip of Brazil. They describe a people of Indian ancestry mixed with Europeans, and Africans that were brought to each region by their European captors. As a result, our language is a mixture of the Spanish language, the language of the Indians of each region, and Africans. As a result our language is a dialect. As a result, we come in many beautiful colors. We have always thought of ourselves as The People, the name the Indians, our ancestors, called themselves, each in their own language. We stopped under the European influence dividing us by using our appearance,against each other. Today our own people try to divide us by claiming that the word Hispanic describes those who show more of the Spanish mixture, a certain complexion, a thing darker is not Hispanic. That is a lie. In one family there can be a rainbow of complexions, sadly, some people have denied family ties to their fathers, mothers, siblings, and relatives who are darker than they. Some even to the point of describing them as or making them their servants . We are one people, with a common past. We are all interelated. An intricate part of the entire human race, the biggest, family empire, in existence. THE HUMAN RACE.
No such thing as “races” of humans. Just think about it.
Hugh Holmes chances are that if you have any color at all, that is, melan8n in your system you have someone of color in your ancestry. The darker you are, the more melanin, the lighter you are, the less melanin. Melanin is a natural chemical the body produces when it interacts with the sun’s rays. It is our natural protection against the sun’s rays. Like a natural shade. The longer you are in the sun the more melanin is produced, the more melanin, the darker your complecion. The longer YOU stay in the sun, the darker you will get. The accumulation of melanin is passed down from generation to generation, our coloring in hair, eyes, skin reflects the amount of melanin passed down. The degrees are darkest to spotted albinism, to total albinism, those who cannot tolerate the sun.
Helena Marie Taylor, Mike Hollis. Hugh Holmes.
There are “white” and “black” Spaniards, or in other terms, light skin and dark skin Spaniards as there are all complexions in all cultures,.
Mr. Holmes’ perception of the reality of the human race is limited by his ignorance of the truth about the human race. Africa is the womb, the birth place of the human race. From there it emigrated to the rest of the world. Our bodies adapting to the environment in which we settled. From slanted eyes, to the color of our skin. No sun no Melanin, pale to transparent skin, and red eyes to blindness, more and more sun, more and more melanin, more color. Mr. Hugh has not thought things through, or he would realize that he gets brown or what he calls “black” for others who are naturally so, that if he were to work, in the sun for many years he would no longer be “white” (that is if he is pale in complexion), he would be “black”, or as it is truly, dark, burned by the sun. All the shades of browns, longer still, he could pass for a Nubian like many of us who can “pass” for “white”, or black”. The truth is one is either pale or dark or any shade in between. We are all still one human race, There IS no “white” people nor “black” people, We reflect the influence of the sun in our bodies. And it is healthy for us.
Every person here is intelligent, and insightful. Ignorance is not bliss it makes us fools, so to be wise and knowledgeable we should always seek the truth about everything we are interested in before speaking about anything. Otherwise we end up making fools of ourselves.
Oh, and Mr. Holmes, we were made and created, we did not evolve from an amoeba to monkeys, proof, have you seen anyone in transition or evolutional stages? And no, not from a big bang either, big bangs create disorder, see how orderly, organized, beautiful, and timely creation is? Everything has it’s purpose, all is interdependent.
From ancient times we have been falling in love, with each other, mixing and growing with each other, and will do so beyond…. We all have a little of each other, we are all connected, truthfully, there is not a single group that is pure anything except pure human, on the face of the earth.
Except for one, you are all right, each one giving a piece of the truth. I am glad to know there are more intelligent and perceptive people than not. This world needs more people like us, to make it a better place.
They made the word Hispanic up to divide them from African people! Cause all it means is they r African with a Spanish speaking slave master! Still African