I just finished watching the "Latin Grammy awards". Why are the people who occupy the countries bordering the Mexican Gulf coast called Latinos ? They speak Spanish......not Latin......and for the life of me the only correlation I can make with anything Latin, is the religious influence of the Catholic Spaniards who visited these countries. It's a serious question.
You have hit a cord with me ... LATINOS? Come on people! Call a spade a spade, a gear a gear. HISPANICS! It is unfair, and incorrect to use the term Latinos, Latinas, or just plan Latins when you are (one is) trying to describe someone that is either Mexican, Panamanian, Columbian, Puerto Rican, Cuban etc ... but NOT Brazilian. Brazilians are NOT Hispanics. Neither are the Portuguese or God forbid, we forget the Italians. It strikes a cord with me, especially being of 100% Italian heritage, that the Press, the Media, and our Politicians (at least here in the States) use the term Latinos to describe the Hispanic people. Latins originated in Latium ... modern day ROMA! Sure we have an region called Latin America ... it comprises South and Central America. Hell, both continents, North and South America where named after a LATIN ... Americo Vespucci ... an ITALIAN! ... and in regards to the "LATIN Grammy Awards" ... what a joke .. again, a misuse of the word ... of the essence of the word. They should be called the "HISPANIC Grammy Awards" since they are only addressing Spanish speaking artists ... not Italian or Portuguese/Brazilian artists.
Spanish is Latin genius. So is portugeuse, italian, french and romanian. All of those languages are latin based. And they are called latin americans. That is when latin people moved to south and central america and concuered the indigenous peoples.
Good point about bringing it back the Latin-based languages, but that doesn't really answer the question plaguing us late on a Sunday night. What do we call the Latin Grammys? Latin-American Grammys? Latin-Language Grammys? They could just name off all the countries represented that year and that would be the commercial. "Check out J-lo's Big Ass at 9." would work for me.
What you said about Spanish is Latin genius is correct, and the other languages as well, but the reason for calling the Hispanics "Latinos" is too broad, especially when one is trying to describe the folks of Mexican, Columbian, Costa Rician, etc., heritage. Dollars to Reals to Pesos, I'll bet when one is using the term "Latinos", they are not talking about the Brazilians or the Italians, yet as I said before, they are of Latin heritage. So, what gives? Why do we say this? Are we lazy? Are we just ignorant?
I'd say call them the "Hispanic Grammay Awards" ... though I did think about that Ass for a couple of seconds.
Latin/o is a broad term for someone who speaks a romance language. Using the term Latino to refer EXCLUSIVELY to nationals or descendants of Spanish speaking Latin American nations is therefore incorrect as the definition is much broader. If only the inhabitants of Latium can be called Latins then not all Italians are Latins, as only individuals who can trace their lineage to Latium (today the province of Lazio) should be regarded as Latins. The term Hispanic is also terribly inaccurate. Hispanics were the people of Hispania, the Roman province located in the Iberic Peninsula and today Hispanic refers to people of Latin American origin regardless of race. Words describing race or nationalities are frequently misused but until someone comes up with better terms they will not go away.
It's funny, when I first called my wife Latin, she's brasillian, she had no idea what I was talking about. She said they dont consider themselves Latin at all. We may but they don't. She said she had never heard of a Brasillian saying they were Latin American.
Lighten up Kds, we overuse the word " American" in the US also. When we said "I'm an American", that does not applies exclusively for the US alone. A Chillean, Costa Rican, Canadian, Argentinian, Peruvian... also can consider themselves as an American, hence we're all locate in the continent America, but we never hear they says that they are an American. Strickly semantics!
