Thread: Today on Yahoo News, An Abominable Ad in Spanish....

Originally Posted by diane85

Arab heritage is possible in your family. I suspect I have some Arab heritage mainly because some last names common with Hispanics are rumored to be Arab rooted.

In my family which are Hispanos, the physical features vary quite bit. On my father's side of the family dark Amerindian features are dominant and my mom's side her family looks more European. My father is dark skinned and my mother is fair skinned. My skin tone is in between theirs. One of my brother is dark like my father and another brother who is deceased was fair skinned like my mom and my sister has a medium skin tone. My maternal grandmother had blue eyes and in pictures of her as a young woman her hair seemed to be light brown. My father's grandfather had blue eyes and blonde hair. In northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, there are a lot of Hispanic people who look more European than Amerindian.

One thing that irks me is how many people think dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes are requirements to look Hispanic.

This is why Hispanic is not a race. It's an ethnicity. You can have Mexicans that are White, Black, Asian, Amerindian, Mestizo or any mixture of those. Mexico itself is a racially diverse Hispanic country although I believe Mestizo is the dominant race much like White is the dominant race in America. I have a friend, both parents from Mexico, and he has a pale complexion (no dark brown skin) but with dark hair and eyes, so you would think he's a Spaniard. You want to see a homogeneous country though, go to any of the Eastern Asian countries or African countries.

Oh and if you tune in to Spanish television, like Univision, you'll notice that most of the people on there are White even though they're all Hispanic. Occasionally you'll have a dark skinned or black person, but for the most part it's White.

Originally Posted by googler

This is why Hispanic is not a race. It's an ethnicity. You can have Mexicans that are White, Black, Asian, Amerindian, Mestizo or any mixture of those. Mexico itself is a racially diverse Hispanic country although I believe Mestizo is the dominant race much like White is the dominant race in America. I have a friend, both parents from Mexico, and he has a pale complexion (no dark brown skin) but with dark hair and eyes, so you would think he's a Spaniard. You want to see a homogeneous country though, go to any of the Eastern Asian countries or African countries.

Oh and if you tune in to Spanish television, like Univision, you'll notice that most of the people on there are White even though they're all Hispanic. Occasionally you'll have a dark skinned or black person, but for the most part it's White.

I think only about 10 to 15% of Mexico is white. Mexico is mostly mestizo.

There is no such thing as a Hispanic race like you said, but here in the United States, a lot of people do not understand that there isn't a Hispanic race. I know a woman who refers to her grandchildren as half Hispanic/half white. Nobody can be half-Hispanic and that woman's grandchildren are mostly white, but that woman can't understand that her mestizo son-in-law has European heritage. Sometime back I stumbled onto the following site and a lot of women on that site are morons when it comes to the term Hispanic.
http://www.circleofmoms.com/moms-of-...ave-two-501834

I view the term "Hispanic" to mean that anyone from a Spanish-speaking nation (Spain, Latin America or the Phillipines) that identifies with a Hispanic culture (meaning I wouldn't call the small number of full-blooded or mixed-blood Amerindians who live in Latin American countries but who cling to their ancestral cultures and resist joining the dominant Hispanic culture in their country to be Hispanic, even if they are 100% the same genetically as the dominant culture). I personally call myself "half and half" because genetically speaking only half of my bloodline comes from Hispanics, the other comes from full-blooded "Anglos" (the word loosely identifying all non Hispanic whites regardless if they have Anglo-Saxon bloodlines or not) whose heritage have nothing to do with the Hispanic sphere. I also came out with an ivory "peaches and cream" complexion and can pass for 100% "Anglo", and was raised solely by my mother and her parents, absorbing only their culture. My father and all of his siblings assimilated into the mainstream culture and I was never even told that I was multiethnic growing up. Only my grandmother and her Cuban-born husband act different but neither of them ask for services in Spanish or fly any flag other than the U.S. flag (I consider them half assimilated because they do have the annoying habit of speaking Spanish in public, but they are very old)...recently in the last few years they moved to South Carolina and they treated me to one of their favorite restaurants when I visited them up there...they wound up having a full-fledged Spanish conversation with the waiter at the table, telling me afterwards that the waiter misses somebody to speak Spanish with since that area doesn't have many Spanish-speaking people.....I was looking forward to an English-only time visiting SC (I live in South FL where I hear it every time I leave the house) and here I got stuck at a table with it-though Grandma knows I don't speak Spanish and knows my sentiments about foreign languages being spoken in public!!!) What am I gonna do? I'm with Jimmy Buffet, If I couldn't laugh about it, I'd go insane!!!!

Diane85, my grandma denies having any Jewish bloodlines (and is actually quite prejudiced against Jews, though I do not share her sentiments and am not prejudiced toward Jews), though she has a strong profile that suggests it and her maiden name was "Mira" and her mother's before her was "Hernandez"-in my research both names are tied to the Sephardic community in Spain, especially the name "Hernandez." There was a boy in school that I remember having the surname Hernandez and oddly he looked like he could have been a member of our family-looked like Grandma. She says we have Arab but no Jewish bloodlines-I say we probably have both.

I do not care where you come from or where your family origins start, because none of us can change or alter that. If you live in the USA , you were born here of legal citizens or you have legally immigrated, you should love and cherish freedom and its source. There should be no hyphenated Americans. The division is the problem and those that think that they should be treated differently or are entitled to this or that. We are going to see some tumultuous times in the very near future that will require us to either overlook these issues or polarize because of them. jmo

Originally Posted by COBALT5.56

I do not care where you come from or where your family origins start, because none of us can change or alter that. If you live in the USA , you were born here of legal citizens or you have legally immigrated, you should love and cherish freedom and its source. There should be no hyphenated Americans. The division is the problem and those that think that they should be treated differently or are entitled to this or that. We are going to see some tumultuous times in the very near future that will require us to either overlook these issues or polarize because of them. jmo

COBALT5.56, I agree with you 100%! There should be no hyphenated Americans! And in fact, that's all I call myself, is American!

Originally Posted by sacredrage

COBALT5.56, I agree with you 100%! There should be no hyphenated Americans! And in fact, that's all I call myself, is American!

Agreed. Lets petition to get rid of the race and ethnicity questions on all government forms. How about one check box that says:

[ ] Check here if you're an AMERICAN

The government bears responsibility for the hyphenated Americans phenomenon.

Ron Paul would agree that the government has no business in asking about our race or ethnicity.

Googler, except for that many Latin Americans like to twist the word "American" around to mean not only people from the U.S. but from any country from Canada down to the tip of South America-they say we in the U.S.. "hog" that word for ourselves-I would make it clear that we are only talking legal U.S. citizens here! I don't care about keeping records of ethnic demographics but I do care about pitting one against the other-and I think political groups that are special interest groups for only one ethnic group-LaRaza for example-should be abolished.

Originally Posted by sacredrage

Googler, except for that many Latin Americans like to twist the word "American" around to mean not only people from the U.S. but from any country from Canada down to the tip of South America-they say we in the U.S.. "hog" that word for ourselves-I would make it clear that we are only talking legal U.S. citizens here! I don't care about keeping records of ethnic demographics but I do care about pitting one against the other-and I think political groups that are special interest groups for only one ethnic group-LaRaza for example-should be abolished.

It's like saying Asians. Asians is reserved for those people that come from either Japan, China, Korea. I never hear Russians being called Asians, they're Russians. Same goes for Indians. Now one problem I do have is with Native Americans being referred to as Indians. Indians come from India people!

googler, I agree that Indians come from India-our Native Americans should not continue to be called what was a geographical error by Christopher Columbus! However, oddly, some Natives call themselves "Indians"-I guess in some cases the name just stuck. But I think many if not most of them prefer the term "Native American." Those in Canada are called "First Nations" instead and those below Mexico are called "Amerindian."