Receipts for Hispanic vs Latino

So I know I've talked about this in class, but since tomorrow's class will revolve around the topic, I would like to once again remind everyone that Latino and Hispanic do not mean the exact same (and I do have sources at the bottom, so I'm not just pulling things out of my ass). 

To make it very simple, Hispanic is about language, Latino/Latina is about geography. 

You are Hispanic if you come from a country that speaks Spanish. "Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to ancient Hispania (Iberian Peninsula)." Remember that Spain is actually España  (what the country is called in Spanish), remember that h's are silent in Spanish, and so Hispania is pronounced Ispania and the connection becomes rather obvious. This means that white people from Spain are also Hispanic. This is why you can be black and Hispanic, Asian and Hispanic, etc, etc.

Hispanic is not a race.

Latino means your ancestry is from Latin America. So this map

Notice that Haiti is on the map. They speak French in Haiti, therefore they are Latinos but not Hispanics. The people on the other side of the island, however, The Dominican Republic, were under Spanish rule. They are Hispanic and Latinos. In Brazil they speak Portuguese because they were colonized by Portugal. They are Latinos but not Hispanic. 

Latino also is not a good way to judge what a person's race is, since Haiti is majority black, Argentina is very white looking, and there is really not one shade or look that we could all fit under.

There is, understandably, a lot of confusion surrounding this topic. There is a lot of overlap. Mexicans, as we'll see in tomorrow's presentation, make up the majority of the Hispanic population and since we are also Latinos, it is easy to see why Americans would think that the terms are interchangeable.

Tell your friends.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hispanic_vs_Latino
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/03/living/hispanic-latino-identity/