WHO IS HISPANIC?

Dr. Lucia M. Desir

Who is a Hispanic?

I will illustrate the complexity of the issue by using myself as an example. Am

I a Hispanic? I was born in Colombia, South America. Certainly, that ought to qualify
me as Hispanic. My name in Colombia, prior to marriage, was Lucia Maria Forbes
Newball. Does that sound Hispanic? Undoubtedly, my first and middle names are
Spanish, as is the custom of carrying both one’s father’s (Forbes) and mother’s
(Newball) last name. The surnames Forbes and Newball, however, are not of
Spanish origin. Colombia, it is said, is Catholic and Spanish-speaking. My parents
were Protestants and my mother tongue is a combination of English and English
Creole.
Although I was born and educated on the mainland of Colombia, my parents were born
on the island of Providencia, located in the western Caribbean Sea and part of
Colombia since 1822. Like other inhabitants along Central America’s eastern coast,
Providencia islanders are descendants of Africans, indigenous peoples, and English-
speaking Europeans who settled there. Rather than an oddity, we exemplify the
variability typical of the Caribbean and Latin American regions. Our very existence,
straddling different cultures, alerts one of the dangers inherent in facile ethnic
labeling.
While the term “Hispanic” may serve to forge political unity among people of different
nationalities in the United States, it is troublesome for many reasons.
”Hispanic” is a category of the U.S. census, which subsumes peoples from at least 22 different
countries including the United States. “Hispanic” suggests that all Hispanics speak Spanish.
Among recent Hispanic immigrants, however, there are Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and
Ecuadorians whose native language is not Spanish. In addition to Portuguese, English Creole
and other European languages, a great variety of native languages are spoken by descendants of
the original inhabitants. These languages include, but are not limited to Nahuatl, Quechua,
Aymara, and Tupi-Guarani. In Colombia alone over 180 indigenous dialects are still in use.
“Hispanic” masks the great cultural diversity, which includes national, linguistic, “racial” and
regional differences. For example, within the Andean region (Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru) we can
differentiate between coastal and highland culture. The former is heavily influenced by Africans,
the latter by Incas. Similar diversity is found in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, where the
presence of Italians, Poles, Russians, Germans, British, French add to the cultural mix of these
countries. Other groups include Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, who have settled mostly in
Brazil and Peru. Middle Easterners (Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Turks and Arabs)settled in
Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador and Israelis and Jews present throughout South America
exert important cultural influences in the area.
In more recent times, U.S. North Americans, both White and Black tend to refer to “Hispanics”
as though they are a “racial” group and to ascribe to them a uniform Black or non-white racial
label. This is an imposition of a North American view of race particularly problematic in cases
where a “Hispanic” individual does not meet the implied racial stereotypes.
The term “Hispanic” leads to confusion regarding the heterogeneity of the peoples to whom it is
applied and obscures national identity. National identity, although not without its own
drawbacks as I have shown with reference to myself, nonetheless, more accurately represents
the chosen identity of most Hispanic individuals.
Finally,“Hispanic” serves to include Brazilians while isolating Haitians from inclusion into this
category despite the fact that Haitians, like Brazilians, speak a Latin language, French and
Portuguese respectively. Likewise, the basis for Haitian Creole is derived from a combination of
French and a variety of African languages. Moreover, Haitian history is intricately related to that
of its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, with whom they share the island of Hispaniola (La
Espanola) visited by Columbus on his first voyage to the “New World”.
So, am I Hispanic? Who is a Hispanic? What’s in a name?