After all the huffing and puffing, the ongoing discussion about the Hispanic and/or Latino labels sort of misses the point. Yes, Hispanic is a confected term, and, yes, Latino, is not far behind but Latino is personally more acceptable to many of us who are Americans but cannot go around town calling ourselves Paraguayans, Colombians, Dominicans, Cubans or Mexicans first but who yet feel differently about our selves, meaning our identity. Thus the discussion – wholesome, necessary and inevitable – is not about a label but about identity, a term that is as much about who we are as it is about purpose in life.
Tag Archives: identity
Let HispanicLatinos be HispanicLatinos: Nation-Builders
That HispanicLatinos are unlike any other group in the history of the country is hard to dispute. No other group lives so close – and in many cases within – its original culture. Whether HispanicLatinos understand the potential power of their presence is not clear even though the old reality – that their root culture never disappears – is poised to gain traction in ways never envisioned by the nation’s founders.
In their Constitution, the founders asserted the right of individuals to freedom of personal expression and self-determination in the pursuit of their personal happiness. The success of HispanicLatinos developing a new, productive way forward – in a way thought of as possibly “un-American” by some – would be testament to the ingenious creators of the country. They understood that the personal freedoms enshrined and protected in their extraordinary document would allow its citizens always to work on America’s behalf and vouchsafe her future.