Posted by: Linda Carbonell on March 26, 2012.So, what is a “white Hispanic� It seems to be a term most Americans can’t wrap their heads around, and no wonder. They have no clue what an Hispanic or Latino is to begin with.
Most of us think of race as comprising one of three groups – to use the colloquial terms, white, black and Asian. But within those three broad categories are dozens of, pardon the term, sub-species. Human beings are similar to any other animal on the planet.
snipAlong came those Spanish conquistadors and their very small armies. They conquered Latin America, but never colonized it to the extent that the English, French and Germans colonized North America. The actual termination of colonial rule was not nearly as important as the absence of mass immigration. The United States and Canada attracted Europeans who were disenfranchised at home, either through religious affiliation or the hereditary class structure. Latin America, which was still under Spanish and Portugese rule for decades after America became liberated, did not attract groups of Europeans who didn’t want to trade what they had known in Europe for the same structure on a strange continent, and one that was so totally different in climate and environment.
snipThere were basically two classes of Spaniards and Portugese who came to Latin America – the upper class who were the leaders of the military and the government, and the lower class who were the foot soldiers. The foot soldiers were not provided with wives from their native land, as the French soldiers in Canada were, so they married Native women and created a whole middle racial group – the mestizos or mix-bloods. Eventually, they became the base of the middle class. The Spanish upper class remained in that position right up through the beginning of the twentieth century, when the middle class rose to political power. The Mexican Civil War was fought on these racial lines.
snipSo, a white Hispanic is any person who was born in Latin America or is descended from Latin Americans but is of pure European heritage. John Wayne’s first wife was a white Panamanian. My grandparents were white Chilean and Puerto Rican. The late Ricardo Montalban was a white Mexican.
snip*A rather longish article explaining the different ins and outs of Spanish and Portuguese conquest and why Latin Americans look the way they do, but this is the money shot* The press has labeled George Zimmerman a “white Hispanic.†It is a misnomer. His mother is Peruvian, but we have no idea where she fits on the Latin American spectrum of ethnic and racial identities. His father is Jewish. He was born in the United States Zimmerman should not be labeled as any particular race.
The use of the term “white Hispanic†by the press in the Zimmerman-Martin case is an attempt to fit it neatly into the racial context of a hate crime.
http://lezgetreal.com/2012/03/how-can-anyone-be-a-white-hispanic/Interesting, huh? I think the race-baiters are having a bit of trouble keeping traction with this one.
