Why Do We Say 'Latino'?

↓ More info and sources below ↓

The first thing to pop into your mind when you hear "Latino" is probably people from Latin America - places like Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, etc. But where exactly did the history of that word come from, and has it always meant Central America and South America as well as the Caribbean? Today Danielle traces the origin of the term "Latino" and the debates that still surround it as well as the term "Hispanic" and "Latinx."

Special thanks to our Historians Harry Brisson and

Created and Hosted by Danielle Bainbridge
Produced by Complexly for PBS Digital Studios

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Origin of Everything is a show about the undertold histories and cultural dialogues that make up our collective story. From the food we eat, to the trivia and fun facts we can’t seem to get out of our heads, to the social issues we can’t stop debating, everything around us has a history. Origin of Everything is here to explore it all. We like to think that no topic is too small or too challenging to get started.

Works Cited:

De La Torre, M. (2009). Hispanic American religious cultures. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.

[VISPRES]

What’s really annoying is when people refer to all Latinos as Mexicans.

[djcsavato]

Let's just combine Portuguese and Spanish then!




Pornish
Wait never mind. Forget I said anything.
Edit: Does nobody get that this is a joke? I don't want to have to r/woooosh you guys

[Willcaballero]

Great video, but the Roman land of "Latium" should be pronounced "Lah-tee-yum, " not "Lay-shun."

[KittySnicker]

Let’s also talk about whether actually prefer the term LatinX over Latino and Latina

[beatrizgalveia]

I'm Portuguese and consider myself latina

[Alphamaan]

Italy was always Italy, but the central region of Italy that included Rome was and is still Latium

[thenaturalyogi]

Only in the USA is where people who have immigrated and are already citizens of the country would have to be classified depending on their heritage. I wonder if other places do this as well? Here I tick the Filipino box and that's it either Filipino or Non-FIlipino, I look east Asian and my heritage is China, I have friends who look "kastila' because their heritage is Spanish etc, others look mainly Malay/Filipino but we don't have to identify ourselves as separate from each other we're all Filipino period. Such a weird concept to me trying to separate people.

[MiguelFerreyraGuitar]

Latinx is an American (USA) invention. No one in Spain or Latin America uses that term. The word, Latino, itself is all encompassing.

[JoelCelaya]

I really don’t like this American obsession of classifying people by their race (even when trying not to be racist), but when it’s about geographical, social, historical and cultural purposes, that’s fine for me, as long as we understand that all of those interrelated disciplines are more complex that simply labeling people. For example, geographically, Mexico it’s part of North America (NOT CENTRAL!), but culturally it’s Latin America, so it’s more than just one thing. Also, add up the fact that a lot of “Latinos” born in Latin America look like European, Asian or African people. Anyway, I’m just posting this because I’m a little tired of the American way of seeing races and other ethnicities like economic groups. The diversity of ethnicities is a wonderful thing and I believe it needs to be studied with a perspective of purely cultural richness and heritage, acknowledging the similarities between human groups but also understanding our differences, that’s our only way towards empathy and in the end, towards loving each other for what we are.

[diegoflorencio]

Why don't you just call us by country of origin? Like, if someone is from Brazil, call him Brazilian. If someone is from Argentina, call him Argentine. And so on...

The "latino" term is ridiculous!
Latino ISN'T a race!
Just stop!

[TheDethBringer]

"Latinx" sounds like a serial combined with an energy drink.

[Mike]

I think all of this could have been solved easily with the word "American" to describe people from the American continent but the USA took this word for their citizens.

[f.-j.j.]

I'm Haitian 🇭🇹🇭🇹🇭🇹.
We share an island with the Dominicans and speak French.
So geographically and linguistically, we could be considered latinos. But none of us think of ourselves as latinos and if you wanna confuse a Haitian, call him a Latino.
We identify more with Africa.

[it_was_my_cat]

5:50 what's ironic about this term is that, if they actually spoke spanish, they'd realise the more natural way to make it gender neutral would be the term "Latine", since there are plenty of gender neutral adjectives in spanish that end in "e" . For example, "inteligente".

[karieltheone]

As someone who grew up in South America, "latino" was never a word we used. For us it was something that people from outside used to try to classify all countries in the American continent that speak Spanish. I always found it odd, like they seem to think that someone from Mexico shares any sort of cultural identity with someone from Chile or Uruguay. It sounded so ridiculous to us, yes all 3 countries speak Spanish, and used to belong to the Spanish Empire, so what? Nobody would try to lump into a same group India, Scotland and USA and suggest a term from them as a group...and imply that they are similar, despite the fact that all 3 countries speak English and used to be part of the British Empire. So odd indeed.

[toddgattfry]

Wow, Americans are starting to realize that the world has existed without them for thousands of years.

[gny]

And can ppl in the usa stop calling everyone who speaks spanish "spanish" ppl....spanish ppl are ppl from spain. And all latinos come in all shades of color its NOT just what u see on tv.

[RicardoSanto]

I'm Portuguese. Historically, we have always considered ourselves "Latinos". And we don't speak Spanish!
The term strictly refers to any speaker of any language derived from ancient Latin. Meaning not only Spanish, but also Italian, Portuguese, French or Romanian.
So, basically, Latinos are spread through the American, European and African continents. Countries like France, Romania, Angola or Senegal are as latinos as Mexico or Colombia. The term has wrongly been confused with "Hispanic". Which is what most people mean when they say "Latino".

[chrisg]

The term "Latinx" is so cringe. Spanish is a language with gendered nouns. Grammatical gender =/= human gender identity, hence why the seemingly gender-neutral term "person" is a noun that still has a default gender in Spanish, Greek, Russian...

[bluflavouredpudding]

I am a non-binary Latin American, but I do not like the word latinx because as I just demostrated it is not necessary and I appreciate grammar :/