Hyphenated-Americans

greenmm25

This issue comes up kinda regularly in my family well I must be more specifically my husbands side of the family. I am american I have done quite a bit of exploring in to my genealogy and I from both sides of my family has been in America for hundreds of years. My husband was born in Mexico but has lived here since he was a baby and feels as american as I do. So, our three children are mixed, and every time they visit their grandparents or cousins (who were all born here) they tell them they are Mexican, and this bothers me because they weren't born there or ever even visited Mexico. I tell them they are all American but there family heritage is from Mexico but they are American and so are they cousins. And our Niece always says I am the only American in their family, but that isn't true. Maybe I am just too sensitive about this but I feel she is trying to separate me from the family because I am white and it drives me nuts. American is American I don't wait my children to think they are any different or having to say I am Mexican-American, The only thing they know about Mexico is they understand a bit of Spanish from listening to their grandparents, and their grandmothers cooking. And PLEASE don't misunderstand me I want them to know their Heritage but from both sides. Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

Keiras_Mom

She said by the way I speak, "proper", she would have never guessed I was "Black". And our on-going joke is "Really? I don't know what gave you the impression that I'm Black. I think it's my lovely tan."

I'm still stuck on this^^^. It amazes me that people still think that if you speak properly or use grammar correctly that you must be something other than black. But ok, all labels should be done away with promptly. I've never been to Africa nor do I know any decedent of mine who has. My great great grandmother was Cherokee, but I don't identify as an indian. Show me a pure bloodline. I'm American.

That one really irks me, too. How ignorant some people are!

I'm American. My ancestry is a mish-mash of Blackfoot Indian, various northern European groups, and who knows what else.

Most of my friends are of mixed ancestry as well. My BFF is Japanese-American, and that's how she views herself, but her mother grew up in Japan, and BFF has many relatives there and visits often. Even though she's American, she identifies with both cultures.

My other good friend's mother is Mexican (descent but not culture--raised American) and her father is Caucasian-American. She is just American and doesn't identify with any other culture.

SmoothRiko

This issue comes up kinda regularly in my family well I must be more specifically my husbands side of the family. I am american I have done quite a bit of exploring in to my genealogy and I from both sides of my family has been in America for hundreds of years. My husband was born in Mexico but has lived here since he was a baby and feels as american as I do. So, our three children are mixed, and every time they visit their grandparents or cousins (who were all born here) they tell them they are Mexican, and this bothers me because they weren't born there or ever even visited Mexico. I tell them they are all American but there family heritage is from Mexico but they are American and so are they cousins. And our Niece always says I am the only American in their family, but that isn't true. Maybe I am just too sensitive about this but I feel she is trying to separate me from the family because I am white and it drives me nuts. American is American I don't wait my children to think they are any different or having to say I am Mexican-American, The only thing they know about Mexico is they understand a bit of Spanish from listening to their grandparents, and their grandmothers cooking. And PLEASE don't misunderstand me I want them to know their Heritage but from both sides. Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

I agree with you. You're American if you are born here or if you're naturalized. PLEASE keep your heritage, it's important to the American way...but at the end of the day...

You're American. That's it.

AliciaStinger

I'm from the U.S. (Illinois). I can't answer all your questions with certainty, but I've never seen other countries do the hyphenating thing. Here's my take on it: Most people in the U.S. are mixed in some way or another. Nobody calls me a Russian-Irish-English-maybe-Polish-and-possibly-other-stuff-American. In fact, aside from "African-Americans" I can't think of a group that gets hyphenated! I believe that if people have to divulge race or heritage (such as on the Census), the list should include every possible option and have the ability to claim more than one option. That way, whether you identify as "African-American" or "White-Cherokee-African-American" you can choose an option that fits you.

The other thing I will mention is that race and heritage sometimes get lumped together in a confusing way. For example, "African-America" as a racial option, usually indicates darker-skinned people - but there are white people in Africa, too; if one of them were to identify as "African-American" we'd probably look at him/her with great confusion until we got an explanation. Even then, when we define "race" what we really want to know is, "what color are you?" (because that is the attitude our country has had for centuries). We might still expect a white American from African to identify as white, even though he/she literally would be "African-American".

On the other hand, some (Black) African-Americans' families have been here since the 1700's; at what point do we acknowledge that these people are simply AMERICANS? They were not born in Africa, may never have been to Africa, probably don't speak an African language, and are only "African" by heritage. I don't mean to deny anyone's heritage or oversimplify, but to me they're Black, and they are American; I don't see why we need these hyphenated (dis)qualifiers to describe American people.

I don't know what to tell you...we could have six basic groups (hopefully I'm not forgetting anyone): Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino/a, White, Middle-Eastern, and Native American. Again, this seems to leave out a lot of options - but when we describe skin colors or heritage using countries, it just gets confusing.

Edit - I can think of other groups that use the "Nationality-Hyphen-American" model, but "African-American" is the only one I also see used as a race.

rml_16

I hate all people equally. I don't care what color your skin is or what other part of the world you came from.

So there.

:-P

WendyTerry420

Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

Hispanic isn't even a race. It's a language group.

MyChocolateDiet

This issue comes up kinda regularly in my family well I must be more specifically my husbands side of the family. I am american I have done quite a bit of exploring in to my genealogy and I from both sides of my family has been in America for hundreds of years. My husband was born in Mexico but has lived here since he was a baby and feels as american as I do. So, our three children are mixed, and every time they visit their grandparents or cousins (who were all born here) they tell them they are Mexican, and this bothers me because they weren't born there or ever even visited Mexico. I tell them they are all American but there family heritage is from Mexico but they are American and so are they cousins. And our Niece always says I am the only American in their family, but that isn't true. Maybe I am just too sensitive about this but I feel she is trying to separate me from the family because I am white and it drives me nuts. American is American I don't wait my children to think they are any different or having to say I am Mexican-American, The only thing they know about Mexico is they understand a bit of Spanish from listening to their grandparents, and their grandmothers cooking. And PLEASE don't misunderstand me I want them to know their Heritage but from both sides. Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

that was exactly how my diatribe got started that I deleted. in studying that thing closely I concluded it was because the next line refers to "race" while that line that "hispanic" is on refers to "ethnicity." As such I concluded that if that line did not exist you'd have a bunch of "hispanics" checking off "white" or "black" as their race and then noone would know who the "mexicans from guatemala and chile" are.

AliciaStinger

I am an American not born in the states. When I was taking the citizen pledge I had to state that I am not an Italian-American, Polish-American, etc. just an American. We should be united as a country and not seperate ourselves into sub-groups.

While I like this sentiment and would normally agree, there are also advantages to categorizing. It gives us a sense of community. In fact, Chicago is full of different pockets of sub-cultures (Italian-American, Irish-American, Russian-American, etc.) because when these groups came here from their native places of birth, they had people with similar culture, traditions, and language. They could communicate and be comfortable more easily.

Sadly, these classifications also worked against groups of people, which is why I like your statement. People are too caught up in labeling different groups, and with labels often come stereotypes. Whether race, nationality, or political party, it would be nice if more people could simply greet others as "Americans". :-)

UsedToBeHusky

Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

Hispanic isn't even a race. It's a language group.

No... Latino is the language group. Hispanic refers to people with ancestral ties to Spanish conquistadors.

PlanetoftheAtheists

Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

Hispanic isn't even a race. It's a language group.

Actually...................

Hispanic (Spanish: hispano, hispánico; Portuguese: hispânico, hispano, Catalan: hispà, hispànic)is an ethnonym that denotes a relationship to Spain or, in some definitions, to ancient Hispania, which comprised the Iberian Peninsula including the modern states of Andorra, Portugal, and Spain and the British Crown Dependency of Gibraltar.Today, organizations in the United States use the term as a broad catch all to refer to persons with a historical and cultural relationship either with Spain and Portugal or only with Spain, regardless of race. However, in the eyes of the US Census Bureau, Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race, any ancestry, any ethnicity, or any country of origin.


Latino (/læˈtinoʊ/ or /ləˈtinoʊ/)[1] is a term used chiefly in the United States to refer to people of Latin American extraction or descent, though the term has also been incorrectly used as a synonym for Hispanic. Hispanic is a narrower term which only refers to persons of Spanish-speaking origin or ancestry, while "Latino" is more frequently used to refer more generally to anyone of Latin American origin or ancestry, including Brazilians. The term latino is used to refer to males only or a combination of males and females in a group, whereas the term Latina is used to refer to females only.

teresamwhite

If asked, then I am simply American. My heritage is mostly Mexican with some Northern European thrown in for good measure. I don't hyphenate myself.

I think hyphens should only be used for people who were born in other countries and then emigrated to another one and became a citizen, or hold dual citizenships. Like Indio-Canadian for those born in India, now a citizen of Canada, or African-American for those born in Africa and now a citizen of the US. Just my two cents.

I think we segregate ourselves too much...not just racially, but in terms of religion, income, region, sexuality, gender, etc. I don't think humans in general will change that either...at least not until the extra terrestrials invade!

PlanetoftheAtheists

I've had enough of this thread. It's full of fail and ignorance. Time to discuss things of mass importance.

Like graphene. Do any of you know about graphene and it's importance it will have in the future?

In essence, graphene is an isolated atomic plane of graphite. From this perspective, graphene has been known since the invention of X-ray crystallography. Graphene planes become even better separated in intercalated graphite compounds. In 2004, physicists at the University of Manchester and the Institute for Microelectronics Technology, Chernogolovka, Russia, first isolated individual graphene planes by using adhesive tape. They also measured electronic properties of the obtained flakes and showed their unique properties.[18] In 2005 the same Manchester Geim group together with the Philip Kim group from Columbia University (see the History section) demonstrated that quasiparticles in graphene were massless Dirac fermions. These discoveries led to an explosion of interest in graphene.
Since then, hundreds of researchers have entered the area, resulting in an extensive search for relevant earlier papers. The Manchester researchers themselves published the first literature review.[6] They cite several papers in which graphene or ultra-thin graphitic layers were epitaxially grown on various substrates. Also, they note a number of pre-2004 reports in which intercalated graphite compounds were studied in a transmission electron microscope. In the latter case, researchers occasionally observed extremely thin graphitic flakes ("few-layer graphene" and possibly even individual layers). An early detailed study on few-layer graphene dates back to 1962.[19] The earliest TEM images of few-layer graphene were published by G. Ruess and F. Vogt in 1948.[20] In 1859 Benjamin Collins Brodie was aware of the highly lamellar structure of thermally reduced graphite oxide.It was studied in detail by V. Kohlschütter and P. Haenni in 1918, who also described the properties of graphite oxide paper.
It is now well known that tiny fragments of graphene sheets are produced (along with quantities of other debris) whenever graphite is abraded, such as when drawing a line with a pencil.There was little interest in this graphitic residue before 2004/05 and, therefore, the discovery of graphene is often attributed to Andre Geim and colleagues[23] who introduced graphene in its modern incarnation.
In 2008, graphene produced by exfoliation was one of the most expensive materials on Earth, with a sample that can be placed at the cross section of a human hair costing more than $1,000 as of April 2008 (about $100,000,000/cm2).[17] Since then, exfoliation procedures have been scaled up, and now companies sell graphene in large quantities.[24][25] On the other hand, the price of epitaxial graphene on SiC is dominated by the substrate price, which is approximately $100/cm2 as of 2009. Byung Hee Hong and his team in South Korea pioneered the synthesis of large-scale graphene films using chemical vapour deposition (CVD) on thin nickel layers, which triggered chemical researches toward the practical applications of graphene,[26]with wafer sizes up to 30 inches (760 mm) reported.
In 2011 the Institute of Electronic Materials Technology and Department of Physics, Warsaw University announced a joint development of acquisition technology of large pieces of graphene with the best quality so far.[29][30]
In the literature, specifically that of the surface science community, graphene has also been commonly referred to as monolayer graphite. This community has intensely studied epitaxial graphene on various surfaces (over 300 articles prior to 2004). In some cases, these graphene layers are coupled to the surfaces weakly enough (by Van der Waals forces) to retain the two dimensional electronic band structure of isolated graphene, as also happenswith exfoliated graphene flakes with regard to SiO2. An example of weakly coupled epitaxial graphene is the one grown on SiC.

Laces_0ut

graphene will revolutionize the world like plastics and electronics combined.

PlanetoftheAtheists

graphene will revolutionize the world like plastics and electronics combined.

One word


SUPERCAPICITORS!

WendyTerry420

http://www.hispaniceconomics.com/overviewofushispanics/hispaniclatinolatin.html

“Spanish Americans,” used widely in the nineteenth century, gave way to “Spanish-speakers” and “Spanish-surnamed” for most of the twentieth century before “Hispanic” was introduced officially in 1970 by the Nixon administration, out of respect for the fact that the Spanish-speaking world, after nine years of deliberations, adopted, in 1935, the word “Hispanidad” as a universal affirmation of identity, which is commemorated on the “Día de la Hispanidad,” an international holiday celebrated each fall.
“Latino,” which, by using the Spanish word for “Latin,” can be viewed as inherently condescending—would we call Americans of Italian ancestry “Italianos” or those of French heritage “Français”? — emerged as a politically correct term in the 1990s. It has, in fact, replaced an array of words used to describe Hispanics born in the United States: Chicano and Mexican American, for instance, are now seldom used.

A simple way of remembering the difference is this: though every Latino is a Hispanic, not every Hispanic is a Latino. Hispanic is the more inclusive term.
For the purposes of this contemporary usage, these are the definitions used:

Hispanic: a person of Latin American or Iberian ancestry, fluent in Spanish. It is primarily used along the Eastern seaboard, and favored by those of Caribbean and South American ancestry or origin. English or Spanish can be their “native” language.

Latino: a U.S.-born Hispanic who is not fluent in Spanish and is engaged in social empowerment through Identity Politics. “Latino” is principally used west of the Mississippi, where it has displaced “Chicano” and “Mexican American.” English is probably their “native” language. “Empowerment” refers to increasing the political, social, and spiritual strength of an individual or a community, and it is associated with the development of confidence of that individual or community in their own abilities.

There are two equally proper ways of translating “Latin America.” One is “América Latina” and the other is “Latinoamérica.” Either term refers to the nations in the Western Hemisphere where a language derived from Latin is spoken. The languages are Spanish, Portuguese and French. (Nations where English and Dutch are spoken are not part of Latin America.)

If you want to refer only to those nations where Spanish is the official language, then the term for that is Hispanoamérica. Why is that you ask? The answer is that hispano simply means that which is related to the Spanish language. Mexico and Argentina are part of Hispanoamérica, but Brazil is not.

In addition to referring to Spanish-speakers, it can also be called "ethnic group," but it is wrong to call Hispanic a "race."

vienna_h

Africans were brought to the Americas and the Caribean since the begining of European Colonialism, it wasn't that long ago. Colonialism is still very relevant, in fact, it's the reason for this ENTIRE CONVERSATION. We wouldn't be talking about hyphenation at all if it wasn't for our recent colonial experience.

The first modern humans leaving Africa roughly 150,000 years ago, not relevant.

how is that not relevant? thats where we are all from.

It's not relevant to the question of hyphenation. We don't live in a peaceful word where race doesn't matter and everyone accepts we're all brothers and sisters from Mother Africa. We live in a world carved by colonialism, our lives are a reflection of that recent past. Your race and your ethnicity matters.

WendyTerry420

Another, thing that drives me nuts is the Race section of forms why is Hispanic its own section?

Hispanic isn't even a race. It's a language group.

Actually...................

Hispanic (Spanish: hispano, hispánico; Portuguese: hispânico, hispano, Catalan: hispà, hispànic)is an ethnonym that denotes a relationship to Spain or, in some definitions, to ancient Hispania, which comprised the Iberian Peninsula including the modern states of Andorra, Portugal, and Spain and the British Crown Dependency of Gibraltar.Today, organizations in the United States use the term as a broad catch all to refer to persons with a historical and cultural relationship either with Spain and Portugal or only with Spain, regardless of race. However, in the eyes of the US Census Bureau, Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race, any ancestry, any ethnicity, or any country of origin.

Exactly.

Laces_0ut

graphene will revolutionize the world like plastics and electronics combined.

One word


SUPERCAPICITORS!

what im excited about is all of the things that will come of it that we haven't thought about.

Laces_0ut

Africans were brought to the Americas and the Caribean since the begining of European Colonialism, it wasn't that long ago. Colonialism is still very relevant, in fact, it's the reason for this ENTIRE CONVERSATION. We wouldn't be talking about hyphenation at all if it wasn't for our recent colonial experience.

The first modern humans leaving Africa roughly 150,000 years ago, not relevant.

how is that not relevant? thats where we are all from.

It's not relevant to the question of hyphenation. We don't live in a peaceful word where race doesn't matter and everyone accepts we're all brothers and sisters from Mother Africa. We live in a world carved by colonialism, our lives are a reflection of that recent past. Your race and your ethnicity matters.

maybe thats because people keep trying to make race an issue. if we all start thinking that we are humans first it might solve a lot of problems.

we just need to fight off an alien invasion...that will bring us together.

vienna_h

ok, well i don't think hyphenating is stupid.

if your white, your prob not getting discriminated against very much, and in the eyes of almost everyone, which part of europe your from doesn't matter.

but america is very racist, race matters. your race and heritage is a huge part of your identity. i think it's very understandable that many visible minorities would want to hyphenate.

And presumably labelling people of Caribbean descent who can go back many generations of ancestors who've never been anywhere near Africa as "African-Americans" because they're black and consequently might be African so we'll just make that assumption is a valid solution against racism?

I don't understand your point. I didn't say it was a "solution" to racism, I said since racism is so pervasive, a person of visible minority may understandably make their heritage part of their ancestry, since they are gonna be judged by it every day anyway. Not that much of a stretch lol.

Also, still not getting why people are making a distinction between being Black and having African ancestors. Do people not realize that all Black people have African ancestors?

So we are all racists, and there is no solution, so let's maintain racial prejudices in our language? Is that really what you are trying to say?

I'm not encouraging people to hyphenate, I'm just saying its totally understandable why some people would WANT to, it was a reply to those saying "hyphenating is stupid, I don't get it".

Also, look at all the white people (assuming by their profile pictures) going o and on about how it "doesn't matter" etc. This attitude of "I'm white, racism doesn't affect me, so why should I care? I'm gonna pretend racism doesn't exist, and that makes me a good, non-racist person" is what is troubling. On the one hand, yes it great that we want to live in a racism-free world, that is what we want. But denying the racism exists, that heritage and the labels just don't matter, is reallly insulting to those for whom their identity IS a part of their daily life, those who are systematically discrimminated because of it, those who are attacked because of it, those who feel excluded because of it. It doesn't address the issue, it just allows racism to go on without anyone taking notice of it.

This reminds me of a bit on the Daily Show a couple nights ago, where they had a black panel and a white panel. The white people's complete disregard for and denial of race issues was just too much.( When 4 out 5 Black people claimed they had been randomly frisked by police, and then no one in the white panel had ever had the same experience, then one white lady goes "Yes, I've been frisked!!! ... At the airport!!!" LOL I nearly fell off my chair. )