U.S census accepted “Hispanic” as an ethnicity fifty years ago. It’s a big controversy between Americans and especially in Hispanics because lots of Hispanics believe that being an Hispanic is not an ethnicity it’s a race. So in census, they choose “some other race”. Today it’s a truth that Latin American ancestry people don’t accept they are Hispanic. There are lots of reasons of it. Some of them are assimilation story and their desire a non-Hispanic identity. They are staying away from Hispanic people and they only want to be called as “American”. How many Hispanic-Americans are there?
Last census showed that Hispanic-American number in U.S is 2.5 million people. But it’s not a definite number because American Census system is based on people’s choice on ethnicity.
There are lots of reasons why some of Hispanic-Americans don’t identity themselves with this title. First of all, it’s possible to see that they are staying away from “Hispanic lifestyle”’s traditional behaviors. They don’t like dancing or some other traditions. They only want to be called with their race as “White, Asian or Black”.
Other reason is advertisement and categorization works over Hispanic-Americans. Companies see them as a big market and create mostly funny ads about them. But some of Hispanic-Americans don’t like these ads and accept them as an insult to human.
They are not identifying as the owners of U.S like Italians or Irish. Common idea about Hispanic-Americans is that they are trying to live their own country’s life style in America.
Also problem about who must be identified as Hispanic-American is a big problem. There are some ideas that Hispanics came from Europe and didn’t lose their identity and language must be called as Hispanic-Americans. Also there is people use this term for Latin America countries immigrants.
Also cold sectarian tension is an important topic for Hispanic-Americans. It’s known that %70 of them is catholic. But %20 of them is protestant. Also there are some Hispanic-Americans calling them in the class “alternative Christians”.
Today Hispanic-Americans are mostly popular in TV and Music sector. They always shaped America’s daily life and TV. But today they are on the highest level of influential. Television networks, newspapers and TV channels like Univision, Telemundo, Azteca America and La Opinión are very strong in country.
Also terms Hispanic and Latino are creating lots of controversies. Word Hispanic is firstly used in 1970 Census. It was officially referring to Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Central American and similar Spanish culture influenced people. Then it’s argued for thousands of times which nations this explanation must include or exclude. Some people believed that “Hispanic” term is created by some government members and artificially imposed. Lots of people joined campaign against this term. In 2000 Census, “Hispanic” term changed to “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino”.
Latino term is started to use in 2000 Census firstly in official. Latino word created several controversies before and after Census. Lots of journalists stepped against using this term but it find a wide place in mass media.
Lots of writers and other social life styles identified words Hispanic and Latino. The AP Stylebook identified two words with similar meanings. For The AP Stylebook; “Hispanic” is identifying people “from – or whose ancestors were from – a Spanish-speaking land or culture.” But Latino word is a more general meaning than “Hispanic” with including people “from — or whose ancestors were from — . . . Latin America.”
After official usage, some ads started to use Latino or Hispanic words in their ads and campaigns but lots of people don’t like ads and ads couldn’t get any success.
