I did a quick search and I didn’t find any post asking specifically about it. So, here I go.
I don’t have necessarily bad feelings towards it, but I do prefer the term “latin american” and I do prefer the proper and accurate national adjectives when they’re needed.
We are quite similar, we share some roots and values, but we are so big, so diverse, so many unique countries, accents, languages and landscapes from the south to the north, that many times “Latino” sounds so reductive, I would even say that sometimes “Latino” means almost nothing if you get too much into specifics and start breaking it down. So yeah, I’m latino, but I’d dare to say that before being a “latino”, I’m a latin american man that comes from Brazil.
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It seems strange you found nothing about it here. Someone seems to ask this question every other day.
No, because gringos don’t know how to use it.
Latino in spanish means latin, and this applies to the romans, the romance languages, and the latin cultures.
To gringos latino simply means a brown pocho.
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Besides, this whole idea of “being Latino”…I don’t know, haven’t you guys ever felt like weird? For me, sometimes it feels like when people ask me to dance or ask about my soccer skills just because I’m brazilian and they’re doing like their classical human tourism aproach. “Can you teach me samba?” “WTF. No. I don’t even like samba ahahahahaha”
But latino IS latinamerican, outside the U.S at least.
50/50 on it, Latino wasn’t a thing till Napoleon the 3rd created it to justify his invasion of Mexico. But at the same thing it means for people from Latin America but wouldnt Latin American be a much better term than Latino? People think Spain is Latino lol
Tbh I don’t care about it in the US but I personally don’t identify as that, I’m Mexican and that’s it. I’d be culturally hispanoamericano because whether people like it or not Mexican culture is based on Spanish culture and that’s a trait we share with other countries in the continent.
I like the term “Latin American”. I like the term “Latin European”, too.
I prefer South American really
No, I’m argentinian. I don’t even know what latino means tbh.
Eh, it’s a term yanks use. I don’t care about it.
What pesters me is when people use “latino” and “latin american” interchangeably when they are different things. “Latino” usually means someone of hispanic descent living in the US and it often has a racist connotation (there’s a reason why Jenna Ortega who doesn’t even speak spanish is considered a latina while Anya Taylor-Joy who is a native spanish speaker and is the daughter of an argentine isn’t). Meanwhile, “Latin American” is someone who was born in Latin America and/or shares a latin american country’s culture.
Not all latinos are latin american (most of them aren’t), and not all latin americans are latino (most of them aren’t either).
Latino is the american term designated to all south americans / spanish speakers (particularly brown looking). Also americans assume everyone is mexican.
South americans do that too to other people. I’m basically chino in every single south american country.
I honestly don’t care much. Although I feel that many don’t understand the term, and in general, it has a certain connotation for them and they’re not interested in learning either.
One of the roots of the problem is that all our countries came up with interesting names for their nations, while one simply decided to use the full name of the continent and ended up being the most influential country in the world, so everyone adopted the idea that the term “American” only refers to them and that we are separate continents.
It would also be valid to call people from Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc, “Latin Europeans”, but no one really calls them that, and the difference between Northern and Southern Europe isn’t really made either, they’re all just considered Europeans. Besides, Latin was spoken in europe for hundreds of years, not in America. We’re only called Latinos because we speak languages derived from Latin.
Growing up in Mexico I never heard it. It was in the US that people first called me Latino. I first classify myself as a person like everyone else before classifying my self in any category or nationality. I personally don’t mind being called Latino, but it is overused even for people that don’t speak a Latin based language by people that first see race…
I hate the term. It’s a misnomer. I’ll call myself Caribbean and Latin American all day but no way am i going to call myself Latin. Latin Americans aren’t actually Latin. They are native, mestizo, mulatto, asian, white and black.
Latins live in Lazio, Italy.
( I especially hate it when l people are speaking english and then switch to latíno just to use the term wrong)
Mini rant over
Latin American.
Hispanoamericano
I hate the term because hispanic people use the word wrong. Many are literally calking themselves latin as though it were a race or ethnicity and/ or use it to refer to only hispanic countries instead of just calling themselves hispanic. They usually leave out Brazil ( or include Brazils flag just to talk about exclusively hispanic things in media) and pretty much always leave out Haiti.
I myself prefer Latine. Latino or Latina is fine, but it very much is a “i’m talking about an international notion in a USA driven discourse” kinda of situation.
That said… Well, Latino is a more honest equivalent to “East Asian” and “Arab” than “American”. Sure South American, Caribbean and Central American are valid and proper demonyms, but they are geographic descriptors more than anything. Egypt is not part of “West Asia” while Armenia is. But Egypt would use say they are part of the Middle East, the Levant or the Arab world, while Armenia wouldn’t.
In the same vein, isn’t a French Guianese a South American? A Curaçaoan a Caribbean?
But I can see arguments of why these aren’t Latin Americans, just like I can see arguments as to why a Turkish man isn’t part of the Arab World.