Puerto Rican-American??

[Laurence Horn]

>In a message dated 3/20/2003 12:16:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes:
>
>>  the big generalization seems to be that the
>>  first element X in "X-American" refers either to (what we view as)
>>  an ethnicity or to a nation or region of family origin.  "Jewish-
>>  American" works because we think of being jewish as, primarily,
>>  an ethnic rather than a religious identification.
>
>A coincidence---my daughter is having to deal in the real world with the
>question whether "Jewish" is ethnicity or religion.  Her school is having an
>ethnic foods day and she was planning to bring a challah and has tied herself
>in knots as to whether a challah is a religious or an ethnic item.

Well, I'd vote for the latter.

>
>  > so we have "Arab-American" and don't have "Muslim-American"
>

To support my earlier claim, I can cite 12,600 google hits on
Muslim(-)American(s) and over a hundred additional ones if the
"Moslem" spelling is added in.

larry