"People of color" was; Re: Whom Hispanics call "Hispanic" -- or not

[Wilson Gray]

Perhaps my perception is colored by my background, but I've always
considered "people of color" to be a phrase empty of content, meaning
only what its writer/speaker intends it to mean. Some examples:

Anyone of any amount of African ancestry of any kind: any American of
known, admitted, or claimed sub-Saharan ancestry; Berbers, Tuaregs,
"Cape Coloreds," Nubians, (ancient) Egyptians, Sudanese "Arabs,"
Somalis, Ethiopians, Thurgood Marshall, Johnny Mathis, Horace Silver,
Cape Verdeans, some Native Americans, such as Lumbee, Mashpee, some
Cherokee, "Black Caribs," though other, "full-blooded"
Native-Americans  refuse to recognize Afro-Cherokees and other
African-Native American mixes as "native." OTOH, the Tutsi, formerly
known as the "Watusi," have been argued to be white. Wicked weird!

Anyone white, but not white enough: Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Gypsies,
members of various European-Spanish ethnic groups - *most*
Portuguese-Americans that I know personally know are, IMO, white, but
*all* of the Portuguese-Portuguese that I know personally - ca. ten
people - are dark enough to be black, being no paler in skin tone than
my mother. Wicked weird! Latin- and Caribbean-Americans.

Americans of European ancestry, who, for whatever reason, have gone
black and never gone back: Johnny Otis, Mezz Mezzrow.

Etc.,etc.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain





On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: "People of color" was; Re: Whom Hispanics call "Hispanic" --
> Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â or not
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Not to mention Hispanics who are of Native American descent.
>
> Herb
>
> On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Barbara Need <bhneed at gmail.com> wrote:
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Barbara Need <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â "People of color" was; Re: Whom Hispanics call "Hispanic" -- or
>> Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â not
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On the news last night (ABC or its local affiliate) they ran a clip in
>> which Sotomayor used the term "people of color", and, as far as I
>> could tell, she was including herself in that category. Now,
>> recognizing that many Hispanics are of mixed African and European
>> ancestry (not to mention Native American), I was a little taken aback.
>> Is it usual to include Hispanics among "people of color"?
>>
>> Barbara
>>
>> Barbara Need
>> Chicago
>>
>> On 27 May 2009, at 3:12 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Whom Hispanics call "Hispanic" -- or not
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> As expected, some Hispanics do not consider other
>>> Hispanics "Hispanic" (letting alone whether a
>>> Portuguese Sephardic Jew would even be considered
>>> human). Â From the NYTimes, May 27, New England
>>> Edition, A16/6 [on-line version]:
>>>
>>> Was a Hispanic Justice on the Court in the ’30s?
>>> By NEIL A. LEWIS
>>>
>>> WASHINGTON — While most people may believe Sonia
>>> Sotomayor is poised to become the first Hispanic
>>> justice on the Supreme Court, there has been a
>>> rich under-the-radar debate for years as to
>>> whether the court had already had a Hispanic justice.
>>>
>>> Several people have suggested that Justice
>>> Benjamin Cardozo might properly hold the title of
>>> the court’s first Hispanic justice. Prof. Andrew
>>> Kaufman of the Harvard Law School, who is the
>>> author of a 1998 biography of Cardozo, said the
>>> debate was esoteric, complicated and, perhaps above all, amusing.
>>>
>>> “Was Cardozo Hispanic?” Professor Kaufman asked,
>>> noting that the assertion has been prevalent on
>>> Web sites and in articles for years. “Well, I
>>> think he regarded himself as a Sephardic Jew
>>> whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula.”
>>>
>>> He said the term “Hispanic” was not commonly used
>>> during Cardozo’s lifetime and would probably have
>>> been unfamiliar to him in 1932 when President
>>> Herbert Hoover named him to the court, where he
>>> served for six years until his death.
>>>
>>> Professor Kaufman said that although there is no
>>> documentation, Cardozo’s family, which came to
>>> America in the 18th century, always believed that
>>> its forebears had come from Portugal, not Spain.
>>> And that raises an even more recondite question:
>>> are Portuguese people Hispanic?
>>>
>>> Most Hispanic organizations and the United States
>>> Census Bureau do not regard Portuguese as Hispanic.
>>>
>>> But Tony Coelho, a Portuguese-American
>>> congressman from California, was a member of the
>>> Congressional Hispanic Caucus when he was in the
>>> House, and Representative Dennis Cardoza,
>>> Democrat of California, whose ancestors came from
>>> the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago, is still a member.
>>>
>>> The executive director of the National
>>> Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
>>> Officials, Arturo Vargas, said the contemporary
>>> political definition of Hispanic in the United
>>> States would definitely not include Cardozo. The
>>> practical definition he uses, Mr. Vargas said,
>>> includes people who are “descended from countries
>>> in the Americas” with a Spanish-language
>>> heritage. It does not even include those from Spain itself, he said.
>>>
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