[Ads-l] X-surnamed Americans

GEOFFREY NUNBERG nunbergg at GMAIL.COM
Fri Feb 10 06:18:54 UTC 2017


 “Spanish-surnamed Americans” was an imprecise way to get at the intended group. I know one person who availed herself of a program aimed at that category who bore the name Borbón y Orleans. 

Geoff 

> From: "Yagoda, Ben" <byagoda at UDEL.EDU <mailto:byagoda at udel.edu>>
> Subject: Re: Of age
> Date: February 9, 2017 at 7:10:36 AM PST
> 
> 
> For a while, in the ’70s, Federal regulations made reference to “Spanish-surnamed Americans” and “hispanic-surnamed Americans.” (The last New York Times reference to the former was in 1979, so presumably it ended around then. https://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/%22spanish+surnamed+americans%22/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/newest/ <http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/%22spanish+surnamed+americans%22/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/newest/><https://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/ <https://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/>"spanish+surnamed+americans"/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/newest/>
> 
> A friend and I, fancying ourselves wits, tried to come up with similar appellations for other groups. So Jews were “precious-metal surnamed Americans” (Goldberg, Silverman), and blacks were “presidential-surnamed Americans” (Washington, Jefferson). We never got any farther than that..
> 
> Ben

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