anglo

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Tuesday, May 21, 2002 2:17 pm -0400 Michael Newman <mnewman at QC.EDU>
wrote:

>>
> Now that it's been established that Anglo=White, I am wondering why
> people switched from White to Anglo at all. Was it to avoid saying
> White? I am not sure because it's really not used much in the NY
> area, where we do say White or even the more misleading 'Caucasian.'
> However, I noticed that when I was in Ohio that some people appeared
> uncomfortable when I'd mention people as belonging to racial
> categories.
>
> My problem with Anglo is that it appears to imply a cultural
> identification with Englishness that I don't feel. I suppose it's the
> same impulse that causes some Latinos to reject the term Hispanic.
> Maybe I should just get over it.
>
> On this point, I noticed how a number of inner-city kids don't
> consider me White because I'm Jewish. There's like a sense that
> Jewish isn't a category within White. They even had a debate on this
> subject, with about a 50/50 split on whether Jews were White. Of
> course, most Jews think we're White.

I think the answer to your question in the first paragraph is to be found
in the last paragraph.  'Anglo' doesn't equal 'white', it equals
'non-Hispanic white'.  Since 'Hispanic' has its roots as a linguistic
category, it is potentially multi-racial.

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320