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

[Paul Johnston]

I know.  It's insane.

In the 19th century, it was not uncommon for Italians, Greeks,
Russian/Polish/etc. Jews, hell, even red-haired, blue-eyed Irish to
be considered "nonwhite" (19c. for "people of color")  too.  And what
are East Indians?  I've known many, when I taught in Singapore, where
they have mostly Tamils and other Dravidians to be of a shade darker
than a lot of African-Americans, and a wife of a friend of mine from
the Delhi area who is lighter skinned than my whole Greek/Jewish/
Scottish father's side of my family.  In Britain, they and the
Pakistanis are often considered "Black", though a different ethnicity
than West Indians or African-British (?!).  So are native
Australians, Maoris...the list goes on.

Paul Johnston
On May 27, 2009, at 6:25 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "People of color" was; Re: Whom Hispanics call
> "Hispanic" --
>               or not
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> 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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