Antedating of "Hispanic"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Considering the importance and sensitivity of the adjective "Hispanic," it is surprising that the OED has gone so long with an inadequate entry for it.  The old meaning of the word ("Pertaining to Spain or its people") has no quotations in OED, and the new meaning ("Spanish-speaking, esp. applied to someone of Latin-American descent living in the United States") has a late dating of 1974 for the first use.

I have not made a full-blown effort to push back the first use of the new meaning, but here is the earliest I have found in cursory research:

1960 _Chicago Defender_ 23 Jan. 11 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  NEW YORK -- Several hundred questionnaires have been mailed to all known Spanish-speaking organizations in the metropolitan area, as part of a "census" of such organizations and their leadership, conducted jointly by the Commission on Intergroup Relations, the Puerto Rican-Hispanic Leadership Forum and the Office of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Fred Shapiro

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