Antedating of "Hispanic"

[victor steinbok]

Pulled the trigger a bit too quickly and will, no doubt, do it again.
I doubt there is consensus, but Wiki article on Guyana lists Suriname,
Guyana, French Guiana and Brazil as for "non-Hispanic nations" in
South America. Of course, aside from Cuba, PR and Dominican Republic,
the rest of the Caribbean islands are French, English and
Dutch-speaking, so do not enter into this issue. But I have certainly
heard Brazilians occasionally identified as "Hispanic".

Library of Congress "Portals to the World" used to list Suriname in
its Hispanic directory, but that's been rearranged some time ago (not
sure how old the records are from which I got this information).
Hispanic Scholarship Fund and a number of corporate policies recognize
Brazilians as Hispanic. Contrast that with HSF statement:

http://goo.gl/qKujh
> Students from the following countries are not eligible- Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana.

But some listings go in the opposite direction:

http://goo.gl/D1DKw
> For U.S. government statistics, all Americans who trace their ancestry to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Central or South America, the Dominican Republic or other Spanish cultures, regardless of race; excludes people from Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, Belize and Portugal because Spanish is not the first language in those countries.


Again, I am not entirely sure how accurate this statement is--it may
well depend which "U.S. government statistics" one is investigating.
Note that Spain is not listed at all, even though Portugal somehow
makes it into the "Central and South America" (although as
non-Hispanic). One thing that is consistent about government
statistics is that "hispanic" is a super-ethnic category, so, at least
originally, probably was language-based.

In any case, most sources that make a clear distinction appear to be
of questionable veracity when it comes to both "Hispanic" and
"Latino/a". For example:

http://goo.gl/wa7bQ
> The word Hispanic is a word used to describe people from or descending from Spanish-speaking countries. This includes people from Spain and 19 countries in Latin America (including the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) that were once a part of the Spanish Empire. *This also includes Equatorial Guinea, a small country on the west coast of Africa,* for a total of 21 different countries.
>
> The term Latino, in the broadest sense, refers to people using languages derived from Latin, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. In a more narrow sense, Latino refers to people from or descending from Latin America. Latin America is broadly defined as the entire western hemisphere south of the United States, but more specifically, refers to those countries of the Americas that developed from the colonies of Spain, Portugal and France. This includes: Mexico, the Caribbean, and all countries in Central and South America, with the exception of Belize, Guyana, and Suriname (*these countries were colonized by the English* and are typically treated differently by scholars).

[emphasis added]

Equatorial Guinea? Really? Spanish is one of two official languages of
EG, but the same is true of Western Sahara (one of three languages
there). Both have a connection with Spain, but I can't say that I've
ever heard immigrants from either one identified as "Hispanic".
Suriname was initially colonized by a mix of Dutch and English
traders, but it's generally associated with the Netherlands and the
associated language is Dutch, not English.

In any case, there does not seem to be a consensus on where "Hispanic"
people come from except for the core 20 Central and South American
countries, including 3 island nations from the Caribbean, but clearly
excluding Guyana and Belize. Brazil, Suriname, Dutch- and
French-speaking Caribbean islands, as well as Cape Verde--and,
apparently, Equatorial Guinea ;-) --occasionally show up on the list.

VS-)

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 7:18 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>...In particular, I'm
> wondering how Brazilians are classified both formally and informally
> on federal forms and by US English speakers.
...

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