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Latino refers to anything connected with Romance languages and the associated cultures and ethnicities.

Etymology

Latino, feminine Latina derives from Latin (the adjectives latinus, latina), originally referring to Latium, the area of Rome, by aitiology derived from a king of the name Latinus.

The term should not be confused with Ladino (the Spanish-based language traditionally spoken by Sephardic Jews) or Ladin (a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the Italian Alps), even though the origin for all three names is the same.

US Ethnic usage

In the United States the term Latino is commonly used to refer to non-Anglo-Americans who are living in the United States of America and are of Hispanic background, typically Spanish speaking people. The feminine form of the word is Latina.

Most frequently the term Latino is restricted to immigrants from Spanish speaking countries in Latin America and their descendants. Some use Latino as also including Portuguese people in America, as Brazilians for instance. Most of the time inhabitants of the French-speaking areas of Haiti, French Guiana, and the French West Indies are generally not considered to be Latinos; they are typically thought to have more in common culturally with English-speaking West Indians than they do with residents of Mexico and Central and South America.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines "Hispanic or Latino" as having a background in a Spanish-speaking Latin American country or being of actual Spanish ancestry. Thus immigrants from Spain are considered "Hispanic or Latino", but those from Brazil are not. The label also thus includes ethnically Spanish people with roots in the United States, such as the New Mexico Spanish and Louisiana Cajuns of Spanish origin.

Critique of Latino usage in US

The word Latino is debated as to whether it is an appropriate label for the people living in the Americas outside of the US and Canada. Controversy surrounds on the usage since it implies a mirroring of Europe Latin area (see Latin Europe) in the Americas. But in doing so, it has excluded millions of indigenous descendants (many of whom speak only a native language) that are very much grounded in what is called the Americas. Thus the critique of the word falls on the exclusion of others and/or perpetuating a homogenuity of one race in the Americas. The exclusion falls on the indigenous societies and the seized populations of Africa.

Recently, Mexican-descent organizations such as the Mexica Movement have challenged the legitimacy of the newly-introduced term of "Latino" on the grounds of its non-applicability to people who are non-European. Since the term Latino refers to Latin Europe and its descendents, people of American indigenous descent are necessarily excluded from such a term. The heavy promotion of the term Latino by European-descent Cubans in Miami onto the much larger Mexican population that is non-European, has fueled sharp critiques of the term as it is currently applied. Given that approximately 10% of Mexico's population continues to speak an indigenous language as its mother tongue, the Latino moniker is especially problematic. The media application of the term "Latino" in conjunction with non-Latino patrimony images (such as Aztec and Mayan pyramids) promises to stir debate about an "umbrella" term encompassing people of separate races and separate civilizations.

Critics further point out that Native Americans primarily speak English but are never referred to as Anglos or as "Britannic." Latino, they assert, is likewise non-applicable as an identity to people of indigenous stock (full-blood and mixed-blood) in other regions of the same continent.

See also

• Afro-latino
• Asian Latino
• Boricua
• Chicano
• Filipino
• Hispanic
• Hispanic America
• Ibero-American
• Isleños
• La raza
• Latin rap
• Latin Union
• List of U.S. cities with Hispanic majority populations
• Mexican American
• Mestizo
• Moors
• Mulatto
• Spanish American

• Ethnic groups of the United States