Do you think Latinos are a separate race. Do you know the definition?

[Anonymous]

I know an American guy that moved to the US when he was 2. He's obviously white, but he knows Spanish because his parents are from the Dominican Republic.

He refers to himself as latino and doesn't consider himself white at all. Latino and Hispanic are often used by him as synonyms.

By definition though "latino" isn't a race, neither is Hispanic. They're inherited cultures. Latino originates from the Latins that became the dominant tribe that gave rise to later Italy. Hispanic refers to the land of hispania, the previous name of Spain. Mexicans, Italians, Brazilian and Argentinians are all latino but out of them, Brazil and Italy are only latino but not Hispanic. Spain is considered Hispanic but not latino.

Argentinians and Mexicans are both latino and Hispanic but neither is similar. Argentinians are 90% Italian immigrants.

The guy i know, tends to use latino to form his beliefs and ideas but thinks its a race.

Curious how many people actually know

[ODC2112]

The Latin term yes originally refers to the inhabitants of ancient Lazio or the flat area around Rome.

Over time, it has become synonymous with Latin speakers. The Roman Empire was in fact divided into two areas of cultural influence, the Greek one and the Roman or Latin one.

In the Greek one they spoke Greek (although until the seventh century the official documents were in Latin) in the one with Roman influence they spoke in Latin.

During the early Middle Ages the Greco-Byzantines identified as Latins all those who lived in the former Western Roman Empire.

The term Latin therefore became synonymous with Western in the dying Eastern Roman Empire, over time it was no longer used.

It made a comeback with the French emperor Napoleon III, who invented the term Latin America during the French invasion of Mexico (1862-1867) to include France among the countries that have influence in America, as opposed to America of the barbarians i. e. Dutch and English.

This diminished the Spanish importance of the colonization of America, as it was oriented towards eliminating the term in vogue at the time, i. e. Hispanoamérica, to replace the Latin America as defined by Napoleon III includes all historically Neo-Latin-speaking territories, including New Mexico and Louisiana in the United States and Quebec in Canada.

There is no "genetic" or "racial" link, it's just a linguistic thing.

The phenotype is not related to the spoke language, if not black and white north-Americans are the same "race", due they speak the same language and also some indians of India or other people from British colonies, and it make them Germanic... that is a non sense.

[KostasKouvalis]

I used to, but not anymore. Latino is more of a culture then a race. Because you have White Latinos, Indegenous Latinos, black Latinos, mixed Latinos.

[Asker]

Yeah, i didn't understand people that claim that latino is a race. How does it make sense to call a mexican the same as an Argentinian vs a cuban. Entirely different cultures and ethnic makeup.

[AngryCarl2]

They're an ethnicity, but they're not separate. Because, you know, interbreeding.