"The 'Hispanic' Race Debate: Limitations of the Term in an Orlando School Board Controversy"

About the Author

Kristi McDuffie is a Ph.D. Student in English Studies at Illinois State University with a focus on Rhetoric and Composition. Her research interests center on rhetorics of race, Latin@ rhetorics, language ideologies, and digital literacies. Her publications to date have explored writing center pedagogy, narrative discourse in television, and models of literacy in young adult dystopian fiction.

Contents

Introduction

The Term "Hispanic"

Research Methods

The Use of Hispanic

Hispanic as an Ethnicity

Hispanic as a Race

Conclusions

Works Cited

Hispanic as a Race

While few respondents actually argue that Hispanic is a race, many refute the idea of a biracial committee because race as a concept and as it relates to Hispanics is so problematic and unrepresentative of the current makeup of the U.S. and the school:

• Ridiculous! Anyone who imagines there are only two races in this country hasn’t stepped outside their reading room for twenty years. –Pooh Bah
• The whole concept of race is so outdated. But we, as Americans, love to “check a box” to define ourselves. Or add a hyphen. This notion of the change we need, in our society, to change our definition of our ourselves is HUGE, and not something OCPS is in charge of. –voice of reason
• “Race” as defined in Webster’s and other sources “a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b: a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics” With that defination [sic] in mind, Hispanics would definately [sic] be their own race. When you entertain arguments of racial balance then it should not be limited to black and white. This type of argument should entertain views from all races. –Meme

As these commentators illustrate, one large problem with the term "Hispanic" is that the current, socially constructed racial categories available are inadequate for describing and representing the demographics of the people included in that label. Furthermore, despite the origination and intended use of the term "Hispanic," this definition is inadequate for capturing the many ways that "Hispanic" is used in contemporary public discourse. "Hispanic" is often used as a racialized term despite its technical definition. Alcoff, for instance, notes that Hispanic identity “is often presented as a racial identity,” and she gives the following example:

In a recent report in the Chronicle of Higher Education, just to give one example, differences in average SAT scores were reported in the following way: "The average verbal scores by race were: white, 526; black, 434; Asian-American, 498; American Indian, 480; Mexican-American, 453; Puerto Rican, 452; and other Hispanic students, 461" (33).

Such studies abound in the news. Furthermore, José Luis Morín claims that despite the government’s consideration of "Hispanic" to be “an ethnic rather than a racial category for statistical purposes,” “[i]n the daily workings of society and the justice system…Latinos/as have most often been perceived and treated in racial terms” (5). One particular respondent identifies the overlapping implication of the term as a race, despite its technical definition:

• Hispanic or Latino is often incorrectly given a racial value, usually non-white. –Carlos

Carlos identifies that the term indicates “otherness.” Regardless of the skin color of the person, the Hispanic label connotes inferior characteristics associated with being excluded from the white, Anglo majority.

A complicating factor in the idea of "Hispanic" as a race or ethnicity is the way that race is constructed in the U.S. Other countries do not necessarily use racial categories the same way in their institutions, so many Hispanics, especially those that are not native-born, may not conceive of race the same way that Americans do. Eduardo Mendieta explains that because people included under the label "Hispanic" often do not conceptualize race the same way it is conceptualized in the U.S., the U.S. should not force people to adopt this “questionable and onerous label” (50). Mendieta claims that while Latin America uses race to note class and status difference, the U.S. uses race to strip people of their humanity through “part of an ideology of conquest, subjugation, and subalterzation, of destruction and decimation” (55). This foreign concept and use of race in the U.S. explains why Hispanics are resistant to racial labeling and Mendieta urges Hispanics to resist being racialized.[3] This difference in the concept of race also explains why those more acculturated in the U.S., such as native-borns and second and third generation immigrants, are more accepting of the label "Hispanic"—they are acculturated to the way the U.S. uses racial and ethnic labels. This different concept of race might also explain why the Hispanic activists in this case are displeased with the school board’s response that they can be included on the committee as black or white. Hispanics often identify themselves by place of national origin and often fill in their place of origin as their race on forms such as the census (Morín 10). Kenneth Prewitt notes that many Hispanics choose “other” for race on the census form and that “[n]early half of the Hispanics did so in 2000, most of them Mexican Americans who were claiming their nationality as a race, a race not recognized in the official statistics” (13). In the 2010 census, that trend continued. 36.7% of Hispanics chose “Some other race” or wrote in their national origin as their race (despite instructions to separate the two) and six percent chose “Two or more races” (Ennis, Ríos-Vargas, and Albert 14). The black/white divide is inadequate for describing Hispanics and many other races and ethnicities in the U.S.

Recent information after the 2010 census suggests that there might be significant changes coming for this term in the 2020 census. Based on the results of experimental questions given to a small sample of respondents during the 2010 census, the Census Bureau is suggesting three changes to the census (Trounson). The first is to two make Hispanic one single category without separately asking about race, the second is to add write-in categories for Middle Eastern and Arab, and the third is to remove the word “Negro” as an alternative to black and African American (Trounson). The changes have to be approved by Congress, so it is far too early to know what changes might ultimately happen. While these changes would help the census more accurately reflect changing identities in the U.S., census changes do not necessarily mean a change in the definition of "Hispanic" given by the Office of Management and Budget, nor does it mean changes in the way that the term is used in our public discourse. But it is certainly a change worth watching.