Easily my favorite family member is a person to whom I am not related by blood but marriage. My brother’s father-in-law is named George, and he is not even my sister-in-law’s father but her stepfather. George is well-traveled, intelligent, broad-minded and a superb conversationalist. This man, of whom I am quite fond, is a native of Santiago, Chile; his ancestors derived from Spain.
During a Christmas gathering perhaps 10 years ago, George and I were talking about a most interesting issue. He was a bit surprised when I informed him that the term “Latin America” (or its derivative form, “Latin American”) is inherently racist. This is a point I make without hesitation because it is so undeniably true. Every person from the U.S.-Mexico border down to the very tip of Tierra del Fuego is of Latin descent? Not in the least.
The term “Latin America” was first used in 1861 in La Revue des Races Latines, a publication dedicated to Pan-Latinism. Its intellectual basis can be traced to Michel Chevalier, Jean Charles-Brun, Stendhal, Gabriel Hanotaux and Frederic Mistral. These gentlemen wanted to draw a distinction between themselves and the “Teutonic” or “Anglo-Saxon” peoples of northern Europe. Latins, in their view, hailed from Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. I would have no problem with their claim had it been limited to the European sphere, but it was not.
Chevalier, Charles-Brun, Stendhal, Hanotaux, Mistral and those whom they influenced believed it was right and proper for Latins to rule over their non-Latin neighbors, primarily in Mexico, most of the Caribbean islands, Central America and South America. Whether its underpinnings are linguistic, cultural or racial, “Latin America” is all about imperialism—in other words, dominance.
This irks me a great deal, and I really think it should be recognized for what it is. George, whom I respect deeply, tried to defend use of the term but could only offer the feeblest reasons. “George,” I said to him, “Look at the demographics of so-called Latin America. There are Greeks and Japanese and Koreans and Chinese and Lebanese and Germans and Swiss and Ukrainians and Dutch and Latvians and Norwegians and Jews and Vietnamese. There are probably some Serbo-Croatians living there as well! They are quite clearly not of Latin descent. And what about the Africans your foreparents enslaved and brought to the New World? Do you really think they consider themselves ‘Latin’? And finally, there are the natives—the Aymara, the Quechua, the Aztecs, the Mapuche, the Guarani, the Xingu, the Chibcha, the Arawak, the Inca and the Warao, to name just a few. How can you say they are ‘Latin’ when they so obviously are not?”
I would submit that this term is all about hegemony, maintaining and somehow justifying the dominance that southern Europeans established 500 years ago. The power of naming is the topic of many academic articles and even books, and for good reason. Whoever dictates the name of a country or region or people has effective control. So it should come as no surprise that those of actual Latin descent see the term in a benign way. George had no problem with it, but then he is of the dominant group. I do not mean to pick on him since I have had essentially the same conversation with several other people.
What I would ask is this: If “Latin America” is a suitable term for everything south of the Rio Grande, can we then fairly call everything north of that river “Nordic America”? Who would quibble? I say it in jest because I know it would not work. The United States and Canada have long acknowledged the existence of a wide variety of often-competing ethnic groups. Minorities are recognized and highlighted. The U.S., I can tell you, has wrestled with racism for a long time, and nobody would attempt to implement that kind of thing.
I hate to be glib about a fairly serious issue. Having studied history, I can see why scholars south of the border would want a simple and overarching term to help them distinguish their region from the United States, which casts a very big shadow. I do not purport to know the proper term. However, I suggest they find something else because "Latin America" is presumptuous and offensive, and has to go.
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