{"id":1623,"date":"2015-03-24T12:43:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T18:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=1623"},"modified":"2015-03-24T12:43:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T18:43:04","slug":"there-is-no-such-thing-as-white-hispanic-except-in-the-census-definitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/03\/there-is-no-such-thing-as-white-hispanic-except-in-the-census-definitions.html","title":{"rendered":"There is no such thing as “White Hispanic” – except in the census definitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for President, and now we\u2019re back to the question of \u201cwhat\u201d Cruz is, in the racial\/ethnic beancounting parlance. \u00a0Just as with George Zimmerman, the media are adopting the term \u201cwhite Hispanic\u201d and conservative bloggers are criticizing it. \u00a0(See this link from instapundit.com<\/a>, though his source is a twitter comment without link.)<\/p>\n

Now, yes, it\u2019s true that according to the U.S. government<\/a>, Ted Cruz is Hispanic, defined as \u201ca person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.\u201d \u00a0And at the same time, most Hispanics are defined as \u201cwhite\u201d due to the fact that, in order for their indigenous ancestry to define them as \u201cNative American,\u201d according to the government, they\u2019d need to have \u201ctribal affiliation or community attachment\u201d (see my prior post on the subject<\/a>) \u2014 a demand made of no other \u201cracial\u201d category. \u00a0(And a brief search turned up no guidance on what \u201ccommunity attachment\u201d means \u2014 my best guess is that an individual in, say, Guatemala, who lives in a village of largely indigenous people, who speaks an indigenous language, and so on, would qualify, but it would seem that, upon immigrating to the U.S., they would \u201close\u201d that race and become, what, race-less?)<\/p>\n

Instinctively we know that this is nonsense. \u00a0Instinctively Americans have redefined this in common usage, so that in practice, regardless of government definitions, \u201cHispanic\u201d means \u201chaving predominantly indigenous South or Central American ancestry,\u201d as identified by darker skin and \u201cHispanic\u201d-looking facial features. \u00a0It was foolishness on the part of the census definers to decide that \u201cHispanic\u201d means everyone who lives, or had previously lived, in a Spanish-speaking country (but not, apparently, per the definition above, Brazil, though I think they are meant to be included in \u201cLatino\u201d). \u00a0 Of course someone from Spain isn\u2019t Hispanic. \u00a0And someone from Argentina, whose ancestors migrated there from Germany? \u00a0Also not Hispanic. \u00a0We know better, intuitively, than to believe the census beancounters who say otherwise.<\/p>\n

If we are going to\u00a0have\u00a0racial beancounting, then we ought to show a modicum of respect to those individuals with indigenous ancestry and give them a \u201creal\u201d race, rather than labeling them as white. \u00a0Because as it is, the \u201cwhite Hispanic\u201d label not only applies to George Zimmerman and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, but just as much to nearly every other \u201cHispanic,\u201d no matter how dark their skin, unless their ancestry is primarily African.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know, the definitions of \u201crace\u201d are politicized. \u00a0But can they at least make some sense?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for President, and now we\u2019re back to the question of \u201cwhat\u201d Cruz is, in the racial\/ethnic beancounting parlance. \u00a0Just as with George Zimmerman, the media are adopting the term \u201cwhite Hispanic\u201d and conservative bloggers are criticizing it. \u00a0(See this link from instapundit.com, though his source is a twitter comment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThere is no such thing as "White Hispanic" - except in the census definitions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for President, and now we're back to the question of "what" Cruz is, in the racial\/ethnic beancounting parlance. \u00a0Just\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/03\/there-is-no-such-thing-as-white-hispanic-except-in-the-census-definitions.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There is no such thing as "White Hispanic" - 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