As a writer on Latin-American baseball, I've often told people that to call a person Spanish or Hispanic is akin to calling a Canadian or a Haitian person "French" or calling Bill Cosby "English"- solely because he speaks that tongue. Everyone has a nationality- a Nicaraguan is not a Peruvian, nor is a Chilean a Venezuelan (though they can understand each other's speech) BCB -----Original Message----- From: Marci [mailto:cilcia@bellsouth.net] Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 3:52 PM To: SHAW-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SHAW] England and Migration Debate Mike, You aroused my curiosity with the Hispanic argument, so I called my husband's parents and asked them. Mexicans living in Mexico do call themselves Mejicanos...Mexicans...however, there is no Mexican language. Mexicans speak Espanol...Spanish. My father in law proudly refers to himself as American, although their primary language continues to be Spanish..He was born in Durango, Mexico. Personally, I like the way Bill Murray explained it in Stripes...We're MUTTS! And, yes, I'm a California girl myself, born and raised in So.Cal, transplated to the northern Caribbean...New Orleans. Thanks for all the food for thought! Marci Marci Shaw Peralez "If you can't get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well dance with it." - George Bernard Shaw ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Gregory To: SHAW-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 2:27 PM Subject: Re: [SHAW] England and Migration Debate To those following this thread, I think this thread has gotten off the path it took. It sounds to me as some are confusing nationality with race, or vice versa. Us humans really like labels and tend to choose the ones that suit us best. Nationality: Wouldn't an Englishman, or rather English person, be one who was born and raised in England? Just as an American is one who was born and raised in America, a Scottish person is one born and raised in Scotland, and an Irish person is one who was born and raised in Ireland? The nationality of your ancestors does not matter! My father was the first of his namesake lineage to be born in the States (the rest are "English"), it would be silly to say he wasn't an American because of his parents wouldn't it? Race: Biologically, there really is no such thing as race, but us humans like to think so that we can discriminate against others. The only true "race" that could call themselves American's are the Indians. It is too difficult to categorize humans by pure race unless you go back hundreds of years in history before humans were so mobile. Even then it may be difficult. The travel and interbreeding between different populations makes race a difficult concept. Regarding the term Hispanic... What is a hispanic? I would argue that it is neither race nor nationality. It is a culture that developed in America among Americans born to Mexican or Spanish ancestry, that didn't want to be labeled as either three. In our discriminating times, Hispanic sounds a lot less offensive than "Mexican" There is no nation called "Hispania" nor is their an Hispanic language. My wife's ancestry is from Mexico, but she considers herself and American, and her second language is Mexican, not Spanish or Hispanic! Something else I wondered... do those living in Mexico or Spain call themselves Hispanic? I doubt it. I have so many Nationalities in my lineage I could claim to be just whatever I wanted, but when I comes right down to it I'm just a plain old American. One could even go as far as to call me a Californian, for where I was born and raised, but that might be a different arguement entirely. Mike Gregory Bakersfield, California genealogy@bak.rr.com http://home.bak.rr.com/mg/ ==== SHAW Mailing List ==== ============================== Create a FREE family website at MyFamily.com! http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?ID=RWLIST2 ==== SHAW Mailing List ==== ============================== Visit Ancestry's Library - The best collection of family history learning and how-to articles on the Internet. http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library