why do hispanic people consider themselves latino or latina and they don't speak latin? i'm confused.?

Answer 1

The term "Latino" comes from the Spanish "Latino Americano",
meaning, obviously, Latin American. It is not, as some people likely believe, a synonym for "Latin." Not all Hispanics are Latinos and not all Latinos are Hispanic. People from Spain are Hispanic but not Latino. People from Brazil speak Portuguese and are, therefore, not Hispanic but they are Latino. Anybody of Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese & Romanian background is Latin, however. The term "Latin America", by the way, originated with the French in Louisiana!

Answer 2

Hispanic = from Hispaniola, the colonial name for Mexico
Latina/o = from Latin America, a name which was also given by colonials, and is nowadays usually referred to as Central America.
Often activists that are hispanic or latino work together simply because they both speak spanish and face some of the same prejudices.

Answer 3

Hispanics don't all agree as to what they want to be called... Hispanic, Latin, or any of the various nationalities (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc), and there's also Mexican American, Puerto Rican American, Cuban America, etc, as well as a terms "Nuyorican" for Puerto Ricans in NY, Chicano for people of Mexican descent, etc etc.

We've never agreed, I don't know if we will ever. I used to say I'm American of Mexican descent, but that's too long so now I just say say I'm Hispanic, because my family is of Spanish-speaking origin. Some say Latino (I don't like saying Latina), I guess because Spanish is derived from Latin.

We'll never agree.

Btw, you made a good point... if one call themselves Latin, do they speak Latin? I never thought of it, smart thinkin'.

Answer 4

The Spanish language comes from Latin.

Answer 5

Because Spanish comes from the Latin family of languages. Also because a majority of words from the present comes from Latin.

Answer 6

Actually, it does have to do with latin.

When the French controlled Mexico, then ruler Maximillian saw before him an opportunity to create a "New Latin Empire." From that point on, the area was known as "latin america."

Plus, both spanish and french are latin based languages.

Answer 7

Because most of the countries are in LATIN America (Spain is not included in the term "Latino/a").

Answer 8

I´m from mexico and none of the people I now call themselves latino,actually some of us get offended by that name, I think the correct word to call us is hispanics, don´t you think?

Answer 9

We are Hispanics because we were conquered by Spain (most of central and south America countries)... and Spanish language has a Latin base (as well as Portuguese) It is because of our language root. !

Answer 10

spanish was derived from latin.