When do Hispanics living in the USA become Americans and lose their Hispanic label?

Question

why do they always have to separate groups in the USA and give them labels?

Answer 1

Supposedly it is done for statistical studies (and in some cases, has funneled money towards certain minorities that have statistically higher incidences of certain illnesses). It could probably be left off but it seems that this is done everywhere worldwide so I doubt it will change.

Hispanics have the easiest way out, though, since Hispanic is not a racial division. A white Hispanic can simply say "white", a black Hispanic "black", etc.

Answer 2

Hispanic isn't a race. It's a made-up word that basically means "anyone of any race (or mix of races) who came from, or whose ancestors came from south of the border."

For example:
Many Central and South Americans Native ancestry.
Many Dominican and Cuban people share African ancestry.
Many Nicaraguans share Chinese ancestry.
Many Argentinians share German, Irish, and Italian ancestry.
I know Peruvians who are Arab and Japanese.
We call them Hispanic because they speak Spanish. Their kids and grand kids in the US may not speak Spanish, yet we still categorize them as such.

Yet when someone from Germany settles in the US, do we call their grandchildren English because they speak English? Nope.

And what baffles me the most is the US racial boxes that say White (Non-Hispanic). Black (Non-Hispanic). Hispanic.

If an American has a white American mom, and a Afro-Latin dad, which box does she check?

What if she never knew her dad, never spoke Spanish, never had any first hand exposure to "Latin" culture in the home, and grew up completely surrounded by white America?

Race and Nation are social constructs, people. It's just a way of attempting to manage difference in a way that maintains the status quo.

Answer 3

Since Republicans have chosen to make Hispanics an enemy in hopes of getting elected, they are in the hotspot presently. I guess how they will become an unnoticed part of the American culture is the way other "foreigners" have done it. Live in the United States a few more generations, over time start speaking English with a regional, rather than subculture accent. Become wealthy, everybody kisses your butt when you're wealthy. Increasingly marry into other older racial groups, and finally, and most importantly, be the predominant group in this country which research says brownskin people will be in 20 years.

Answer 4

My mother's parents came to the U.S. from Central America before she was born. My mother has light enough skin to pass for white, and after being called a number of racial epithets and being singled out for being different over and over as a child, she stopped bringing friends over to her house. She kept her last name as hidden as possible (not an easy task in school, obviously), and she no longer identified as Hispanic, or American for that matter. She identified as white, because she passed easily enough and it made life easier. She became ashamed of her heritage.

My dad is white, and I'm considered pale by anyone's standards. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm half Hispanic; not because I look it, but because I tell them. So, yes, I perpetuate the label of 'Hispanic' in relation to my heritage. It's a part of me. My mother spent most of her life being ashamed of her family's ethnicity, I'll never do the same.

Answer 5

Hispanic just means their origin, like Hispanola or whatever. You can be an American of hispanic origin, or african origin or european. You are comparing apples with oranges. You are an American when you become a citizen. Hopefully one that immigrated in a leagal manner.

Answer 6

The US census is responsible for this bifurcation of the human genome.

A Hispanic person who becomes a US citizen maintains his ethnic descriptive ...does not lose it, simply becomes a US citizen of Hispanic background.

Answer 7

what's "our" lifestyle? all of us have distinctive nationalities and cultures as individuals...there's a distinction between hispanics (or any race) entering into the rustic illegally and hispanics coming in legally...I dont think of unlawful immigrants can grow to be "genuine individuals" till they have been criminal yet a hispanic legally residing in u.s. is only as lots of an American as all of us else. i think of a few persons are initiating to forget approximately what u.s. is approximately. question for you... i'm 0.5 Peruvian and 0.5 "white". i replaced into born in u.s. and that's all that i know. i believe only as "American" as all of us else. I wasn't raised hispanic, i replaced into raised "white American" using fact my father replaced into by no potential around. i know no longer something approximately being hispanic, yet I nevertheless look 0.5 hispanic... the place do you think of I could desire to circulate? And something of the human beings interior an identical situation...

Answer 8

Well, they are just labels, as you say, but I think they are generally considered Americans from the time they become citizens, but they are also still Hispanic.
Hey, I still consider myself Italian-American, and I'm third generation - most Americans are proud of their heritage.

Answer 9

They become "Hispanic-non white" Americans.

Answer 10

Why don't you ask the groups who label themselves? Ethnic groups will stop having labels when they stop choosing to be hyphenated Americans.