That's the point. Americans don't usually call Spaniards and Portuguese "Hispanic" any more then they call a Blond haired, blue eyed person born in America, but who's parents were born in South Africa "African American", which is to say rarely and usually in a comedic or anecdotal manner.
When he's referring to "Hispanics and African Americans" he is trying to refer to specific "racial" (insomuch as the concept exists) groups.
Nobody in the US think Spanish is a race rather than a nationality. There's an artificial "Hispanic" term politicians invented to encompass all Spanish speakers.
Ignorant Americans may conflate all from Central America as "Mexicans", but that's about it.
Most Americans who never studied the Spanish language are probably ignorant of the differences between Castilian Spanish and Spanish as used in the Americas.
I think it's just more political correctness gone wild. The vast majority of Spanish speakers in America are from Mexico but it somehow became derogatory to refer to them as "Mexican". How is that any different than calling somebody a Puerto Rican or a Brazilian? It simply denotes their place of origin.
This reminds me of an individual from South America I worked with many years ago. Some well-meaning individuals were asking him how the company could reach out to its Hispanic employees better. He looks at them and wryly says, "Well to start, you could stop thinking of us as 'Hispanic' since it encompasses people from 3 different continents, a dozen different countries and doesn't mean much."
The problem is that the terms are often not understood correctly or confused. Hispanic, indeed, refers to Spanish speakers... of any race. It includes, for example, Spaniards and some Filipinos.
But GP didn't say Hispanic. He was referring to Latin America, whose people are called Latino.
Neither of the terms carry racial connotations. If you're Argentinian of pure Italian descent, you're still Latino. If you're one of the 2 million Spanish speakers of the Philippines, you're Hispanic. If you're one of the Guarani indigenous languages speakers of Paraguay who doesn't speak Spanish at all you're still Latino but not Hispanic.
I am willing to concede that I might be overthinking situations where "Spaniards" should be used instead of "the Spanish." Perhaps I was premature in citing a half-remembered verbal tic without having an actual example handy.
But there is neither need to be presumptuous nor offensive, nor officious, in your attempts to grasp at my meaning.
Amusingly enough, in the process of trying to find an erroneous misuse of the terms, and striving in vain, I stumbled upon this article, which is about the complexity of "Spanish" as a transatlantic identity, when it conflates Latin American hispanics with actual immigrant Spaniards:
> The most common adaptation my interviewees reported to deal with the automatic association of Spain with Latin America was for them to disassociate from using the term Spanish as their primary identifier with Anglo-Americans. Rather as Susana, a 25-year-old ESL student, quite vividly noted they had to actively try to reinforce their geographic connection to Europe:
> Susana:
>“I’m not Spanish, I’m from Spain.” I always say that. In fact, I say “I’m from Es-pain” because I cannot say the [English] “s.” And they say “Olé” and laugh.
Though that, of course, is a different issue altogether!
Edit: After having a think, I'd say that there have been instances where in actual conversation I've heard individual Spanish people referred to as "a Spanish" rather than "a Spaniard." Which, of course, is wrong. It does feel like the word Spaniard has a rather historical, almost literary, sheen, so you don't hear it used in everyday conversation often. And so colloquially speaking, people are more likely to default to incorrect uses of Spanish as a noun. But that might be a misconception I've picked up, I freely admit.
And what do you think is the “gender neutral” term that Spanish speakers use when they refer to group of people of Latin American origin? It surely is not “latinxs”.
“What would be point of that?”, yes, that’s exactly the issue. It would seem weird, forced and foreign, just like “latinxs” does to people it is purported to refer to.
> Spaniards more casually use words that sound rude to Mexicans
Yes, this is totally true.
Also Mexicans generally try to speak properly unless they are with friends or family. They typically shush bad words, use more polite substitutes, or they start a sentence with "excuse me but...".
In Spain nobody cares.
> pier25's experience may have been entirely positive
Yeah, totally. I've lived in different countries so I adapt very quickly to different customs and forms.
> As soon as pier25 speaks, no Mexican would call him gringo.
You'd be surprised. Most people in Mexico associate Spanish accent with Madrid accent (eg: hola como eshtash) and since I don't have that accent they think I'm a gringo with a weird Spanish accent. Dozens of times Mexicans have insisted speaking to me in English even when I was speaking in Spanish to them. Once I even had to insist that I was from Spain and the answer was "¿Pero español de España?" :)
With my wife we've joked about making a t-shirt for me that says "Que no soy gringo joder!".
I think it's more like, if you assume that someone is Italian and then find out that they're Mexican, it's awkward that you made an incorrect assumption about their ethnicity despite the assumption being neutral in terms of judgment.
I agree, I'm only pointing out that in terms of genetics, the term hispanic is even less precise because it is commonly used to describe any person that originates from a region where Spanish is predominantly spoken (i.e. covering a much broader range of peoples without regard for genetics).
The big problem of this use for me is that people from the US tend to think in terms of "race". Like if there is a homogeneous "latino race" where it boils down to the average mexican immigrant that the US is more used to.
For instance, you can see this in north-american films, where the mexicans are hired to play Brazilians, where we (brazilians) can spot right-away they dont look like any type of average looking brazilian. But im pretty sure it make sense for the crew of the film and people watching it,
even when they speak spanish.
Just to give you a glimpse of famous brazilians north-americans may know: Rodrigo Santoro, Morena Bacarin, Alice Braga, Gisele Bundchen, Alessandra Ambrosio, Jordana Brewster, Camilla Belle, Kaya Scodelario, Wagner Moura.
The thing is, i've just give you this sample, so you can see how they don't have any resemblance between each other or homogeneous look. The ones that speak perfect english can perfectly act in roles not meant for "latinos" and nobody notice it.
I think nowadays is right to use this term in the same sense as you use for Europe to define France or Italy as part of Europe. Albeit is even wrong to use in the sense of a continent giving America is just one continent, with north and south.
Anyway if you dig down and look to all the inconsistencies of the term it boils down to some sort of racial profiling thing, because it makes no sense in any other way you look at it except for labeling it as "not white".
Some people seem to think all slang terms for cultural groups are automatically derogatory. A sizable proportion of people from the US get offended that people from Latin America call them “gringos” too (which is ridiculous IMO).
My personal theory on this is that spanish speakers have been in California longer than English speakers (thereby having feelings of relative native status), while various Asian language speakers feel the obligation to include non-speakers in their discussions when said non-speakers are around because asians and anglos have been in the bay for roughly the same amount of time (since the gold rush).
Although ... Asian language speakers never feel the need for linguistic inclusion when hispanics are around. Not sure about the dynamics on that one. Might just be good ol' fashioned racism.
Also note that Latino is a Spanish word, Latinx is obviously an English word. So we have non Latino white people telling Latinos to use an English word to refer to themselves
Definitely no colonial undertone to this dynamic whatsoever
Spanish speaking whites in Spain aren't "Hispanic" in the American sense (ethnically indian or mestizo from Central and South American regions that were colonized by Spain).
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