Why Do We Say "Latino"?

What’s really annoying is when people refer to all Latinos as Mexicans.

Latinx is an American (USA) invention. No one in Spain or Latin America uses that term. The word, Latino, itself is all encompassing.

5:50 what's ironic about this term is that, if they actually spoke spanish, they'd realise the more natural way to make it gender neutral would be the term "Latine", since there are plenty of gender neutral adjectives in spanish that end in "e" . For example, "inteligente".

Why don't you just call us by country of origin? Like, if someone is from Brazil, call him Brazilian. If someone is from Argentina, call him Argentine. And so on... The "latino" term is ridiculous! Latino ISN'T a race! Just stop!

I really don’t like this American obsession of classifying people by their race (even when trying not to be racist), but when it’s about geographical, social, historical and cultural purposes, that’s fine for me, as long as we understand that all of those interrelated disciplines are more complex that simply labeling people. For example, geographically, Mexico it’s part of North America (NOT CENTRAL!) , but culturally it’s Latin America, so it’s more than just one thing. Also, add up the fact that a lot of “Latinos” born in Latin America look like European, Asian or African people. Anyway, I’m just posting this because I’m a little tired of the American way of seeing races and other ethnicities like economic groups. The diversity of ethnicities is a wonderful thing and I believe it needs to be studied with a perspective of purely cultural richness and heritage, acknowledging the similarities between human groups but also understanding our differences, that’s our only way towards empathy and in the end, towards loving each other for what we are.

I'm Haitian 🇭🇹🇭🇹🇭🇹. We share an island with the Dominicans and speak French. So geographically and linguistically, we could be considered latinos. But none of us think of ourselves as latinos and if you wanna confuse a Haitian, call him a Latino. We identify more with Africa.

That's why us "latin" americans refer to ourselves by our country of origin, bruh

I'm Portuguese. Historically, we have always considered ourselves "Latinos". And we don't speak Spanish! The term strictly refers to any speaker of any language derived from ancient Latin. Meaning not only Spanish, but also Italian, Portuguese, French or Romanian. So, basically, Latinos are spread through the American, European and African continents. Countries like France, Romania, Angola or Senegal are as latinos as Mexico or Colombia. The term has wrongly been confused with "Hispanic". Which is what most people mean when they say "Latino".

I think all of this could have been solved easily with the word "American" to describe people from the American continent but the USA took this word for their citizens.

As someone who grew up in South America, "latino" was never a word we used. For us it was something that people from outside used to try to classify all countries in the American continent that speak Spanish. I always found it odd, like they seem to think that someone from Mexico shares any sort of cultural identity with someone from Chile or Uruguay. It sounded so ridiculous to us, yes all 3 countries speak Spanish, and used to belong to the Spanish Empire, so what? Nobody would try to lump into a same group India, Scotland and USA and suggest a term from them as a group...and imply that they are similar, despite the fact that all 3 countries speak English and used to be part of the British Empire. So odd indeed.

This show is amazing. Thanks for exploring so many terms and concepts, giving context and making them in understandable for all.

Danielle, you are one of the most informative, articulate, and enthusiastic (not to mention beautiful) educators I've ever had the privilege of learning from. Thank you for the joy, curiosity, and tolerance you bring to your program. All the best. Cheers.

"Latinx" sounds like a serial combined with an energy drink.

Wow, Americans are starting to realize that the world has existed without them for thousands of years.

"Latin America" includes Haiti. If you exclude Haiti, then the term becomes "Ibero-America."

Excellent video. Complex historical twists and turns were beautifully explained. Thank you.

And can ppl in the usa stop calling everyone who speaks spanish "spanish" ppl....spanish ppl are ppl from spain. And all latinos come in all shades of color its NOT just what u see on tv.

The term "Latinx" is so cringe. Spanish is a language with gendered nouns. Grammatical gender =/= human gender identity, hence why the seemingly gender-neutral term "person" is a noun that still has a default gender in Spanish, Greek, Russian...

I love this channel. I never knew about this and never knew how to ask. Keep the videos coming!

Loved how you explained this. You've gained a new fan/follower.