Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a four-part series about labels and stereotypes used for different races and ethnicities. This series explores the use of different terms and definitions and attempts to answer what labels are appropriate and why. The subjects in the series were chosen for their diverse backgrounds and include sources born in the United States and abroad from a variety of cultures.

Some people will ask Roy Salcedo where he is from. He replies, “L.A.”

The person will ask again, “Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“No really, where are you from?”

“Los Angeles, California, in the United States.”

Salcedo, program assistant in the ISU Honors Program; Jessica Garcia Moreno, senior in family resource management and consumer science; and Amanda Berenguel, senior in child adult and family services, share this similar experience of people assuming they are foreign.

“It’s like saying you can’t be from the U.S.,” Salcedo said. “It pisses me off.”

Being thought of as foreign is only one aspect of being labeled by ethnicity. People from Latin America and their descendants deal with a variety of labels based solely on their background.

Labeling someone based on his or her Latino heritage sometimes brings assumptions about who someone is as a person, Salcedo said. Some people assume all Latinos are Mexican and that Latinos are here as illegal immigrants.

Moreno said others’ assumption that Latinos come from only two places — Mexico and Puerto Rico — isn’t bothersome.

“It’s not offensive to me. I just correct them, and that’s fine,” Moreno said. “There’s not only Mexican-American. There are other Latin American countries.”

Berenguel said when people ask her what she is, she gives various answers depending on who’s asking and for what reasons.

If someone were just to ask, she’ll use Filipino-Mexican-American, she said. Other times she’ll simply say she’s mixed.

Occasionally, Berenguel will reply, “I’m a human being, what are you?”

“I get these questions all the time,” she said. “I always wonder why it’s so important.”

Jon Lizaso, postdoctoral research associate in agricultural and biosystems engineering, now identifies himself as Latin American. Though he has spent most of his life in Venezuela and the United States, he identified himself as Basque during the five years he lived in Spain as a teenager with his Basque parents. Basque is an ethnic group found along Spain’s northern border in the Pyrenees Mountains.

Maite Lizaso, Jon Lizaso’s daughter and senior in psychology, refers to herself as Latin American or Latino. She said she identifies more with American culture than her father does because she has partially grown up in the United States. Still, she always considered herself Venezuelan despite her ties to American culture. In her younger years, she wanted to go back to Venezuela. Now, she’s decided to stay in the United States and is having to redefine the way she identifies herself.

“It almost feels like I betrayed my country,” Maite said. “To be at peace with myself, I’ve had to stop seeing myself as solely Venezuelan.”

Latino vs. Hispanic

To some, the terms Latino and Hispanic are interchangeable; to others, they are very different and hold different connotations.

“Some people in the Latino community feel strongly about being called Latino, not Hispanic,” Jon Lizaso said.

When people use the term Hispanic, Berenguel said, she takes the opportunity to correct them. For a while, she also thought Hispanic was correct because it was used on the census, so she understands where people get the term even if she doesn’t like it.

“It bothers me because everyone says Hispanic,” she said.

“To me, it’s like nails on a chalkboard, and I hate that.”

Hispanic is a government label created for scientific purposes to classify humans. It keeps track of people coming from Spanish-speaking countries or with Spanish surnames, Salcedo said.

Hispanic can be confusing and misleading, Jon Lizaso said.

“I see the term Hispanic as inaccurate,” he said.

The term Hispanic is derived from the Latin word for Spain. The term can be used in reference to anyone from a Spanish-speaking country, which groups Spain with most of the Latin America countries. However, the non-Spanish speaking countries of Latin American, like Brazil, are not included under that term, Jon said. Latino comes from Latin America, so it encompasses all countries south of Texas.

Salcedo said Latino is preferable over Hispanic to many because it is a self-labeling term. Because Latino is chosen by the people, the term is more empowering than the government-assigned Hispanic label.

Another self-chosen term refers to a small group within the Latino community. Chicano and Chicana pertain solely to Mexican-Americans. Chicano was adopted to express the duality of being both Mexican and American, Salcedo said.

Being Chicano is difficult because they are torn between two cultures, Moreno and Salcedo said. Americans don’t see them as solely Americans, but Mexicans don’t see them as Mexican, either.

“I’m neither in their eyes,” Salcedo said. “At some points, you’re trying to prove how American or Mexican you are.”

Salcedo said his identifier has changed over time. He considered himself Mexican until college, when he began using Mexican-American. He also said living with a dual culture is difficult.

“I still say I’m Mexican. If you want to be technical, I’m Chicano,” he said.

Moreno is still figuring out what label fits her best.

She was born in Mexico, but she is not Mexican. She’s lived most of her life in the United States, so she holds pieces of culture from both countries, making her both Mexican and American.

“My experiences are so different from someone that’s been in Mexico their whole life, but there are also differences from someone in the States,” she said.

A danger of using one term to encompass all people of Latin American descent is creating the sense that there is only one culture in all the countries.

Within Latin America, there are similarities among the many cultures, but there are also big differences, Salcedo and Jon Lizaso said.

“There is a whole bunch of diversity within the Latino community,” Jon Lizaso said. “There’s a big difference between people from the Caribbean, Chile, Argentina or Mexico.”

It’s like saying that all U.S. states are the same. Cultural differences can be found in different regions, Jon said.

Some countries also still hold negative emotions from past wars and conflicts, so some may take offense at being grouped with past rivals.

But grouping the cultures under one term can have benefits as well, Salcedo said, because “people want to know there are other people like them.”

They can share a common language, common foods and other aspects of culture. An all-encompassing label can make it easier for people to understand nationalities with a smaller population in the United States, such as Colombia.

Individual preferences determine whether someone will take offense to being labeled as Latino in a place of a specific nationality, Salcedo said.

The person’s expression and nonverbal communication will show whether they accept the term.

“I wouldn’t be offended if someone came and asked me, depending on the wording,” Moreno said. “‘What ethnicity are you?’ or ‘What background?’ wouldn’t be as offensive.”

Derogatory names for Latinos

• Spic — Derived from Hispanic. It may also be an acronym of Spanish, Indian, and colored coming from multiracial children of Spanish colonists, natives, and/or black slaves.
• Beaner — beans are a common food in Mexican culture.
• Darkies — having dark skin.
• Wetback — refers to Mexicans crossing the border into the United States.
• Dirty Mexican — Mexican-American War era, appearing dirty from the skin being darker.
• Illegals — Latinos are often assumed to be illegal immigrants.