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Roundtable: Considerations on Latino / Hispanic IdentityContinued
“LATINO” VS. “HISPANIC”OSCAR PAREDES: When they talk about Hispanic, they mean from Spain. I am not from Spain, I am from Ecuador. ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ: I don't see it being an issue for myself, calling myself Latino or Hispano. LUIS VANEGAS: I'd rather be called a Hispanic than a Latino. I took a course in college…and we were taught that included all those people whose language originates from Latin, including Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. I don't identify myself at all with them, not even with the Spanish from Spain. I identify with the people from South and Central America, and so, Hispanic, to me is the one that identifies us best. MARIO MURILLO: Because the term, Latino, connotes the mixture of African, indigenous and Hispanic, or Spanish, European, I feel more comfortable with the term Latino. Though, if you call me Hispanic, I'm not going to start a fight over it.
WHAT HAS THIS COUNTRY GIVEN YOU?CELINA GUIBAUD: If you go to work for rich people, in Argentina, your place is the kitchen. When I came here to work on Sutton Place for very rich people, Mrs. Butler said to me, “Celina, this is your house.” OSCAR PAREDES: New York--not the whole country--has been the best university. Because here, I opened my mind, I became a more spiritual, more sensitive person. I have healed my spirit here. O.M.: You know the depth of my friendships here, it's much more, it's much more solid than the friendships that I developed in Argentina. And, still, not enough. LEONORA GALVEZ: The way that I can help my family now makes me feel like a different person. More generous. My life is more easy than before. And it has made me more mature. CELINA GUIBAUD: This country gave me all the opportunity. Everything. In my time. I don’t like America now. I don’t like it now. But if I had to fight for [here or for] Argentina, I’d fight for here. Because they gave me everything here.
ALIENATIONLEONORA GALVEZ: I still miss my country and my family. CELINA GUIBAUD: Argentinian people [say]: “Yanqui. Yanqui.” They call me the ugly Yanqui. But, everybody, you see everybody wearing Polo, wearing designer jeans from this country.” O.M.: This country has given me everything, but still, it isn't enough. Having the so-called freedom, the financial availability, it's not enough. HENRY FIOL: …even as an Italian, I never felt that I was part of this culture. I always felt I was on the edge, like a peripheral member of this culture. I never identified as a mainstream American. I still don't.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCESLEONORA GALVEZ: For Latin people, family is very strong….For us, family is so, so tight. It's how we are brought up. Here, so many babies have been brought up by baby-sitters, not by their mothers….In Latin countries, if the grandmother raises the baby, it's in the same way as the mother would. ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ: Music is always around. At least in our household and in the other Latino households that I saw. Music, and the radio was on all the time. Anglos--regular American people--they didn't really have that connection with the music. Or so it seemed to me. HENRY FIOL: My experience with Puerto Ricans, my wife's family, the neighborhood, is that music is an integral part of your day-to-day life. For a lot of people, it plays the same kind of role that music does in African American culture. People are always singing and dancing, there's always music in the home. ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ: We are more effervescent, we are not cold-blooded. Our expressiveness, it's always there. We are less self-restrained regarding emotions, feelings. We are right there. ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ: There's something in the Latino identity that's different from other identities. And that is the sense of humor. In most Latin settings, the humor is different from Anglo humor. The humor has more sexual innuendo and double entendre…. It's not the cynical humor that I experience here. European humor is a lot more cynical, it's not so innocent and relaxed. MORE -- Sexual Relations | What Have You Lost? | Is There 'Latino' Identity? >>>
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Carol
Amoruso has had several vocational callings over the years. She's
taught young children, run volunteer programs for seniors, had a
catering business, designed clothes. Ultimately, she found that
nothing engaged and challenged her the way writing has. She's
written every day since childhood, professionally since 1990. Her
involvement in the arts, society and politics of Africa, the
Caribbean, and the Latin World have been the most inspiring and her
work concentrates on those areas. She travels extensively but lives
in New York City.