Originally Posted by Javier Rodriguez

This statement is for those americans (I know that there are still many of them) that
still think that Spain must be somewhere in SouthAmerica and that Spaniards are like
those hispanics/latinos that cross your borders to get into your country. I have to
write this because I get upset every time I go to learn English to the US and there
is always someone that asks me: "How can you be latino and white?". What???.
Latino???. Hispanic???. Me???. It´s incredible the lack of knowing that still have
some americans (an unbelievable number of them). Spaniards are Europeans, white,
caucasians and We have nothing to be with latinos and Hispanics (exceptuating the
language). In fact we are not latinos as you americans think of. When you americans
talk about latinos you are talking about a race not a culture (you can tell this
because in the US census there is a place where it says: White, Blacks, Latinos,..,
so latinos for you is a race). In this case we are not latinos because we are
caucasians. But if you talk about latino countries yes you are talking about Spain,
Italy, Portugal, Greece, ... This would be correct. We are not either Hispanics
because this term means "derivated from Hispania, Spain" but doesn´t relate to the
people living in Spain, it relates to the countries that have been related to Spain,
but not Spaniards and Spain.

So whenever you see a Spaniard in the US don´t call him latino or hispanic because
that is absolutely not correct (and some of them will get a little upset). In fact
the great majority of Spaniards haven´t meet a latino or a Hispanic ever although in
the last 3 or 4 years We are experiencing a massive inmigration from latinoamerican
countries to Spain (especially Colombians and Ecuatorians) so nowadays We can say
that there is some kind of interaction with them (in any case any Spaniard can
distinguish a latino from a Spaniard in the street 100 meters far away). And we are
having a lot of problems with them (there are 60 gangs of Colombians in Spain
stealing and killing because drugs and many other problems). Main cities of Spain
(Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, and many others) have hundred of thousands of
people from Latinoamerican countries (indians), north africans (muslims) and so, so
don´t think that if you come to Spain and see the people in the airport or the subway
that these people are Spaniards because lots of them are not. Maybe you americans
think that Spaniards and Latinos have a lot of things in common, that We have a lot
of interaction, and We make parties and get together and are happy whenever we see a
hispanic in the street. That is also false. The only interaction that we have with
them is a reunion of Presidents of Iberoamerican (also Portugal and Brasil) countries
once a year (in fact those presidents are descendents from Europeans and have nothing
to do with Latino race), and also whenever We invest in their countries or also in
the Day of Hispanity (in fact this is a conmemoration that comes from Spain, each
12th October to conmemorate the American Discover, although many mexicans say it´s
the "Day of La Raza"?). Of course the great majority of Hispanics when they go to the
US say that they are from Spain and that they have ancestors from Spain just to claim
that they have european blood. Even latino medias in the US try also to confuse and
pretend that Spaniards and LatinoAmericans are from the same culture, same blood, the
same race, when the only thing in common is the language. I have had some experiences
with this kind of situations when I was in the US. For example when my host family
tells me that there are some Spaniards that want to meet me and I go there and see
that they are Mexicans, I don´t have anything against them either but this reflects
the confusion of americans that think that Spaniards and Hispanics/Latinos is the
same thing.

In fact many americans think that all Hispanics/Latino have Spanish blood on them.
This is incredible!, there are a lot of reasons I can tell you to prove that this is
not right but just with a calculator we can realize that this fact is absolutely
wrong: The population in Spain in the XVI century was 7 million of habitants. The
population of Spaniards that went to America in the XVI was
152.000 persons. So if nowadays the Population of Central and South America is 400
millions of persons you can tell the percentaje of spanish blood that latinos and
hispanics have in their blood. And this suppousing that Spaniards did in fact
marry those native americans (I think a little percentaje of those 152.000
already did it) or the people that were born out of the marriage from mixed
races. And we are talking about XVI century, the great majority of those people
that were born from mixed races, they would in fact marry also indians in the
following centuries. The conclusion is quite simple: 70-80% of Hispanics or
Latinos are pure indians, 10-15% have a tiny amount of european blood on them
(maybe 1/128, 1/256,...) and the rest are pure europeans (Spaniards, Italians,
Portuguese, Germans, Frenchs, English, Dutch, ..., who live mainly in Argentina
or Venezuela, and other countries aswell). Conclusion: The great majority (90%)
of hispanics that live in your country are pure indians. The rest maybe are
Indians with a tiny amount of european blood. Although they have our surnames
(Matínez, Pérez, Sánchez, García, and many others) this is because the
colonization labour to give Spanish names and surnames during Christhianization
to all the people. It´s almost the same when we see African-americans with
English surnames (Jackson, Smith, Iverson,...), and this doesn´t mean that their
ancestors are Englishmen from England. This is the same if We Spaniards see a
Jamaican or an Australian aborigin and tell him that he is an anglo just because
he speaks in English and because there was a time where Englishmen lived in
Jamaica or in Australia.

By the way, maybe you americans don´t realize that the first Europeans that lived and
settle in your country (before the US was the US) were Spaniards, the first city
founded in your country was founded by Spaniards (St. Augustine 1565
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/751.shtml), the first University founded
in America was founded by Spaniards (San Marcos), the first Christian church founded
in America was founded by Spaniards. I´m talking about Spaniards not Mexicans, and
there are lots of other contributions from Spain and Spaniards to the US and America
but would take a lot of pacience for me to look for them in the Internet.

There are also some other confusions and wrong ideas about the History of Spain.
These confusions have been promoted by the people that wants to distort reality to
suit their interests. For example, the histories that say that many Spaniards have
northafrican blood because muslims where living in Spain during centuries. What a
great distortion of reality!. In fact muslims habited (especially in Andalucia, the
south of Spain) our country from 711 to 1492 but as you can imagine in that centuries
where the presence of religion (Christian religion) was so important and trascendent
for the people living in Spain (there was no division between Religion and State), do
you think there were many Spaniards who marry and lived with those "infieles", with
Muslims?, do you think that many christians have had sons with muslims?. Nowadays in
Spain I don´t think the percentaje of marriages between a Catholic and a Muslim is
more than 1 in 500, do you think in that centuries where there was in fact such a
deep "racism" between religions that there were many childs born from mixed
marriages?. Do you think that people socially allowed that?. Do you think that
Catholic Church would have allowed it?.The truth is that muslims habited the main
cities in Spain but they were always segregated and created their own neighborhoods,
called "Barrios Judíos" and the interaction with them was mainly commercial. During
centuries Spaniards fought against muslims, and finally the ones who where not killed
were expulsed from Spain in 1492 (the fall of Granada), and the muslims that have had
converted to Christianism (called "conversos" or "moriscos") were also expulsed by
1609, (do you remember Spanish Inquisition?). Of course 100% of muslims weren´t
expulsed, and the ones who remained in Spain adopted Spanish names and surnames (The
XVI century was the time where many Spaniards started to have surnames because la
"Iglesia" wanted it to be so. Before this century people basically had a name and
their surname was the place where he was from "Juan de Toledo" for example). This is
one of the reasons why you can see a few Spaniards that look like Arabians or
NorthAfricans, and are really dark and look like "gypsies" (Flamenco dancers and
singers are 99% gypsies, for example Joaquín Cortés). Of course muslims will say that
muslims ruled Spain for many centuries and blacks will say that Spain was black
because many muslims have a mixed background of northafrican and black blood on them.
But this is completely false.

For those americans that still don´t know how Spaniards look like I will give you
these webpages, you can check them some time and see how spaniards look like
(http://www.elmundo.es/ or http://www.elpais.es) and I will also make you remember
the names of some Spaniards that you may know in the US: Placido Domingo, Julio
Iglesias, Javier Solana (former NATO General Secretary), Juan Antonio Samaranch
(former IOC President); Sergio García ("El Niño", Miguel Angel Jimenez (golfists),
Pau Gasol Saez (NBA player), Juan Carlos Ferrero (tennis player), Penelope Cruz, Luis
Rojas Marcos (President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation), and
some others. I don´t think there are more than
153.000 spaniards living in the US.

Spain is a great country, it´s the second most visited in the world and most of the
people are pleased after coming to see our country. Many americans have realized this
and even they have created webpages where they talk about their great experiences in
Spain. For example http://www.madridman.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi is a
message board where there are thousands of posts from americans that love Spain.

Originally Posted by Lgh

The original poster does not want to be "inferior", like those dark
latinos.
He also does not understand the word Hispanic. Hispanics are those who
speak the Spanish language, and the last time I was in Spain it was
the language spoke there; I doubt it has changed.
As to Latinos, it is a different story; the word was coined to mean
"from Latin America", which includes all the countries south of the
Rio Grande in this continent.
A Latin lover is supposedly from Italy, but note it is not Latino
lover; Latin and Latino are diferent terms when applied to people.

LGH

Originally Posted by Optonline

I just want to ask you something: Do you have something against Latin
People (Latino, Hispanic, Latin American, "Illegal Aliens) ?

Because I just read your post and I think that you have a racial problem or
you are a frustrated Latino. Which one do you prefer ?