You Say 'Hispanic,' I Say 'Latina'

Thanks for pointing out the objections to the label "people of color," Luisita.

As you know, newspapers are always struggling with race/ethnicity terminology. The latest discussion I participated in a few months ago was about how to identify Americans of Latino descent who may call themselves "Mexican" or "Puerto Rican" or whatever, but are American-born and should be distinguished from the Mexican or Peruvian immigrant. It was prompted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor's insistence on calling herself "Latina," which sparked its own discussion among reporters about what to call her ourselves.

So much of this stuff is about personal preference -- Hispanic or Latino? Black or African-American? In my black/Latino (or African-American/Hispanic) circles most friends embrace "people of color" as a perfectly acceptable term and I do, too, which doesn't negate Luisita's point. Technically, some Latinos are people of color and some are not, because Latino is not a race. This ethnic group includes whites, blacks and everything in between. But since those of Mexican descent are the majority among Latinos in the United States, and most of those are neither white nor black but a mix that is heavily Indian, Latinos as a group tend to easily fall under the people of color umbrella.

Which means that we writers will always have to navigate land mines!