Comment by drKarl
4 years ago
That's the first time I come across the term "rabiblancos", it seems it's something they say in Panama to refer to rich white people of European origin, sounds derogatory. I suppose a more common term would be "Criollos" or in french Creole.
Well calling "mexican" to everyone with a darker skin who speaks spanish it's plainly as racist as calling any asian person "chinese", etc.
AFAIK the term Latino in USA refers to anyone from South America (including Brazil), which would exclude Spain, Italy, France... while Hispanic technically includes people from Spain as much as from any other spanish speaking countries from South America (so it would exclude Brazil).
How Americans distinguish races is a little bit odd to me. I was born in Brazil, but I am dual citizen of Brazil and Italy (some distant relatives come from there). Besides, my grandmother (my mom's mother) is German, daughter of a Serbian man and a German woman. On my father's side, I have black ancestors, albeit I am caucasian (dark hair, light skin). What am I then, an aberration? I prefer much more how races are distinguished in Brazil. It is purely you skin color, so if you have light skin you are white (asian people included), if you have dark skin you are black and that is pretty much it. Your heritage doesn't matter that much to distinguish your race. I believe this stems from Brazil having laws forbidding segregation in the 1930s, albeit for racists reasons, given that the goal was to mix black people with white people so the country would be whitened.
Latino is not restricted to South America. It also covers Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. It also extends to people who can trace their origins/ancestry to those places, not just people "from" there. For example, Marco Rubio is from Miami, but his parents came to the United States from Cuba, so he would be considered Latino.
I grew up in Panama. I’m white in the classical American sense. I don’t have a Spanish accent. English is the only language I speak. Both my parents are white from the United States.