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Thursday, November 10, 2022

Latino?

Here's my explanation for why the United States government gets it wrong by labeling people. I am a Cuban-American who was born in Cuba. My family immigrated to the United States seeking political asylum when I was eight years old over 50 years ago. I am really an exile, although I became a US citizen when I turned 18. My ancestry is Spanish, Galician and Asturian to be specific. This is similar to many Cubans. Many Cubans have similar Spanish ancestry. Many have Canarian ancestry. Many have African ancestry, such as Nigerian. Many have Chinese ancestry. Chinatown in Havana had around 140 thousand Chinese back in the 1950s. However, there are Cubans who call themselves Cuban who have Italian, Russian, Austrian, Irish, English, Scottish, French, and ancestry from everywhere in the world. This is really similar to the demographics of the United States, but the difference is that instead of English being their primary spoken language, the primary language spoken nationally was Spanish. Hence, Hispanic may be a good labeling due to language, but culturally perhaps not. Also, unlike other Spanish speaking countries that still have a significant native population, Cuban Tainos are virtually non-existent, and I highly doubt they should have been called Latinos, with respect for their native culture. To close: I hope I clarified things a bit.

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