Obra de García Márquez inspira a ensayistas

01 de julio de 2009 El Universal
El premio nacional de ensayo Estación Palabra sobre la literatura latinoamericana Gabriel García Márquez fue otorgado ayer a cuatro narradores, que inspirados en la obra del colombiano, obtuvieron un reconocimiento por el jurado calificador, así como un cheque por 100 mil pesos para cada ganador.Este concurso, iniciativa del presidente municipal de Nuevo Laredo, Ramón Garza Barrios, otorgó el primer lugar al narrador y ensayista Ignacio Padilla por “Darío en Tiberíades: García Márquez y el naufragio americano”. Read More

Ismail Kadaré gana Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

24 de junio de 2009 El Universal
El escritor albanés Ismail Kadaré fue distinguido hoy con el premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras por la calidad de su obra y su firme compromiso contra los totalitarismos.El jurado subrayó que Kadaré, narrador, ensayista y poeta, representa la cima de la literatura en Albania, capaz de traspasar fronteras, ya que sus libros han sido traducidos a más de 40 idiomas.Read More

Instituto Cervantes celebra el “Día del Español”

Junio 20, 2009 El Caribe El Instituto Cervantes de Pekín celebra hoy el “Día del Español”, una fiesta que el centro desarrolla por primera vez en las más de las 70 sedes que posee en el mundo para conmemorar su 18 aniversario.
“La iniciativa parte de la sede central en Madrid para conmemorar el 18 aniversario del Instituto Cervantes y el objetivo ha sido hacer una fiesta de carácter participativo”, explicó a Efe, Inma Gonzáles, directora del centro de Pekín. Read More

“Graffitean” en Xochimilco para promover derechos de indígenas

20 de junio de 2009 El Universal
Con el propósito de promover las garantías fundamentales y defender el derecho a la libertad de expresión, la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos en México, la empresa Comex y la organización Cinepop organizaron ayer la pinta de un graffiti en la delegación Xochimilco, del Distrito Federal.El graffiti hecho por Fly —uno de los más reconocidos graffiteros en México— se refiere a los derechos humanos de los pueblos indígenas del mundo.“De esta manera queremos contribuir con la sociedad, queremos que la gente se entere que estamos a favor de los derechos humanos y que deben conocer sus derechos”, explicó Fly, momentos antes de comenzar a graffitear uno de los muros de la Biblioteca José Vasconcelos, que está ubicada en el poblado de Santa María Nativitas, al sur de la capital. Read More

“El arte cubano es autocrítico”

11 de Junio 2009, El Universal
El escritor cubano Senel Paz recibió recientemente el Premio Puertas de Espejo por su libro En el cielo con diamantes, en la categoría ficción, y es considerado uno de los más leídos en la isla antillana y en otros países iberoamericanos. El autor del guión de la película Fresa y Chocolate está en Venezuela a propósito del II Simposio Internacional de Estética y Cine que se celebra en Mérida. Vía correo electrónico habla de literatura, cine, arte y revolución. Read More

La UNAM gana Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Humanidades

10 de junio de 2009 Reuters
MADRID (Reuters) - La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) fue distinguida el miércoles con el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Comunicación y Humanidades, anunció el jurado del galardón.Se trata del cuarto de los ocho Premios Príncipe de Asturias que se conceden cada año para destacar la labor científica, técnica, cultural, social y humana realizada por personas, equipos de trabajo o instituciones en el ámbito internacional.Read More

Entrevista con Aidee Herman, campeona de la superación de estudiantes hispanos

Entrevista con Aidee Herman, campeona de la superación de estudiantes hispanos y de misiones dentales humanitarias en América Latina
La Dra. Aidee Nieto Herman es ciudadana estadounidense nacida en Venezuela. Dentista y profesora de la Universidad de los Andes, en Venezuela, se vino en 1981. Siempre quiso recuperar esa parte de sí misma que había dejado atrás. Luego de hacer un Máster en Biología Oral y un postgrado en Periodoncia en Boston University, hizo la reválida. Todo eso le abrió puertas porque, como siempre afirma, cuando acá alguien pertenece a una minoría y no tiene educación, no es valorada. Revalidar duró unos cuantos años. “Eso se lo digo constantemente a mis colegas latinos: hay que tener muy claro el camino para que a una la reconozcan”.  Read More

Who’s Hispanic?

5.28.2009 Pew Hispanic Center
By Jeffrey Passel and Paul Taylor, Pew Hispanic Center
Is Sonia Sotomayor the first Hispanic ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court? Or does that distinction belong to the late Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who served on the court from 1932-1938 and whose ancestors may or may not have come from Portugal?Unscrambling Cardozo’s family tree is best left to historians and genealogists.1 Here we take a stab at a more daunting question. Just who is a Hispanic?If you turn to the U.S. government for answers, you quickly discover that it has two different approaches to this definitional question. Both are products of a 1976 act of Congress and the administrative regulations that flow from it. Read More

Venezolano gana Premio Internacional de Novela Corta

martes 26 de mayo, 2009 El Universal
Con una vida hecha en España desde hace más de una década y con una obra que indaga en la situación del inmigrante, el escritor venezolano Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez obtuvo el pasado viernes 22 de mayo el XL Premio Internacional de Novela Corta Ciudad de Barbastro (España) por su libro inédito Tal vez la lluvia. Read More

Woman poised to be US attorney

May 20, 2009 Boston Globe
Carmen M. Ortiz, who grew up poor in New York City’s Spanish Harlem neighborhood and became a state and then a federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, is poised to become the first woman and the first Hispanic US attorney in the state.US Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry recommended yesterday that President Obama nominate Ortiz, the daughter of Puerto Rico natives, to the highest federal law enforcement position in the state.Read More

Escritor español Juan Marse recibió el Premio Cervantes

23 de Abril 2009 El Universal
Madrid.- El escritor español Juan Marsé recibió hoy el Premio Cervantes 2008, máximo galardón de las letras en lengua española, de manos del rey Juan Carlos I de España.Marsé, de 75 años, recibió el Cervantes, dotado con 125.000 euros, en el paraninfo de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, cerca de Madrid, cuna del creador de “El Quijote”, coincidiendo con el aniversario de la muerte del maestro español.Read More

Colombiano García Márquez niega que dejará de escribir

6 de abril de 2009, Reuters
BOGOTA (Reuters) - El escritor colombiano y premio Nobel de Literatura Gabriel García Márquez dijo que lo único que hace es escribir, con lo que puso fin a versiones que aseguraron que no volvería a hacerlo."No sólo no es cierto, sino que lo único cierto es que no hago otra cosa que escribir”, dijo García Márquez, de 82 años, al diario El Tiempo cuando le preguntaron si era cierto que no volvería a escribir.Read More

Project Seeks to Recover History of Mexican-Americans in Chicago

05 de Abril 2009 Herald Tribune
CHICAGO – A community history project in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood seeks to recover and preserve the struggles and activism of Mexican-Americans there in the 1960s and 1980s.Towards an Oral History of the Civil Rights Struggle in Mexican Pilsen is an effort of the Casa Aztlan community organization and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Latin American and Latino Studies Program with financial support from the Illinois Humanities Council.The stories of several activists will be gathered into a book, UIC sociologist Maria Eugenia de la Torre, who is in charge of the project, told Efe.Read More

Entrevista Yoani Sanchez

El Nacional. 29 de Marzo de 2009.
Realizada Luis Cobelo
“La revolución cubana se fosilizó”
La bloguera ­reconocida con premios internacionales­ se define como una ciudadana común. “No intento fomentar un movimiento o fomentar un movimiento de subordinación social, cuento mi vida, las cosas que me pasan, las preguntas que tengo”
La revolución cubana no ha podido con ella. Su arma: Internet. La bloguera Yoani Sánchez no lo tiene fácil. Read More

Crowds light as Latin art fair begins

03.27.09 Miami Herald
The doors had been open for only an hour at arteaméricas, the four-day fair that focuses on art from Latin America, and already there were six or seven red dots signifying works sold at the Cernuda Arte booth.’’Where is the recession?,’’ said longtime Coral Gables art dealer Ramón Cernuda, beaming after selling several pieces by Cuban artist René Portocarrero, including 1945’s Brujo, which sold for about $135,000, and 1961’s Flower Vase, which brought another $48,000 or so. Read More

Calle Ocho 2009

03/14/2009 Miami Herald
It’s time to lace up those sneakers, slather on some sunscreen and head to Miami’s massive street festival, Calle Ocho, on Sunday, March 15.Festivalgoers can expect the usual day of carefree dancing, music and partying and family activities, but the event hasn’t escaped the impact of the economy and for the first time will be scaled back, from 23 to 16 blocks.“We had to cut it because we are losing sponsors,’’ said Sylvia C. Vieta, director of promotions and community relations for Kiwanis Club of Little Havana, which founded and runs the event, the culmination of Carnaval Miami. “But it will still be the same huge number of people.”Read More

Quinceañeras get a special Catholic prayer book

March 9, 2009 Los Angeles Times
As she sat primly under a portrait of the Virgin Mary, 15-year-old Angelica Arroyo’s silver tiara glistened against the gold-plated altar of La Placita Church on historic Olvera Street. When Father Richard Estrada handed her a calligraphy-adorned certificate, the church erupted in applause: Angelica had completed her quinceañera."To me it’s a very special moment because she’s my only daughter,” said Arroyo’s mother, Maria Soto, outside the church. “She didn’t want to do it, but I told her to keep the tradition."Quinceañeras have been a custom among Latinos since pre-Columbian days, when indigenous tribes in South America inducted young women into the community on their 15th birthdays.Read More

Belleza y mito se mezclan en friso

Marzo 8, 2009 Siglo XXI El relato del Popol Vuh, sobre los gemelos Hunahpú e Ixbalanqué, fue esculpido por los mayas hace más de dos mil años. En el sitio arqueológico El Mirador, Petén, fue presentado ayer el friso, creado en el año 200 a.C, que muestra a los gemelos Hunahpú e Ixbalanqué “nadando entre monstruos celestiales”. La alegoría, esculpida en piedra, es la misma que 19 siglos después, en 1701, aparece relatada en el manuscrito del Popol Vuh, encontrado por fray Francisco Jiménez.Read More

Mariachi is in their blood

March 1, 2009 Los Angeles Times
Maureen Sanchez is an unlikely mariachi musician.She has never stepped foot in Mexico. She learned Spanish as a second language. And at 14, she has experienced little of what inspires the lyrics: love, death, betrayal, loss."I’ve never really felt how these people feel,” said Maureen, who lives in Whittier. “That’s where my grandma comes in. She tells me how to do the emotions."Mariachi classes, camps and programs have opened the Mexican genre to young people throughout Southern California. Read More

Organizaciones Mayas conmemoran llegada de nuevo ciclo BIENVENIDO AÑO 5125

Febrero 21, 2009 Diario La Hora Mañana se tienen previstas actividades conmemorativas a la llegada del ciclo 5125, que estará gobernado por Lajuj (diez) Iq’, energía del viento, el aire, el soplo o aliento, según organizaciones mayas.Read More

El quechua y el aimara fueron declarados como lenguas en peligro por la Unesco

Febrero 20, 2009 El Comercio El quechua y el aimara, dos lenguas oficiales de nuestro país, fueron consideradas ayer por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (Unesco ) dentro de los 2.500 idiomas que se encuentran en peligro, de un total de 6.000 existentes en todo el mundo. Vea mapa de las lenguas en peligro Read More

Growth of Spanish language driving social evolution in U.S.

Febrero 15, 2009
Miami Herald
BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO
The United States is the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country, surpassed in the number of Spanish speakers only by Mexico, and to measure the influence of Spanish in contemporary mainstream America one need only to channel-surf
On public television, there’s Gwyneth Paltrow on a ride through the Catalonian countryside in a convertible, showing off her considerable Spanish vocabulary to chef Mario Batali, who’s not bad himself. Paltrow says she’s made learning Spanish a priority for daughter Apple. She buys DVDs in Spanish, and ‘’Dora, la exploradora’’ is Apple’s favorite cartoon character. Read More

Entrevista a Adriana Rojas

Adriana es Directora de la Oficina de Vínculos Internacionales en Boston del Tecnológico de Monterrey. Ha vivido los últimos 3 años en Boston, ubicada en Harvard University y se va pronto para New Haven, donde estará ubicada en la Universidad de Yale.Read More

Conversation with Doris Sommer

Author of many books and scholarly work, Doris is Ira Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. She has been for some years Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Director of the Seminar of Latino Cultures at Harvard University. She is also director of the Cultural Agents Initiative, a Harvard-based agency that brings together artists, educators, and community leaders in innovative collaborations that revitalize civic life both locally and internationally. Read More

Interview Ned Strong

Ned Strong is Executive Director of Laspau, a Harvard-affiliated organization that serves as a link between U.S. higher education and educational needs in Latin America. He has a vast knowledge of who does (and needs) what in both sides of the equation and a special touch about how to make relations between them work.Read More

Interview: Jerry Villacrés

Jerry Villacrés has become pretty much a joker in the Hispanic community: he is present where the action is, wherever and whenever things are happening to its betterment. Originally a media man —and still active— he has become involved with most initiatives attempting to put Latinos in a better footing respect to mainstream social and cultural currents in the Boston area. We spoke to him in a busy Au Bon Pain café in Harvard Square.Read More

Coffeehouse serves the Latino community

By Cyndia Zwahlen, Los Angeles Times September 15, 2008

Ah, the romance of owning your own coffeehouse: the gently steaming cups of fragrant cappuccino, the intellectual chitchat with your regulars, the freedom of being your own boss.The reality?Try getting up at 5 a.m. to drive an hour round trip—without the benefit of caffeine—to pick up pastries for your shop. Staying on your feet as long as 17 hours a day. Training green employees to deliver consistent quality. Scrubbing floors. Replacing employees. Battling Starbucks.Read More

On Plazas and Walkways, Dancing Alfresco

By ROSLYN SULCAS New York Times September 9, 2008
My ballet teacher used to say, ominously, as our yearly exams approached, that the examiner could tell from the very first plié whether we were any good. This thought popped into my head on Monday at lunchtime as the 10 members of Ofelia Loret de Mola’s danscores company leapt onto the outdoor tables lining a narrow walkway in City Hall Park. It was the start of “Available Space,” a site-specific performance that is part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s admirable Sitelines series and the Celebrate México Now festival. (Ms. Loret de Mola grew up in Mexico, and her company is based in New York.) Read More

Latino youths speak out on being Hispanic in America

September 6, 2008 The Arizona Republic This year, Republic reporters and editors in the Southeast Valley decided to mark Hispanic Heritage Month by putting ourselves on the sidelines and turning over the paper to those we don’t hear from often enough. So we brought together a diverse group of young Latinos around pizza and soda and led an informal discussion. The ground rule for our group of 12 young people was to be honest and transparent. And they were.
Read More

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels opens its doors to mariachi camp

By Hector Becerra, Los Angeles Times September 6, 2008
Joacim Naranjo plays the trumpet pretty well. But the 16-year-old from East Los Angeles found himself flapping his sore lips like a horse as he and a half dozen other boys tried to master the rapidly cascading sounds of a mariachi song.That’s why he and about 80 boys and girls went to church this week. They were there for mariachi camp.Read More

Clients have roots at Compton hair salon

By Marjorie Miller, Los Angeles Times September 5, 2008
Shortly before 5 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Josie Reynaga welcomes three generations of the Castaneda family into her Pueblos Unidos hair salon in Compton, where half a dozen stylists await the groggy clients with curling irons and cans of Aqua Net at the ready.A dozen mothers and daughters, sisters, cousins and in-laws file in to get their hair done for Irene Castaneda’s quinceañera, her elaborate 15th birthday party. And Reynaga knows most of them by name.Read More

Sounds of Little Brazil, Bursting With Pride

By FERNANDA SANTOS, New York Times August 31, 2008
They stood half in awe, half in confusion on Saturday on a stretch of 46th Street in Manhattan known as Little Brazil, taking in the unlikely scene in front of them: 20 women in white turbans, hoop skirts and flowing tops dancing, chanting and washing the pavement with a mix of water, perfume and petals poured from tall ceramic pots.Read More

Guatemala, de nuevo en las cyber-competencias

Alejandro De León, El Periodico de Guatemala, 08/21/2008
Cuando Guatemala compite en Internet, el tercer lugar parece ser el límite. Tercer mejor alcalde del mundo, Álvaro Arzú. Tercer puesto en la lista de las banderas más bonitas del mundo. En el listado de las siete nuevas maravillas naturales, llenamos dos lugares que se encuentran más arriba (o abajo; es cuestión de perspectiva) en el listado de votación: lago de Atitlán en el puesto 67 y, en el 104, el volcán de Pacaya.Read More

One-Man Melting Pot Makes Up the One-Man Wrestling Team for Mexico

August 20, 2008 New York Times Inside an authentic Mexican restaurant, the mariachi band played “Guantanamera” while the one-man melting pot walked inside. “Hola,” Larry Langowski said.
Only at the Olympics could one expect to find an athlete like Langowski, a self-described Polexican — part Polish, part Mexican — who lives in Chicago, runs the family-owned Italian gelato cafe and is the sole member of the Mexican wrestling team: four cultures blended into one man. He was on his way into a Mexican restaurant that serves an Olympic parrillada: a combination of chicken, beef, chorizo, cheese, fried fish, fresh shrimp and refried beans, served with corn tortillas.
“Taste delicious taco, feel real Olympic,” the menu says. The one-man melting pot is feeling real Olympic these days. He lives in the Olympic Village. He eats in the spacious dining hall. He hopes to run into the American softball player Jennie Finch. Maybe he can explain to her just how he got here, just what he represents.Read More

La violencia atrapa a la samba

JUAN ARIAS - Río de Janeiro - 19/08/2008 El Pais
Los sambistas han sido siempre los que mejor han captado en las letras de sus músicas la idiosincrasia y los humores de Río de Janeiro, la más divertida e irreverente ciudad de Brasil. Sin embargo, en este momento, el mundo de la samba, que tiene su mayor eco y sus mejores intérpretes en las favelas, no hace otra cosa que captar el clima de violencia que atenaza a los ciudadanos y que les impide vivir la cara nocturna y festiva de una ciudad que no dormía.Read More

Chicano arts rebel anew

Los Angeles Times --Juan Capistran’s “Do You Want New Wave, or Do You Want the Truth?” is one of more than 120 works in an exhibition that, beginning with its title, wades into social and artistic debates. “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement” showcases the work of 31 artists who mostly came of age in the 1990s, following a generation that identified as Chicano. Read More

‘Wifredo Lam’ at the Museum of Latin American Art

July 23, 2008 --Christopher Knight, Times Art Critic, reproduced in Los Angeles Times --IN 19th CENTURY EUROPE, when modern science bumped aside the Christian God as the primary artistic foundation for meaning and moral value, artists lost a subject that had preoccupied them for hundreds of years. “Show me an angel and I’ll paint one,” the famously combative showman Gustave Courbet told his detractors. A search for truth trumped its declaration in the depiction of religious narrative. Read More

Armed With a Pen, and Ready to Save the Incas’ Mother Tongue

June 7, 2008 --By SIMON ROMERO, NYT, CALLAO, Peru --“SOMEWHERE in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago.”

Simple enough, right? But not for Demetrio Túpac Yupanqui. Read More

Talking with ‘Ask a Mexican’ columnist Gustavo Arellano

Los Angeles—Los Angeles Times/ July 08, 2008—
It started out as a joke: OC Weekly reporter Gustavo Arellano’s editor thought it might be funny if he wrote a one-time satiric advice column, and ¡Ask a Mexican! was born. Readers loved the way he played with stereotypes, and Arellano’s been doing the column ever since (lately, also on video). Read More

Interview with Frieda García

Una hace lo que tiene que hacer…

¿Por qué en cualquier evento que ocurre en Boston está de por medio el clima? Eso conversaban los entrevistadores de All Latino mientras se desplazaban por el autobús de la ruta 1 que los llevaba desde Cambridge, atravesando el río Charles y entrando al mundo ruidoso de Boston hasta la frontera con el South End. Read More

Finding the Beat of Chicago’s Latino Quarter

By JEFF BAILEY—NYT
Published: June 29, 2008
IN a fifth-floor art gallery in Pilsen, Chicago’s fashionable Latino neighborhood, vibrant guitar chords were pouring out an open window on a recent Friday night. Four Latina artists were showing their paintings, and the shoebox of a gallery was jammed with a mixed, talkative crowd. Some swayed in time to the music, swigging beer and sipping wine. The din seemed to be drawing art patrons and good-time Chicagoans from all over the huge building at 1932 South Halsted Street, the central site of an every-second-Friday art walk. Read More

Artist Daniel Lezama, Mexico’s provocateur

By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 29, 2008—MEXICO CITY—

WHICH adjective best fits the work of painter Daniel Lezama? Alluring? Repellent? Classical? Irreverent? Misunderstood?

While critics extol his daring and originality, Lezama, 40, makes certain gallery owners squeamish and collectors nervous. His typically large-scale works are imposing in their size and complexity, startling in their frank depictions of frequently nude, mainly working-class Mexicans (including children) engaged in activities that are simultaneously violent and sordid, touching and tender. Read More

Pese a acoso de la guerra, en Santana (Huila) estuvieron de fiesta

El tiempo 1 de Julio—La población, declarada zona roja desde 1952, se volcó a las calles, con reinas de todas las veredas y comparsas que incluyeron bailes típicos, música y cabalgata.
Actualmente es epicentro de una operación conjunta que persigue a dos cabecillas de las Farc: alias ‘Romaña’ y ‘El mono Jojoy’, que estarían, según el Ejército, en plena cordillera Oriental, entre el Meta, el Tolima, el Huila y Cundinamarca. Read More

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) 2008 Alumni Hall of Fame

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), the nation’s largest organization in support of Latino higher education, has selected Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility, as an honorary inductee into its 2008 Alumni Hall of Fame. De la Vega will receive the Triunfador Award at the HSF Alumni Hall of Fame gala on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.Read More

Giovanna Negretti Interview

“El aumento en la participación política de los latinos no se debe sólo a ¿Oíste? pero somos parte importante de ese cambio”

Un día bostoniano típico, mezcla de nubes con atisbos de primavera. En la oficina de Downtown Crossing Giovanna llega luego de despacharse una comida rápida por los alrededores. Es delgada, casi menuda y se expresa con energía, sin mover demasiado las manos. Es oriunda de Vieques, de donde es también la abuela, Doña Fe, a quien cariñosamente le dicen Tatá. Su abuela es una fuente de inspiración, no sólo por el cariño sino por haber descubierto a una edad avanzada el valor de la lucha por el terruño, para que la controvertida isla fuera habitada y usufructuada por sus legítimos habitantes y no un escenario para prácticas de guerra. Sus abuelos tuvieron que irse de Vieques porque le expropiaron las tierras.
Giovanna tomó su bandera de lucha en Massachusetts fundando ¿Oíste?, una organización sin fines de lucro concebida para avanzar los derechos políticos de los latinos. Surge en el año 2000 y es parte de una época en la cual los latinos han visto ampliar el eco de su mensaje. Tiene capítulos en todo el estado, han entrenado localmente a muchas personas para que escojan las políticas públicas que requieren.

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El español en Estados Unidos

Dos profesores universitarios españoles, Gerardo Piña, del neoyorquino Lehman College, y Gonzalo Navajas, de la californiana Irvine, analizan la situación del idioma español en ambas costas de Estados Unidos. Uno y otro han publicado sendas novelas en la editorial madrileño-americana Verbum, y Piña acaba de preparar un libro pionero, Escritores españoles en Estados Unidos (Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, 2007). Read More

WHO ARE LATINOS?

By Alyce Rocco, published Jun 01, 2007

In the article “Who Are La Razas”, La Razas were identified as people who identify themselves as “The Race”. The NCLR defines “the race” as being comprised of Latinos or Hispanics. Latina refers to females. Latinos do not consider themselves Hispanics or descendents of Spain. Latinos and Hispanics use forms of the Spanish language. The La Razas are making such a ruckus in the United States of America it caused me to wonder exactly who Latinos are.

The Latin language was spoken by the people of Latium a region of ancient Italy. Because the people of Latium were living in the area before history was recorded not much is known about their origins. Conquered by the Romans in 338 BC, Latin became the formal language of Romans. “Vulgar Latin” was used among the soldiers and merchants of Rome. Languages derived from Vulgar Latin were later called “Romance Languages”. These include languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian. Who are Latinos? Are they a race of people descended from Latium’s or from the Roman Empire?

Latin America is considered to be “Latin” because the majority of the people speak one of the Romance Languages. Latin America is roughly comprised of 21,069,501 square kilometers as compared to 24,490,000 sq. km.square of other American lands. The American Continents were named after the Italian explorer, Americus Vespucci. Armies from Spain conquered much of the lands of South and Central America. English and French settlers took over the Northern parts of the Continent. Thus “Latinos” could be said to be descendents of the Spanish Conquistadores. This confuses me because the La Raza’s precept is that the United States stole their land. The land at the time of Spain’s invasion belonged to many people who were not Latinos. Read More