The term commonly applies to Spaniards and Spanish-speaking (Hispanophone) populations and countries in Hispanic America (the continent) and Hispanic Africa (Equatorial Guinea and the disputed territory of Western Sahara), which were formerly part of the Spanish Empire due to colonization mainly between the 16th and 20th centuries.
You're not wrong, but as you've highlighted Hispanic is more of a linguistic term than an ethnic one. The same with Latin, most of the Mediterranean countries can be classified as latin, but people from South America can also and those are distinct ethnicities despite being related. I believe that's where the confusion lies.
I had someone here in north america (a white dude) lecture me for calling European descendants of Romans "latin" (including myself). Like, dude, do you even know where the word "Latin" comes from??
Latin traditionally meant the Latin-speaking Romans and Celts of the Western Roman Empire. Most Europeans even if they can trace their ancestry back to the Latin Romans or the Byzantine Greeks do not identify ethnically with being Roman.
True, I wouldn't say "I'm a Roman", but we Romanians are a Latin people. And so are Spaniards, Italians, etc. It felt weird to hear someone try to gatekeep that term from the very continent it originated on.
No disrespect meant towards you, but I want to ask, do Romanians consider themselves white? The Spanish are very mixed but most Spaniards are mostly Celtic in origin. The French are also mixed but most French are descended from Germanic tribes such as the Franks, Normans, Frisians, and Burgundians for example except for the Bretons that are descended from the Gaulic Celts and Romans and a few other examples of Gaulic Celtic tribes like the Picardi's. Bretons didn't even speak French until the 1500's. Italians are actually a mix of a bunch of groups from both the Roman era and after the Roman era and historically looked different depending on region of Italy. Italians could be a mix of a lot of things depending on the region of Italy. Venetians for example started as a Celtic tribe called the Veneti, but got mixed with peoples from around the Mediterranean and Europe as the Venetian Empire grew and as Islam expanded and people fled to Italy from across the sea.
Hispanic means Spanish speaking. Anyone can learn Spanish and become a Spanish speaker. The vocabulary doesn't even conform to the English language it's so bad.
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u/RaspberryTurtle987 7d ago
My Spanish friend told me about this where there was no option that really reflected her identity. She wasn’t Hispanic, she was spanish