Historical Background
Prior to the marriage of
Queen Isabella of
Castile and
King Ferdinand of
Aragon in 1469 the four Christian kingdoms of the
Iberian Peninsula, the kingdom of
Portugal, the
Crown of Aragon, the
Crown of Castile and the
kingdom of Navarre were collectively referred to as
Hispania, the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. This usage, in medieval times, appears to have originated in
provençal and appears to be first documented at the end of the 11th century. Indeed, in the
Council of Constance the four kingdoms shared one vote. Hello
Portugal adopted the word "
Lusitanic" in reference to the
Lusitanians, one of the first
Indo-European tribes to settle in
Europe from which later on derived the name of the
Roman province of
Lusitania, which was a part of Roman province of
Hispania. The expansion of the
Spanish Empire between 1492 to 1898 brought thousands of Spanish migrants to new lands they had conquered, creating a large settlement that strech all over the world and producing several multiracial populations.
During the 1970's, the United States Government defined the term "Hispanic" to identify
Latin American individuals living in the U.S.
[1 ]
The term Hispanic
Synonyms and antonyms
The term "Hispanic" is used synonymously along with the word "
Latino" or "Latin" to identify the people living with in the Spanish Empire. The word may also refer to it's language and cultural heritage.
The term "
Latin" may refer to the conception of Latin America as a region, a word that was introduced by the
French people in the 1860s during their brief occupation of Mexico. The issue was closely connected to the introduction of French positivism into the region's intellectual circles.
The French may have invented the word "Latin" to identify themselves and other continental European
Romance speaking nations, which was aimed to exclude their English and Dutch colonial rivals in the Americas.
The confusion that arises between both terms is due to a misuse of the English meanings in the United States. The term "Latino" is a shortened version of the noun "Latinoamericano", meaning Latin American. In the Spanish language version, the word "Latín" is the name of the language used by the ancient
Romans, while "Latino" is the name given to the people who spoke the language. This means that "Latino" in Spanish is not confined solely to "Hispanics" and "Latin Americans", but also included such European peoples including
Italians, French,
Romanians and
Portuguese.
Historical usage of the term
(simplified).
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Spain's various subcultures coexist in Spain's provinces, and each one has its own
traditions, and
idiosyncracies. Some even have
their own language, all of them along the dialectal continuum of Romance languages, with the exception of the
Basque language. As it is used today, the term Hispanic, however, often refers only to
cultural or
ancestral background related to
Castilian-speaking Spain. This resulted from the former dictator, Fransisco Franco's attempts to remove any signs of the sub-nations that today comprise Spain. The existence of multiple distinct cultures in Spain allows an analogy to be drawn to the
United Kingdom. Using the term Hispanic for someone of Spanish descent would then be expected to be equivalent to using
Briton to describe someone descending from some part of the United Kingdom. Cultures within the United Kingdom, such as
Anglo,
Scottish and
Welsh, would then correspond in this analogy to cultures within Spain such as
Castilian,
Catalan and
Basque among others. It is a subtle, yet important, distinction. In other countries, this distinction between the sub-nations that compose the country (for instance,
English,
Scottish,
Welsh,
Northern Irish,
Cornish, etc.) and the ''supra-nation'' that includes them (the
United Kingdom) has been clear. In
Spain, however, the politically dominant territory (
Castile) has often been taken to be equivalent to the supra-nation (
Spain). This has the effect of subordinating the role of other cultures within Spain in constituting the
national identity of Spain.
In the modern times, the
Spanish and Portuguese-speaking peoples of the
New World have also adopted other
cultural labels to identify themselves. The most important of these
labels is the term
Latino, which stems from a contraction of ''
latinoamericano'' (
Latin American)
[Etymology of the term Latino in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: 1 ]. But the term
Latino already has a meaning in
Spanish, which is, literally,
Latin[Latino in Wiktionary: 1 . Latino in the DRAE: 2 ], and it is used to refer to all the Latin peoples, both from
Europe and the
Americas. Therefore, using
Latino as a contraction of ''
latinoamericano'' results in a
corruption of the
Spanish word of the same name. Indeed, many of the people to whom the term Latino originally applied would no longer be identified as such under its present usage.
The corruption of the terms Hispanic and
Latino has been especially apparent in the
United States of America. In the latter parts of the
20th century, both terms went from being used as a cultural label of various cultures to being misused as a racial label that describe mixed-race people, further confusing the meanings of the terms. The corruption of these terms has the effect of racially grouping together the white population of Spain and Portugal with the large non white Castilian speaking populations of Latin America, which is predominantly
Amerindian. In additon, cultural and linguistic issues related to
Spaniards and Portuguese are often confused with those of
Mexicans or other
Latin American people. While some are conscious of this issue, many of the people to whom the labels Latino or Hispanic are applied are not aware of it. As such, they often help perpetuate further misuse of these terms as racial labels instead of cultural ones, to the point that today the term is excluding the
Hispanics to whom the labels originally applied.
==The Hispanics from
Hispania==
''
Hispanus'', was the
Latin name given to the people of
Hispania, the ''Hispano-
Romans''. The Hispano-Romans were composed of people from many different origins
tribes of Hispania . Some famous ''Hispanicus'' were Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, Lucan, Martial, Prudentius, the Roman Emperor Trajan, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and also Magnus Maximus and Maximus of Hispania.
The etymology of the words, Hispanic, Spanish and Hispano-Roman, has the same Latin root name, Hispania , but the connotation of the original meaning of the root word has slightly different meanings in the multiple derived modern English words:
Hispano-Roman - is only used to refer to the culture and people of Hispania, ancestors of the Portuguese and Spanish people. (historical meaning).
Hispanic - is used to refer to modern Spain, and to the Castilian language, and to the Spanish speaking nations of the Americas.http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/hispanic?view=uk http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/Hispanic
Spanish - is used to refer to the Castilian language, the culture and the people of Spain. (narrowing of meaning)
Spaniard - is only used to refer to the people of Spain(narrowing of meaning).
Hispania - - in English, as in Latin, it only refers to a province of the Roman empire, the native land of the Hispano-Romans.
Spain - is the name of a country, in the Iberian Peninsula.
Notice that, in History, when referring to Medieval Hispania, before the XV century, Hispanica has the same meaning as the
Iberian Peninsula has today, it was the Roman name of the
peninsula that housed several Christian kingdoms. The peninsula then had two names: one of Latin origin, Hispania, the other of Greek origin, Iberia, both referring to the same geographic region.
Portugal and
Spain share one common Peninsula,
Iberian.
As said above,
Spain is not a culturally homogeneous country. It is a country of contrasts and the home to a wide range of subcultures, each one of which has its own
traditions,
idiosyncrasy, and some of them have
their own language. Historically, as mentioned above, there has been a corruptions of the meaning of the term Hispanic, that has led to great confusion and thus marginalizing the
cultures that developed from the old
Hispania.
The meaning of Hispanic, refers only to the people with Spanish ancestry. This excludes the Portuguese which are always referred as
Luso or
Lusitanic.
This section aims to clarify the lack of information existing on this subject through doing a brief review on the history of
Hispania and the
peoples that inhabit Spain today.
History of Hispania
Early history
The earliest record of
hominids living in
Europe has been found in the cave of
Atapuerca, in the
Spanish province of Burgos, and it has become a key site for world
palaeontology.
Fossils found there are dated to roughly
1,000,000 years ago. The most conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous
paintings in the
cave of Altamira, in
Cantabria,
Spain, which were done ca.
15,000 BC and are regarded, along with those in
Lascaux,
France, as paramount instances of
cave art.
Modern humans in the form of
Cro-Magnons began arriving in the
Iberian Peninsula from north of the
Pyrenees some
35,000 years ago. This
genetically homogenous wave of population (characterized by the M173
mutation in the
Y chromosome), developed the
M343 mutation, giving rise to the
R1b Haplogroup, which still dominant in modern
Portuguese and
Spanish populations (especially in the
Basques). Meanwhile the
Neanderthals became extinct; their last refuge was today's
Portugal or
Gibraltar around
28,000 BC. Far later, some
12,000 years ago, an interstadial
deglaciation called the
Allerød Oscillation occurred, weakening the rigorous conditions of the
last ice age. This also ended the
Upper Palaeolithic period, beginning the
Mesolithic. The populations sheltered in
Iberia, descendants of the
Cro-Magnon, given the
deglaciation, migrated and recolonized all of
Western Europe, thus spreading the
R1b Haplogroup populations (still dominat, in variant degrees, from Iberia to
Scandinavia). Due to this fact, nowadays the genetical origins of most
Europeans can be traced back to the
Iberian Peninsula.
Pre-Roman times
The earliest urban culture documented in the
Iberian Peninsula, is that of the semi-mythical southern city of
Tartessos, which dates back to much before the
1,100 BC. However, the
Tartessians were not the only ones: apart from them, the whole of the
Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by other
non-Indo-European peoples (
Aquitanians and other Proto-Basques,
Iberians,
Turdetani,
Cynetes or Conii and others), by
Indo-European peoples (
Proto-Celtics,
Celtics and
Lusitanians,and
Iberians), There are some historians that try to dilute the Celtic population of Spain by refering that population as Celt-Iberians. However, today this theory is rejected by the Spanish-Celts, who proudly celebrate their Celtic heritage.
Far later, the seafaring
Phoenicians,
Greeks and
Carthaginians began to settle along the
Mediterranean coast. Around
1,100 BC,
Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of
Gadir or
Gades (modern day
Cádiz) near
Tartessos. In the
9th century BC the first
Greek colonies, such as
Emporion (modern
Empúries, in
Catalonia), were founded along the
Mediterranean coast on the East of the
Peninsula, leaving the southern coast to the
Phoenicians. The
Greeks are responsible for the name
Iberia, apparently after the river Iber (
Ebro in
Spanish). In the
6th century BC the
Carthaginians arrived in
Iberia while struggling first with the
Greeks and shortly after with the
Romans for control of the Western
Mediterranean. Their most important colony was
Carthago Nova (
Latin name of modern day
Cartagena).
Barbarian invasions and Visigothic Kingdom
At the beginnings of the
5th century, the
Visigoths, the
Suevi (
Quadi and
Marcomanni) and the
Buri, invaded the
Peninsula and settled permanently. Others, like the
Vandals (
Silingi and
Hasdingi) and
Alans were also present, before moving on to
North Africa. Many words of
Germanic origin entered into the Latin that was spoken in
Hispania by those times, and were then transmitted to the
Romance Languages that originated in the
Peninsula during the
Dark Ages, such as the
Spanish, the
Portuguese or the
Catalan, and many more entered through other avenues (often
French) in the ensuing centuries
[See: List of Spanish words of Germanic origin and List of Portuguese words of Germanic origin, for instance.]. The
Visigoths established a
Christian Kingdom that existed alongside the moors.
Muslim Occupation
The Umayyad occupation of parts of Hispania (711–718) commenced when an army of the
Umayyad Caliphate consisting largely of
Moors, occupied
Visigothic
Christian Hispania (
Portugal and
Spain) in the year 711. Under the authority of the Umayyad
caliph at
Damascus, and led by the
Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad, they landed at
Gibraltar on
April 30 and worked their way northward. Tariq's forces were joined the next year by those of his superior, the
Emir Musa ibn Nusair. During the eight-year campaign, many parts of the
Iberian Peninsula was brought under
Moorish occupation save for areas in the northwest (
Galicia and
Asturias) and largely
Basque regions in the
Pyrenees. The occupied territory, under the name
al-Andalus, became part of the expanding
Umayyad empire. The occupiers subsequently moved northeast across the Pyrenees, but were defeated by the
Frank Charles Martel at the
Battle of Tours in 732. Moorish control of French territory ended in 975. Meanwhile, the Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula began the''
Reconquista'', or reconquest, of the Peninsula with
Pelayo of Asturias' victory at the
Battle of Covadonga in 722. The Reconquista itself was a war that took 800 years to conclude.
Reconquista and the New World
The Reconquista (
English: Reconquest) was the seven and a half century long war by which the
Christian kingdoms of northern
Hispania (modern
Portugal and
Spain) squeezed out, from the
Iberian peninsula, the
Muslim Moorishoccupation of
Al-Andalus. The Umayyad occupation of parts of Hispania, which existed along side the Christian
Visigoths, occurred during the early
8th century. Almost immediately, in
718,
Pelayo of Asturias, a noble
Visigoth, lead the fight to push out the
Moors in the
Asturias and establishes the
Kingdom of Asturias. In
722,
King Pelayo defeated a large force sent by
Emir Munuza to annihilate him at the
Battle of Covadonga. He then lead an alliance of
Asturian and
Cantabrian mountaineers in the counter-offensive against the
Muslims beginning what is know as
La Reconquista.
In
1236, the last
Muslim occupation, which was in
Granada under
Mohammed ibn Alhamar, was subjugated by the Catholic King
Ferdinand III of Castile, and thus
Granada became a vassal state of the Christian kingdom for the next 250 years. On
January 2 1492, the last
Moorish leader of the Moors,
Abu 'abd Allah Muhammad XII (also known as
Boabdil of Granada), was expelled from the Peninsula by
Ferdinand and
Isabella, the
Catholic Monarchs. This resulted in a
Roman Catholic Iberian Peninsula.
Navarre remained separate until
1512 when the united kingdoms were ruled under one monarch. The
Portuguese Reconquista had already culminated in
1249 with the subjugation of
Algarve by
Afonso III.It was not until the 1800 that the united kingdoms were called Spain.
In
1492, the same year that
Boabdil of Granada surrendered to the
Catholic Monarchs and the Expulsion of some of the Jews from Spain,
Christopher Columbus discovered the
Americas, inaugurating an age of
Spanish colonization of the continent. Notice that the
Portuguese colonial expansion, which would give rise to the
Portuguese Empire (namely
Brazil), had began in
1415.
Modern day peoples of Hispania
The modern day people that live in the region of ancient
Hispania are the Portuguese, Spanish,
Andorra and
Gibraltar people only.
Historically, the modern country of
Spain was formed by the accretion of several independent
Iberian kingdoms through dynastic inheritance, conquest and the will of the local elites. These kingdoms had their own personalities and borders.
Since the beginning of the
transition to democracy in Spain, after the
Francisco Franco dictatorship, there have been many movements towards more autonomy in certain regions of the country in order to achieve full independence in some cases and to get their own autonomous community in others.
Today, it is a fact that there does not exist something as straightforward as just one Castilian-Spanish identity for the whole country. Many Spanish citizens feel no conflict in recognizing their several Spanish identities at the same time.
This section aims to describe the different subcultures that exist today in
Spain and that have systematically and historically been forgotten by the
Castilian-speaking Spain, to the detriment of the cultural richness of the
country.
Aranese
The Valley of Aran (
Aranese: ''Val d'Aran'',
Catalan: ''Vall d'Aran'') is a small
shire (620.47
km²) in the northwestern part of
Catalonia. It is the source of the
Garonne, and one of the highest valleys of the
Pyrenees. Most of the valley constitutes the only
Catalan territory on the north face of the
Pyrenees, hence the only part of
Catalonia whose waters drain into the
Atlantic Ocean. The region is characterized by an
Atlantic climate, due to its peculiar orientation, which is different from other valleys in the area.
The Valley of Aran has 7,130 inhabitants (as of
1996), which constitute a separate group from the
Catalans. About 5,000 of them speak the
Aranese language (''aranés'' in
Occitan/
Gascon/
Aranese), a variety of the Pyrenean Gascon (a dialect of the
Occitan language). The
Aranese is one of the three
co-official languages of the Valley of Aran, along with
Catalan and
Castilian.
Basques
The
US census classifies Spanish Basques as Western European non Hispanic, code 007 (see
2000 US Census ethnicity ).
The
Territory of the Basque Country (
Basque: ''Euskal Herria'',
Castilian: ''País Vasco'' or ''Vascongadas'') is a cultural region in the western
Pyrenees that spans the border between
France and
Spain, extending down to the coast of the
Bay of Biscay. It corresponds more or less with the
homeland of the
Basque people and
language.
In
Spain, the
Basque Country is an
autonomous community with the status of
historical region, the capital of which is
Vitoria-
Gasteiz (
Vitoria is the
Castilian name, while
Gasteiz is
Basque). It is part of the larger
Basque speaking lands mentioned above.
The Basques (
Basque: ''Euskaldunak'',
Castilian: ''Vascos'') are the
people who inhabit the
Basque Country. The name ''Basque'' derives from
Medieval French and ultimately from the ancient tribe of the
Vascones,
[Definition of Basque (Merriam-Webster Online) ] described by
Strabo as living south of the western
Pyrenees and north of the
Ebro River, in modern day
Navarre and northern
Aragon. This name, of unknown etymology, was extended in late
Antiquity and the early
Middle Ages to cover all Basque-speaking people on either side of the Pyrenees.
The
Basque language is spoken by about 1,000,000 people along the
Territory of the Basque Country. It is an
isolate language, which means that it is different to any other known language, and it has been spoken by the inhabitants of the region, in any of its present or early variants, for thousands of years.
Canary Islanders
The Canarians are a
subculture or
nation living in the
archipelago of the
Canary Islands (an
autonomous community of
Spain), near the coast of
Western Africa. The language of the region is the ''
habla canaria'' (
Castilian for ''Canary speech'') or the ''
dialecto canario'' (
Castilian for ''Canarian dialect''), a distinctive dialect of
Castilian spoken in the islands.
The islands were conquered by
Castilians at the beginnings of the
15th century, who subdued the original
Guanche population. After subsequent settlement by Spaniards and other
European peoples, mainly
Portuguese, the remaining
Guanches were gradually absorbed by the settlers and their culture almost totally disappeared.
Historically, large groups of Canary islanders have emigrated and settled all over the
New World as early as the
15th century, mainly in
Venezuela,
Uruguay,
Cuba and
Puerto Rico, as well as parts of Texas when Texas was still a part of the
Spanish Empire. For example, settlers from the
Canary Islands founded
San Antonio, Texas in
1731, when it was a
Spanish colony (see
Spanish Texas), one hundred years before the first
Anglo-Saxon immigrants arrived to the region, fleeing the religious prosecution in
Europe and looking for a better life.
Louisiana was also settled by large groups of
Canary Islanders, and today, their descendants still live in the region. They are called
Isleños (
Castilian for ''Islanders''), and they have kept the traditional culture of the
Canary Islands and still speak the
Canarian dialect[Links to some ''Isleño'' online communities and history webpages: 1 , 2 , 3 .].
Castilians
Castile is a
historical region of
Spain that comprises the territories of the former
Crown of Castile (the conjunction of the
Kingdom of Castile and the
Kingdom of León) in the north, and the southern area reconquered from the
Moors during the
Reconquista. Castile's name is thought to mean land or region of
castles, in reference to the castles built in the area.
Because the
kingdom of Castile (later
Crown of Castile) kept on expanding through most of its history, it's difficult to fix the exact boundaries of the
historical region of Castile. For example, the
provinces of
León,
Salamanca and
Zamora, which correspond to the former
Kingdom of León, may or may not be included (see the
Leonese below).
The
Castilian people are the inhabitants of the
historical region of Castile. Through the
Reconquista, their
kingdom spread outside the
historical region of Castile all over the
Iberian Peninsula, reaching the southern
Spanish regions of
Extremadura,
Andalusia,
Murcia and the
Canary Islands. After this, since the
15th century, through the
Spanish colonization of the Americas, the kingdom and its people also spread over the
New World, bringing with them not only their
language but also traits of their
culture,
traditions and
idiosyncracy.
The
Spanish language, often called ''castellano'' (Castilian) in Spanish, is the native language of the
Castilians. It originated in the
Cordillera Cantábrica and the upper
Ebro valley, in northern Spain, during the
8th and
9th centuries AD. After the
Reconquista, the
Castilian was brought to the south and almost entirely replaced the languages that were spoken. However, in this process the
Castilian also acquired strong influences from these languages that it gradually absorbed.
During the
Spanish colonization of the Americas, the
Castilain was the dominant language in
Spain, and therefore was the language that was transmitted to the
New World. Due to this gradual process, the
Castilian speaking world was created, and today the
Castilian is spoken by about 44,000,000 people in
Spain and 412,000,000 people in the rest of the
World[Numbers according to the Spanish Wikipedia article for the Spanish language: 1 ].
Catalans, Valencians and Balearic Islanders
The
homeland of the
Catalans is
Catalonia, or the
Principality of Catalonia (
Catalan: ''Catalunya'', or ''Principat de Catalunya''), which is a
historical region in southern
Europe, embracing a territory situated in the north-east of
Spain and an adjoining portion of southern
France. It is divided between the
autonomous communities of
Catalonia and
Aragon (in a
borderland called
La Franja) in
Spain, and
Northern Catalonia in
France (due to the
Treaty of the Pyrenees of
1659). In addition, there are other adjacent and nearby
Mediterranean areas whose inhabitants are sometimes considered
Catalans. These areas include:
Andorra, a small historical country in the
Pyrenees, the
Land of Valencia and the
Balearic Islands in
Spain and the
city of
L'Alguer in the
Italian island of
Sardinia due to the
Catalan rule of the
Mediterranean during the ages of the
Crown of Aragon. All these territories make up what is known as the
Catalan Countries.
The Catalans are
nation native from the former
Principality of Catalonia, but sometimes they are considered as being the inhabitants of all the
Catalan Countries. An important part of the
Catalans from
Catalonia refuse to be identified as Hispanic, mainly because they have
Catalan as
mother tongue instead of
Castilian]. However, like the rest of the country, they have also played a crucial role in the development of the
History of Spain although they had a very limited role in the
Spanish colonization of the Americas until the XVIII century due to the exclusivity given to Castile and Leon to exploit the newly discovered territories as documented in the
Testament of Queen
Isabella of Castile. Despite this fact, a few Catalans had prominent roles is some expeditions from
Alaska to
Tierra del Fuego (see, for example, important figures such as
Gaspar de Portolà, or pioneer expeditions of
Catalan volunteers to the
Pacific coast of
North America,
http://www.histocat.cat/pdf/catalans_al_canada.pdf).
The
Catalan is a
Romance language, the
national language of
Andorra, and a
co-official language in the
autonomous communities of
Catalonia, the
Land of Valencia (under the name of Valencian) and the
Balearic Islands in
Spain, and in the
city of
L'Alguer in the
Italian island of
Sardinia. It is also spoken, although with no official recognition, in the
autonomous communities of
Aragon (in
La Franja) and
Murcia (in
El Carxe) in
Spain, and in the
Northern Catalonia, a
historical region in the southern
France, which is more or less equivalent to the
French Région of the
Pyrénées-Orientales. It is spoken by about 10 million people across the
Catalan Countries.
Spanish Empire
During the Spanish colonial period between 1492 to 1898, most people from Spain migrated to new lands they had conquered. The Spaniards brought with them their language, culture and integrated with the society they had settled, creating a large empire that strech all over the world and producing several multiracial populations. Their descendance are found in the following continents and countries that were originally colonized by the Spanish people.
Hispanics in Africa
Equatorial Guinea
The
Portuguese explorer,
Fernão do Pó, seeking a route to
India, is credited with having discovered the island of
Bioko in 1472. He named it ''Formosa'' (
Portuguese for "Beautiful"), but it quickly took on the name of its European discoverer. The islands of
Fernando Po and
Annobón were colonized by
Portugal in 1474. The Portuguese retained control until 1778, when the island, adjacent islets, and commercial rights to the mainland between the
Niger and
Ogooué Rivers were ceded to
Spain in exchange for territory in the American continent (
Treaty of El Pardo, between Queen
Maria I of Portugal and King
Charles III of Spain). From 1827 to 1843,
Britain established a base on the island to combat the
slave trade. The mainland portion,
Río Muni, became a protectorate in 1885 and a colony in 1900. Conflicting claims to the mainland were settled in 1900 by the
Treaty of Paris, and periodically, the mainland territories were united administratively under Spanish rule. Between 1926 and 1959 they were united as the colony of
Spanish Guinea.
In March 1968, under pressure from Equatoguinean nationalists and the
United Nations, Spain announced that it would grant independence to
Equatorial Guinea. A constitutional convention produced an electoral law and draft constitution. In the presence of a
UN observer team, a referendum was held on August 11, 1968, and 63% of the electorate voted in favor of the constitution, which provided for a government with a General Assembly and a Supreme Court with judges appointed by the president.
Although there has never been much immigration of Spaniards, a great number of
missionaries, explorers, adventurers and
entrepreneurs explored and settled the region, and brought the Spanish language, that now is official in the country.
Morocco
In the former Spanish colony of
Morocco, Spanish speakers are present in small numbers, located in the northern coastal region of the country. However the majority of Moroccan people are predominantly muslims of Arab and African ancestry.
Plazas de Soberanía
Since the
Reconquista, the
Spanish have held numerous emplacements in
North Africa. Many of them, such as
Oran, have been lost, and nowadays, with an approximate population of 143,000 people, only the
Autonomous Cities of
Ceuta and
Melilla, which constitute the two ''Plazas de Soberanía Mayores'' (or Large Places of Sovereignty), and the
Islas Chafarinas, the
Peñón de Alhucemas and the
Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, which constitute the three ''Plazas de Soberanía Menores'' (or Lesser Sovereignty Places), still forming part of the
Spain.
Western Sahara
In the former Spanish colony of
Western Sahara, Spanish speakers are present in small numbers, however most people in the country speaks Arabic as their first language and also practise
Arab culture.
Hispanics in Asia-Pacific
The Philippines
Spaniards first arrived in the
Philippine Islands with the
Spanish expedition around the world led by
Portuguese explorer
Ferdinand Magellan in March 17, 1521. They landed on the island of
Cebu, claiming the lands for Spain and naming them ''Islas de San Lázaro''
. Over the next several decades, other Spanish expeditions were dispatched to the islands. In 1543,
Ruy López de Villalobos led an expedition to the islands and gave the name ''Las Islas Felipinas'', after
Philip II of Spain, to the islands of
Samar and
Leyte.
[Lacsamana, Philippine History and Government, p. 52] The name would later be given to the entire archipelago. In 1565 an expedition led by
Miguel López de Legazpi sailing from New Spain (Mexico) landed in Cebu where the first Spanish settlement was created. López de Legazpi later went on to found
Manila in 1571, which later became the capital of the
Spanish East Indies.
During the following four centuries the Philippines remained as a part of the
Spanish Empire and territory of
New Spain. Consequently, the indigenous
culture and
Languages of the Philippines received influence from Spain and from other parts of the Empire, mainly
Mexico. Although the Spanish language was never adopted as the first language by the majority of the population, there is an important group of people composed mainly of Spaniards and
Filipino mestizos (who include, among others,
Filipinos of Spanish descent and
Filipinos of Mexican descent), who speaks it. Spanish was introduced in all her territories including the Philippines. At its peak, the language was spoken by around 10% to 15% of the population by the end of the 19th century. After the
Spanish-American War of 1898; colonists from the
United States introduced
English on the islands. Spanish remained as co-
official langauges along with Tagalog and English until 1987, when it lost its status; prompting for the Filipino government to used
Tagalog and English as the official languages.
Other
Philippine languages including
Cebuano were not entirely replaced, but received significant influences from the Spanish language. New languages also originated, such as the
Chavacano, a
Spanish-based creole language.
In 2007, an article was recently published on August, while president
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visiting Argentina, stated that the Spanish language will return as one of the co-official languages of the Philippines in 2008.
Multiracials in Guam, Mariana Islands and Palau
In the former Spanish colonies of
Guam,
Mariana Islands and
Palau there are a small minority of people who possesed Spanish ancestry. However, these individuals only form a tiny percentage of the population and they have since integrated with the
American way of life. The people living on these islands no longer speaks or practise the Spanish cultural production.
Hispanics in the United States
The Hispanics in the United States or Hispanic Americans are an ethnic group in the
United States with Hispanic heritage. A Hispanic person may be of any race (
Amerindian,
Mixed-race, white,
black, and Asian). Also, a Hispanic person's status is independent from whether one speaks the Spanish language, as not all Hispanic Americans do. As of July 1, 2004, Hispanics accounted for 14.1% of the population, around 41.3 million people. The Hispanic growth rate over the July 1, 2003 to July 1, 2004 period was 3.6% - higher than any other ethnic group in the United States, and in fact more than three times the rate of the nation's total population (at 1.0%). The projected Hispanic population of the United States for July 1, 2050, is of 105.6 million people. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 25% of the nation’s total population on that date.
Historically, a continuous Hispanic presence in the territory of the United States has existed since the 16th century, earlier than any other group after the
Native Americans. Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States. The first confirmed European landing in the continental was by
Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened ''
La Florida''. Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the
Appalachian Mountains, the
Mississippi River, the
Grand Canyon and the
Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the
East Coast, penetrating to present-day
Bangor, Maine, and up the
Pacific Coast as far as
Oregon. From 1528 to 1536, four castaways from a Spanish expedition, including a "black
Moor", journeyed all the way from Florida to the
Gulf of California, 267 years before the
Lewis and Clark Expedition.
In 1540
Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of the present US, and in the same year
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today's
Arizona-
Mexico border and traveled as far as central
Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States. Other Spanish explorers of the US make up a long list that includes, among others:
Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón,
Pánfilo de Narváez,
Sebastián Vizcaíno,
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo,
Gaspar de Portolà,
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés,
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca,
Tristán de Luna y Arellano and
Juan de Oñate. In all, Spaniards probed half of today's lower 48 states before the first English colonization attempt at
Roanoke Island in 1585.
The Spanish created the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States, at
St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565.
Santa Fe, New Mexico also predates
Jamestown, Virginia (founded in 1607) and
Plymouth Colony (of ''
Mayflower'' and
Pilgrims fame, founded in 1620). Later came Spanish settlements in
San Antonio,
Tucson,
San Diego,
Los Angeles and
San Francisco, to name just a few. The Spanish even established a
Jesuit mission in
Virginia's
Chesapeake Bay 37 years before the founding of Jamestown.
Two iconic American stories have Spanish antecedents, too. Almost 80 years before
John Smith's alleged rescue by
Pocahontas, a man by the name of
Juan Ortiz told of his remarkably similar rescue from execution by an Indian girl. Spaniards also held a
thanksgiving — 56 years before the famous Pilgrims
festival — when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans. As late as 1783, at the end of the
American Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States; in 1775, Spanish ships even reached
Alaska. From 1819 to 1848, the United States and its army increased the nation's area by roughly a third at Spanish and Mexican expense, including three of today's four most populous states:
California,
Texas and
Florida. Hispanics became the first American citizens in the newly acquired
Southwest territory and remained a majority in several states until the 20th century. (See also
New Spain.)
Hispanic soldiers have fought in all the
wars of the United States, and have earned the highest distinction of any US ethnic group.(
http://www4.army.mil/otf/speech.php?story_id_key=9575,
http://www.senate.gov/~pryor/newsroom/details.cfm?id=263773&,
http://www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/memorial.html,
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/17.3.pdf,
List of Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients) Historic figures in the United States have been Hispanic from early times. Some recent famous people include Rita Hayworth, baseball legends Lefty Gomez and Ted Williams whose mother was Mexican.
About Hispanics
Racial diversity
The racial diversity to be found among Hispanics stems from the fact that Hispanic America has always been, since 1492, an area of immigration until late in the 20th century, when the region has increasingly become an area of emigration. Even outside the broad US definition of Hispanic, the term encompasses a very racially diverse population. While in the United States, Hispanics are often treated as a group apart from
whites,
blacks or other races, they actually include people who may identify with any or all of those racial groups.
In the mass media as well as popular culture, "Hispanic" is often incorrectly used to describe a subject's
race or
physical appearance.In general, Hispanics are assumed to have traits such as dark hair and eyes, and tan or brown skin, similar to that of
Arabs or the
Roma People. Many others are viewed as physically intermediate between
whites,
blacks and/or
Amerindians.Hispanics with mostly
Caucasoid or
Negroid features may not be recognized as such in spite of the ethnic and racial diversity of most Latin American populations. Hispanics who do not look like the stereotypical Hispanic may have their ethnic status questioned or even challenged by others. Actors
Cameron Diaz and
Alfonso Ribeiro, for example, are both Hispanic, even though they may be presumed not to be so because they do not fit the stereotype, the former being white and the latter predominantly black.A great proportion of Hispanics identify as
mestizo (mixed European and Amerindian), regardless of national origin.This is largely because most Hispanics have their origins in majority mestizo Latin American countries.
El Salvador and
Paraguay are examples of mostly mestizo populations, with 90% of Salvadorans identified as mestizos and over 80% of Paraguayans.
Many individuals identified as "Hispanics" (based on the U.S. definition) are of unmixed
Native American ancestry. For example, many of those from
Bolivia,
Guatemala,
Peru—where they constitute a majority or plurality of the population—and a considerable proportion from
Mexico.Many Hispanics born in or with descent from the
Dominican Republic,
Venezuela,
Puerto Rico,
Colombia or
Cuba may be of African descent, be it
mulatto (mixed European and black African),
zambo (mixed Amerindian and black African),
triracial (specifically European, black African, and Amerindian),
Mestizo (mixed Amerindian and European) or unmixed black African.
81% of the Puerto Rican and 65% of the Cuban populations are white, of mostly Spanish origin.
Besides
Spaniards of pure European stock, many people from the countries of
Argentina,
Chile,
Ecuador,
Cuba,
Uruguay,
Colombia, and many regions in
Mexico, are un-mixed European descent. Many of them, though labeled "Hispanic" by the U.S. definition, actually trace their ancestries to European countries other than Spain. Alternate European ancestries in these countries include
German,
Irish,
French,
Polish,
Welsh, and many others. Nevertheless, in most cases, many do possess some Spanish ancestry, as the waves of European immigrants to these two countries tended to quickly assimilate, intermarrying with the country's local population, which initially was composed primarily of Spanish-descended people:
criollos, mestizos, and mulattoes.
The population before the beginning of the immigration waves was only 400,000 persons in Argentina
and even less in Uruguay. By the 1910s, half of Buenos Aires population was foreign-born. With immigration
, the total population of Argentina rose from 4 million in 1895 to 7.9 million in 1914, and to 15.8 million in 1947; during this time the country was settled by 1.5 million Italians and 1.4 million Spaniards, as well as
Poles,
Russians,
French,
Germans,
Austrians and
Swiss,
Portuguese,
Ukrainians,
Yugoslavians,
Czechs,
Irish,
Dutch,
Scandinavians, etc.
Argentines and Uruguayans of full or partial
Italian ancestry alone account for at least one third of their countries' populations, with up to half of all Argentines today believed to be eligible for Italian passports. Minority groups consist of Native Americans and Asians in Argentina, blacks in Uruguay and people of mixed ancestries. Also, minority groups constitute about 5% of the Argentinian population and 10% of the Uruguayan population.
In the case of Argentina
illegal immigration has been a relatively important population factor in recent demographics. Most illegal immigrants come from
Bolivia and
Paraguay, countries which border Argentina to the north. Smaller numbers arrive from
Peru,
Ecuador,
Romania, and the
People's Republic of China. The number of stowaways inside incoming ships from
West Africa has increased in recent times. Estimates suggest that over one million people reside in Argentina illegally.
Likewise, a percentage of Hispanics as defined by the U.S. government trace their ancestries to the
Middle East, for example
Colombians,
Ecuadorians, and
Mexicans of
Lebanese ancestry. Many Hispanics are of
East Asian ancestry, as in the case of
Mexicans,
Puerto Ricans,
Argentinians, and
Panamanians of
Chinese ancestry or
Peruvians of
Japanese ancestry. If they were to migrate to the United States, the definition most frequently advocated would consider them Hispanic. ''See also:
Asian Latin American''.
On occasion the demographics of certain nations may not mirror the demographics of their communities in the United States. This is the case with
Cuban Americans. Most Cuban Americans are of relatively unmixed Spanish ancestry, despite Cuba being a mulatto/black majority country, according to most estimates. The racial disparity between Cubans on the U.S. mainland and those on the island is caused largely by the fact that most of the emigrants who fled in the
early days of communist Cuba belong to the upper and middle classes, classes which have traditionally been predominantly white in that country as in other parts of Latin America and
United States.
The presence of these mentioned races and race-mixes are not country-specific, since they can be found in every Latin American country, whether as larger of smaller proportions of their respective populations. Even in Spain, the European
motherland of Hispanicity, there is a slowly growing population of mestizos and mulattos due to the reversal of the historic
Old World-to-
New World migration pattern.
Of the over 35 million Hispanics counted in the
Federal 2000 Census, 47.9% identified as
white (termed "white Hispanic" by the Census Bureau); 42.2% "Some other race"; 6.3% Two or more races; 2% Black or African American; 1.2% American Indian and Alaska Native; 0.3% Asian; and 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
. Note that even among those Hispanics who reported one race only, most would also possess at least some ancestral lineage from one or more other races, despite the fact that only 6.3% reported as such. (This is also applicable to the Non-Hispanics counted in the U.S. Census, although maybe in less proportion.)
A further contribution that contradicts the popular conception of Hispanic as a race, and especially as a race genetically different from white or at least
Anglo-Saxons, lies in the recent discoveries by
population genetics.
A research team at
University of Oxford has found that the majority of
Britons share a common genetic heritage with the
Iberians who may have come to Britain largely during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. The proportion of the native population that share
Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups with Iberia is 73 percent in
Scotland, 64 percent in
England, 83 percent in
Wales and 89-95 percent in
Ireland.
According to one study (Stephens et al. 2001), "From the genetic perspective, Hispanics generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry, with the proportionate mix typically depending on country of origin."
http://shrn.stanford.edu/workshops/revisitingrace/Risch_confound.pdf
In fact, Dr.
Bryan Sykes has stated that the genetic fingerprint of the populations tested in the
British Isles and Spain is almost identical and
Stephen Oppenheimer comes to similar conclusions. Like most of their genetic relatives in Iberia the British adopted
Celtic culture and language from south
France during the
Bronze age. Under the
Roman Empire a
Romano-British culture developed, which was in turn superseded by the
Germanic Anglo-Saxon culture and language in what became England during the
Migration Period. Iberia, though, maintained its Roman culture and
language. However, because of their common genetic heritage, native Britons and their American descendants still share many of the same genetic markers with Spaniards and many Hispanics.
Nevertheless, the recent development of methodologies for defining population structure using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism markers has led a 2006 study of 681 European individuals to conclude that there is a ''consistent and reproducible distinction between “northern” and “southern” European population groups'', strongly suggesting the later Mediterranean (Neolithic) origin of Spaniards, Greeks, Portuguese and Italians. On the other hand, all European populations north of the Alps and the Pyrenees (except for Ashkenazi Jews) seem to fall squarely into the "Northern" population group.
http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0020143
Still, the findings of a similar 2007 study claims; ''"The Spanish and Basque groups are the furthest away from other continental groups, which is consistent with the suggestions that the Iberian peninsula holds the most ancient European genetic ancestry"''. The same study also found ''"several significant axes of stratification, most prominently in a North-Southeastern trend but also along an East-West axis."'' It also said: ''"there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world."''
[ Measuring European Population Stratification using Microarray Genotype Data http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:QcXb-Y59bLEJ:www.ajhg.org/AJHG/journal/preprints/AJHG44466.preprint.pdf ]
The Spanish, like all European populations, have received multiple other influences. The possibility of Neolithic population movements into Iberia from North Africa is also suggested by geneticist Arnaiz-Villena, using HLA and MtDNA markers together with archaeological and linguistic evidence.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_199910/ai_n8876452 This could explain the puzzling fact that out of the 19 lineages of Mtdna Haplogroup U6 found in Iberia, only 9 are currently found in North Africa, pointing to a prehistoric (as well as modern) northward expansion into Iberia, probably during the
Capsian diffusion.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/4/15#B9
There exists a number of studies which focus on the genetic impact of the eight centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula on the genetic make up of the Iberian population. Recent studies agree that there is a genetic relationship between (particularly southern) Iberia and North Africa as a result of this period of history. Iberia is the only region in Europe with a significant presence of the typically North West African Y-chromosome haplotypes E-M81
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1181965&rendertype=figure&id=FG1http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1181965 and Haplotype V
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17216803&query_hl=9&itool=pubmed_docsum as well as the Mtdna Haplotype U6. It is also the region in Europe with the highest frequency of Subsaharan Mtdna haplogroup L, probably as a result of Islamic colonisation as well as the slave trade which flourished in the 16th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Saharan_DNA_admixture_in_Europe http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16201138&dopt=Abstract Evidently, the North African element in modern day Iberians' ancestry is minor when compared to the pre-Islamic elements.
The inhabitants of the
Canary Islands, hold a gene pool that is halfway between the Iberians and the ancient native population, the
Guanches (a proto-berber population), although with a major Iberian contribution. Guanche genetic markers have also been found, at low frequencies, in peninsular Spain, probably as a result of slavery and/or later immigration from the Canary Islands.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15598218&query_hl=14&itool=pubmed_docsum
The ancestry of Iberians has thus received influences from the many people which have settled on its territory throughout history including
Phoenicians,
Greeks,
Romans,
Punics,
Celts,
Vandals,
Suevi,
Visigoths,
Alans,
Byzantines,
Berbers,
Arabs,
Slavs,
Jews and, particularly in Andalusia, the
Roma.
Religious diversity
With regard to religious affiliation among Hispanics,
Christianity — specifically
Roman Catholicism — is usually the first religious tradition that comes to mind. Indeed, the Spaniards took the Roman Catholic faith to Latin America, and Roman Catholicism continues to be the overwhelmingly predominant, but not the only, religious denomination amongst most Hispanics. A small number of Hispanics are also
Protestant.
There are also Hispanic
Jews, of which most are the descendants of
Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from Europe (German Jews, Russian Jews, Polish Jews, etc.) to Latin America, particularly
Argentina (Argentina is host to the largest Jewish population in the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States)
in the 19th century and during and following
World War II. Some Hispanic Jews may also originate from the small communities of reconverted descendants of
anusim — those whose Spanish and Portuguese
Sephardi Jewish ancestors long ago hid their Jewish ancestry and beliefs in fear of persecution by the
Spanish Inquisition and
Portuguese Inquisition in the
Iberian peninsula and Latin America. There are also the now Catholic-professing descendants of
marranos and the Hispano
crypto-Jews believed to exist in the once Spanish-held
Southwestern United States and scattered through Latin America. Additionally, there are Sephardic Jews who are descendants of those Jews who fled Spain to
Turkey,
Syria, and
North Africa, some of who have now migrated to Latin America, holding on to some Spanish/Sephardic customs, such as the
Ladino language. (See also
History of the Jews in Latin America and
List of Latin American Jews.)
Among the Hispanic Catholics, most communities celebrate their homeland's patron
saint, dedicating a day for this purpose with festivals and religious services. Some Hispanics syncretize Roman Catholicism and African or Native American rituals and beliefs. Such is the case of
Santería, popular with
Cuban Americans and which combines old African beliefs in the form of Roman Catholic saints and rituals. Other syncretistic beliefs include
Spiritism and
Curanderismo.
While a tiny minority, there are some
Hispanic Muslims in Latin America and the US.
In the United States some 70% of U.S. Hispanics report themselves Catholic, and 23% Protestant, with 6% having no affiliation.
A minority among the Roman Catholics, about one in five, are charismatics. Among the Protestant, 85% are "
Born-again Christians" and belong to
Evangelical or
Pentecostal churches. Among the smallest groups, less than 4%, are U.S. Hispanic Jews and U.S. Hispanic Muslims. Most U.S. Hispanic Muslims are recent converts.
Music
Folk and popular dance and music also varies greatly among Hispanics. For instance, the music from
Spain is a lot different from the
Hispanic American, although there is a high grade of exchange between both continents. In addition, due to the high national development of the diverse
identities of Spain, there is a lot of music in the
different languages the Peninsula (
Catalan and
Basque, mainly). See, for instance,
Music of Catalonia or
Rock català.
On the other side,
Latin America is home to a wide variety of music, instead it's usual to speak about "Latin" music as a single genre. Hispanic Caribbean music tends to favor complex polyrhythms of African origin.
Mexican music shows combined influences of mostly Spanish and Native American origin, while traditional Northern Mexican music —
norteño and
banda — is more influenced by country-and-western music and the
polka, brought by
Central European settlers to
Mexico. The music of Hispanic Americans — such as
tejano music — has influences in
rock,
jazz,
R&B,
pop, and
country music as well as traditional Mexican music such as
Mariachi. Meanwhile, native
Andean sounds and melodies are the backbone of Peruvian and Bolivian music, but also play a significant role in the popular music of most South American countries and are heavily incorporated into the folk music of Ecuador and Chile and the tunes of Colombia, and again in Chile where they play a fundamental role in the form of the greatly followed
nueva canción. In US communities of immigrants from these countries it is common to hear these styles.
Latin pop,
Rock en Español,
Latin hip-hop and
Reggaeton styles tend to appeal to the broader Hispanic population, and varieties of Cuban music are popular with many Hispanics of all backgrounds.
Cuisine
"Hispanic cuisine" as the term is applied in the Western Hemisphere, is a misnomer. The vast majority of foods in "Latin America" are of
Native American origins, and not of
Spain.
The cuisine of Spain often mirrors the cuisines of its
Mediterranean neighbors, and in addition to the abundance of
olives,
olive oil,
tomatoes,
seafood and meats, foreign influences, such as the use of
saffron, were introduced during the
spice trade.
Traditional Mexican, Salvadoran, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Spanish, Argentine, and Peruvian cooking, for example, all vary greatly from each other, and take on new forms in the United States. While
Mexican cuisine is the most familiar variety of "Hispanic food" in most of the United States, it is not representative of the cuisine of most other Hispanic peoples, in that it is heavily representative of
indigenous (
Indian) foods.
The cuisines of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and other Central American countries are still heavily dependent and greatly indebted to staples of the cuisine and diet of the Aztec and Maya, including
maize,
beans,
chile peppers. After 1492 these tradition came to be melded with those from Spain to form the modern cuisines of that region. Among the more popular and well known dishes of this region are
tacos,
enchiladas,
tamales, rice and beans,
horchata, and
pupusas.
Cuban and Puerto Rican cuisines, on the other hand, tend to use a lot of pork and can be heavily dependent on starchy
root vegetables,
plantain and
rice, and the most prominent influences on their Spanish culinary traditions are those which were introduced by African slaves, and to a lesser degree, French influence from Haiti and later Chinese immigrants. Hot, spicy foods are practically unknown in traditional Spanish-Caribbean dishes. The cuisine of Haiti, a Latin American country (however not Hispanic majority), is very similar to its regional neighbors in terms of influences and ingredients used.
The Argentine diet is heavily influenced by Argentina's position as one of the world's largest beef and wine producers. Grilled meats are a staple of most meals as are pastas, potatoes, rice, and a variety of vegetables (Argentina is a huge exporter of agricultural products). As one of the world's largest producers, wine is as much a staple drink to Argentines as beer is to Germans.
In
Ecuador and
Peru, potato dishes are typical since the potato is originally from this region. Beef and chicken are common sources of meat as is the
cuy, a South American relative of the
guinea pig. Given the coastal location, both countries have extensive fishing fleets, which provide a wealth of seafood options, including the signature South American dish,
ceviche. Rice also plays an important role in Peruvian cuisine.
This diversity in staples and cuisine is also evident in the differing regional cuisines within the national borders of the individual countries. Most groceries in heavily Hispanic areas carry a wide array of specialty Latin American products, in addition to the widely available brands of
tortillas and Mexican style
salsa.
Symbols
Flag
While relatively unknown, there is a flag representing the countries of
Hispanic America, its people, history and shared cultural legacy.
It was created in October of 1933 by Ángel Camblor, captain of the Uruguayan army. It was adopted by all the states of Latin America during ''La Conferencia Panamericana'' (The Pan-American Conference) held that same year in
Montevideo,
Uruguay.
[ ]
The white background stands for peace, the
Inti sun god in
Inca mythology symbolizes the light shining on the American continent, and the three crosses represent
Christopher Columbus'
caravels, the
Niña,
Pinta, and
Santa María used in his first voyage from
Spain to the
New World in 1492. The
lilac color of the crosses evokes the
Castilian banner.
Footnotes