In the mid-1970s, a federal advisory committee of Spanish speakers met to come up with an ethnic term for the country's growing Spanish-speaking population to use in the Census. They agreed on ''Hispanic."
''Hispanic" stems from ''Hispania," the Spanish name for the cultural diaspora created by Spain, according to Janet Helms, director of the Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture at Boston College.
But that diaspora, to some, is also associated with Spanish conquest from centuries ago. They prefer ''Latino" because it sounds more like a Spanish word and underscores ties with Latin America rather than Spain.
According to Helms, racial considerations can also play a part in choice of terminology. The word ''Hispanic" also stems from the name of the island ''Hispaniola," she said, which consists of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. "Many people do not like 'Hispanic' because it implies people of color, and they don't think themselves people of color because the island from which it (the word) derives from was an island or region in which most of the inhabitants were people of color."
Some see the argument as a tug of war over semantics, but others believe the labels reflect the course of the community and see similarities to the movement of ''black power" advocates who cast aside the term ''Negro" during the civil rights movement and eventually embraced ''African-American."
The dialogue on whether to use ''Latino" or ''Hispanic" is likely to accelerate as the nation's largest minority group continues to grow at a rapid rate.
But for now, whether to use ''Latino" or ''Hispanic" is a question that just may not have a solid or right answer, community leaders say.
| Continue Johnny Diaz's Boston Globe article "Latino? Hispanic? Which is it?"
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