“The ‘Hispanic’ Race Debate: Limitations of the Term in an Orlando School Board Controversy”
by Kristi McDuffie | Xchanges 9.1
Hispanic as an Ethnicity
The debate over whether Hispanics should be represented on the board is based on whether “Hispanic” is a race or an ethnicity, since the school board committee is required by law to be comprised of half “white” and half “black” members. The government definition of “Hispanic” is based on national origin, and thus interpreted as an ethnicity, rather than a race, and many comments to the news articles reflect that legal definition:
- “Hispanic is not a race…that is all.” –MikeBlows
- “Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race. If they went to be on the bi-racial committee then black hispanics and white hispanics should participate as members of their respective race.” –Still LMAO
- “Why do people always confuse hispanic with a race. Hispanic is NOT a race.” –BenL2
These comments mimic the legal opinion that the school board obtained, which was included in The Orlando Sentinel‘s news article. The opinion cites the government’s definition: “A ‘Hispanic or Latino’ is ‘a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race'” (Ramos, “School District”). The school board used this opinion as the rationale behind its response that Hispanics can be included on the committee as a declared person of white or black race, and the comments continue that rhetoric.
Both the school board and the responding commentators may be sticking to the inadequate definition of “Hispanic” because it benefits them in some way. The school board, for instance, does not have motivation or funds to change a committee that was not even meeting at the time of the protest. It would be time-consuming and expensive to pay for legal costs to try to change the court order, particularly when the school board was trying to lessen oversight, not increase it.
White community members who wrote the majority of the forum comments exhibit a negative response against inclusion most likely because they perceive it as threatening. Linda Martín Alcoff argues that whites are often threatened by “ethnic and racial identities” (26). Mistreated minorities’ demands for attention based on group identity bring a challenging counterdiscourse to the positive narrative that supports the U.S.’s historical expansion and domination (Alcoff 26). Furthermore, whites perceive the existence of group identity as a demand for resources, whether that claim is actually made or not (Alcoff 26). The fact that many respondents posting anonymous comments are annoyed at the request to include Hispanics on the committee supports Alcoff’s claim. In fact, this request for attention and representation leads many respondents to make anti-immigration comments and challenge the citizenship status of Puerto Ricans.
The idea of Hispanic inclusion as threatening also results in comments about reverse racism. Jane Hill found similar themes in her analysis of commentary about the word “squaw.” Hill writes, “Many Americans, especially Whites, oppose any racial preferences, especially so-called ‘affirmative-action.’ The idea that affirmative action makes Whites victims of ‘reverse racism’ erases any notion of White power or privilege” (79). Hill explains that a focus on race and racial terms is a “violation of a code of colorblindness” according to a folk theory of racism (80).
[2] In including message board comments in this essay, I have retained the original grammar, spelling, and punctuation of the people posting. Rather than using an approach of inserting “[sic]” after each misspelling, this footnote’s explanation covers all instances in transcribed user comments.