The city of Los Angeles is in the middle of a mayoral election pitting two Democrats against each other. One candidate is a Black woman, her opponent is a White man – or is he?
During a televised debate last week, the moderator summed up the contest as between “an African-American woman [and] a white man.” Clearly seeing that the dichotomy would put him at a disadvantage, candidate Rick Caruso challenged the description: “…I’m Italian. That’s Latin, thank you.” From that statement, media folks are accusing Caruso of denying he’s White, which he did not.
Why has the media framed Caruso’s comment as ‘I’m not White, I’m Italian’? Caruso later said that he identifies with the Latino community and any other as well. He did not say he is Latino.
I know our national education system is falling apart but how bad is it when elitist college grads who staff the various media today can’t understand the difference between a Latin and Latino. Only a few decades ago, the moniker ‘Latin Lover’ was understood to be a celebrity with Italian (think Rudolph Valentino) or Spanish (Julio Iglesias) or French (Charles Boyer) roots. No one would have confused that description with someone from the barrio.
Frankly, Rick Caruso wants the Latino vote and has taken advantage of the link between his Italian roots and the myriad Hispanics who are genetically or culturally tied to Spain. Don’t Slavs, Celts, and Germanic peoples have distant connections to each other? Do they need to deny being Euro-Caucasian or ‘White’ to be Slavic, Irish, or Anglo?
Italians are the original Latins. It is shameful that few people know that. The Romans were a Latin tribe whose homeland was the region of Latium (today’s Lazio). Their language was Latin, part of the Italic Language Family. From there they spread their Latin DNA and culture to fellow Italic peoples on the peninsula and Sicily. Eventually, they spread the same to Gaul (France) and Iberia (Spain/Portugal) – hence the appellation ‘Latin sisters’. With the Age of Exploration, that Latin-ness spread to the New World, half of which is called Latin America. Capisce?
That most Americans are ignorant of these facts is revealed by a tweet I found which reacted to Caruso’s statement: “Lord have mercy. Isn’t Rick Caruso a real estate developer? How could he as a real estate professional not know that Italy is not in Latin America?” She probably also thinks they speak Latin in Latin America.
I wonder if anyone in the media would describe the characters in The Godfather, The Sopranos, or Goodfellas as White people or Italians. We know the answer. And surely our surnames separate us immediately from ‘white bread’ Americans.
Among the comments relating to the Caruso flap was from a Washington Post writer who didn’t appreciate Caruso’s confounding the Woke by amplifying his diversity within the White category. The writer attempted to demonstrate that Italian Americans were very much part of the privileged White race. Were Italians barred from schools in the South, he asks? Were they forbidden by law from intermarrying with Whites? Were they excluded from labor unions? Were they blocked from the fruits of citizenship?
What this fellow didn’t ask was: Were they ever lynched? Were they excluded from prestigious law firms? Were they discriminated against at Ivy League universities? Were they given special advantages in government hiring or corporate boards? We know the answers. Italian Americans were among the least accepted Euro-Americans – like Jews and Irish – that did not share in so-called ‘White privilege’.
A perfect example is the governing board of Bank of America today. On October 17, 1904, American-born Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy – today’s Bank of America. He made it the largest bank in the U.S., the first to have retail branches in every state. Yet, today there is not a single Italian American on that Board – two Blacks, two Latinos, and plenty of Irish and Anglos – but no Latin with Italian roots. Does that sound like White privilege for Italians?
My message to the Woke: use the Caruso episode as a teaching moment, about your own ignorance. -JLM
There was a time when people who were ignorant would change their mind. So few people know the Italian American experience. I realized that and opened an Italian American museum so people could learn about the Italian immigrants and the contribution of Italian Americans. The question is how to stop the perceptions that are absolutely crazy. Rick Caruso, you are Latin, and our rich Italian heritage and culture is one many of us are very proud of.
that is really a sensitive subject. Italians are Latins….and speak a romance language, derived from Latin, pure and simple. Some of these ethnic categories are just plain crazy-making. In the past when I was working I always claimed I was Latin or “other”…because the boxes were never relevant to Italian Americans…there usually was no such box…..and talk about mixed messages, an ethnic group can be multi-racial, speak several languages, and be culturally diverse, so a Native American, from Guatemala, or other indigenous areas of South and Central America, who speak next to no Spanish and checking the box as Latino, which is only Spanish for “Latin”, makes no sense whatever. Even the category “white” which Italian Americans get lumped into, is used in many ways to say….you have your quota as a white person… whatever that now means, and we need to fill in a Latino quota….so an Italian American is being denied his identity for the sake of political correctness. If we are not all part of the human race then at least we should get some working definition correct.
You said it all, “ Italians are the original Latins”. So few people understand that.
Given that approximately 1/2 of the words in the English language are derived from Latin, with the American legal and governmental systems having clear Roman precedents and with approximately 1/4 of us being adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, it could be said that Americans are also Latins.