Cynics Unlimited

About two decades or so ago the Black community in the United States became embroiled in a debate over what to call themselves. Some suggested that the term “African American” replace “Black,” which itself had succeeded “Negro” (now considered somewhat offensive by some Blacks, even though talk show host Oprah Winfrey once used it in the 1980s). Others objected on the grounds that their connection to Africa was rather tenuous since most American Black families had lived in the United States for generations. In a letter to the magazine Ebony, one reader pointed out as well that many American Blacks traced their ancestry to other places in addition to Africa. A Black in the US could be of mixed African, Irish, and Italian heritage (real-life example: singer Alicia Keys). The matter remains as yet unresolved; the media tends to use “Black” and “African American” interchangeably.

The business of naming – whether of a baby, a place or an institution – is more often than not fraught with difficulty, conflict and self-doubt. Perhaps no decision is more controversial, though, than what to name a community of people; i.e. an ethnic group. The “Black/African American” dilemma is just one example. While the White community has not experienced as intense a debate, terms like “European-American” (or “Euro-American”) and “Anglo” have of late become virtually synonymous with White in many circles. I have reservations about both, albeit for different reasons. With regard to the first, as with American Blacks and Africa, most US Whites’ links to Europe are fairly remote. For instance, I would have a hard time describing my mother, whose family has been in North America for up to four generations and who only visited Europe for the first time in her thirties, as “European.” Anglo on the other hand seems to exclude the many US Whites (like my mom) with no Anglo-Saxon ancestry whatsoever. And if one argues that these Whites are nonetheless culturally Anglo-Saxon by dint of living in the US, would not the same be true of nearly all American Blacks?

A less heated exchange has taken place in the Latino/Hispanic community. Some members believe that the former designation should be employed instead of the latter because many Latin Americans, being of Native American and/or African descent, lack any ancestral ties to Spain (the Latin word for which, Hispania, gave rise to “Hispanic”). In contrast, the name “Latino” ties them to “Latin” America – though ultimately the word “Latin” derives from another place in Europe, the Italian region of Latium (present-day Lazio) where the Latin language first emerged. Meanwhile some Hispanic/Latino groups have adopted names to describe their particular community. Mexican Americans, for instance, use the word “Chicano,” a contraction of “Mexicano.” Perhaps less familiar is Puerto Ricans’ description of themselves as “Boricuas” from “Boriquen” (“land of the great and valiant lord”), the name the island’s original inhabitants the Taino Indians gave it.

In other cases groups have sought to replace a name imposed on them by outsiders with one of their own choosing. For example, the reindeer-herding people of Northern Scandinavia reject the term “Lapp” in favour of “Sami.” Most inhabitants of the Canadian and American Far North similarly prefer to be called “Inuit” (“the people”) to “Eskimo,” a Cree word meaning “eaters of raw meat” on account of their habit of not fully cooking some of their food in order to preserve the nutrients. But not all: the Yupiks of Alaska still insist on the name “Eskimo.”

Some groups have gone a step further and deliberately taken on a formerly derogatory name as a sign of empowerment, just as some gays and lesbians have reclaimed the terms “queer” and “dyke.” For instance, the people of East Timor adopted the word “Maubere” which their Portuguese colonizers used to express scorn for them, as a term of pride.

Of course not all name changes are politically driven. A “Filipino,” for example, once referred to a descendent of Spaniards who was born in the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, in contrast to the natives of the islands, who were known as “indios” (Indians), like those of the New World. Eventually however “Filipino” came to designate a native inhabitant of the Philippines. In the naming of ethnic groups, we see how race, politics and history intertwine.