Summary

The article discusses the exclusion of Italian Americans from the Latin identity in the U.S., despite their historical and linguistic ties to Latin culture.

Abstract

The article "Cultural Appropriation: Has the U.S. Stolen the Latin Identity?" delves into the nuanced conversation surrounding the identity of Italian Americans within the broader context of Latin culture. The author, with a personal connection to Italian heritage, reflects on the historical journey of Italian immigrants to the U.S. and their subsequent discrimination, paralleling the experiences of other immigrant groups. The piece argues that Italian Americans, who share linguistic roots with other Latin cultures through the Latin language, are overlooked in the American narrative of Latin identity, which predominantly includes individuals from Mexico, Central, and South America. The author emphasizes the importance of recognizing the contributions of all European Latin countries to the Latin identity and challenges the U.S. to acknowledge the broader historical and cultural context of what it means to be Latin.

Opinions

The author believes that the term "Latin" has been incorrectly appropriated in the U.S. to refer exclusively to individuals from Mexico, Central, and South America, excluding those from European Latin countries like Italy.
The article suggests that the U.S. has a history of discriminating against immigrants, including Italians, and continues to perpetuate this bias by selectively defining Latin identity.
It is the author's opinion that the Latin language's evolution into modern Romance languages (Italian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish) should be a unifying

Cultural Appropriation: Has the U.S. Stolen the Latin Identity?

How Italian Americans Are Left Out of the Latin Identifying Conversation

Let me start with the fact that I have some skin in this conversation. My great-grandmother on my mother's side was 100% Sicilian, and her husband, my great-grandfather was 100% Russian Gypsy. Their child, my Grandmother went on to marry my grandfather who was also 100% Sicilian, bringing with him four more ancestral lines of Italian heritage.

I have spent thousands of hours following my ancestral lines back through history, traversing across country lines, and navigating language barriers to better understand the ancestral blood that flows through me. As a result of this endeavor, I can now trace my family tree back to the early 1700s wherein five of my six ascendant lines of Italian heritage were born and lived in a small village called Altavilla Millicia, in Palermo Sicilia Italy. My other Italian ascendant line was from Brescia, near the Italian Alps of Lombardy.

My grandmother has called us all Latin for as long as I can remember. She tells us stories passed down from her grandmother about why they left the homeland, how the Mafia’s inescapable grip on the day-to-day lives in Sicily, and their frustration with Mousselini having “sold us out” to the Germans were the driving factors behind the mass exodus out of Italy in the early 1900s.

She also tells us stories of how when arriving in the U.S. they were unwelcome and mistreated. How they were spit on and called racial slurs and how Americans would throw things at them as they walked down the street. She always says that she understands what it’s like to be hated for who you are, as a young child my grandmother remembers the racism and bigotry she endured for her dark olive complexion and dark eyes.

In truth, like all other immigrants coming to the U.S., the Italians and Irish were among some of the first immigrants discriminated against upon coming to the U.S. in the early 1900s. After the American Revolutionary War, the U.S. seemingly developed a habit of being nasty to those immigrating here in search of a better life, conveniently ignoring the fact that the country was founded through an immigration of people coming from all parts of Great Britain and Europe and at the expense of all the Natives who were either displaced or killed off.

Sadly, this nasty habit persists through to the modern day, as our Mexican, Central, and South American, Asian and other Immigrants now face the same racism and backlash as all those who immigrated before them. In my opinion, the U.S. has attempted to isolate the Mexican, Central, and South American Peoples by setting them aside and calling them Latin Americans.

I have often wondered why Italians are left out of the American Latin culture and conversations, and how we got away with stripping Italians out of that conversation and identity.

When we are speaking about Latin peoples, we cannot do so accurately when we omit any one of the very societies upon which it was founded.

Photo by Author | The Complete Oxford English Dictionary New Edition

According to the Oxford English Dictionary

A text deemed to be the definitive record of the English language the world over, the word Latin has long historical etymological roots, specifically:

Latin (‘leatin), and forms Latyn, Latine, Latyne, Laten, Latten, Lattin, Latyng are adjectives used to describe Latinum, the portion of Italy which included Rome.

1. Adj. pertaining to Latinum or the ancient Latins (Romans).

2. Pertaining to, characteristic of, or composed in the language of the ancient Latins.

Italy was the birthplace of the Latin language. The oldest known examples of Latin have been dated back to the 7th century. They are commonly thought to have been originally spoken by Italian Peoples living along the lower end of the Tiber River. As the Romans spread out across Europe they settled in the Iberian Peninsula, a place then known as Hispania and now known as Spain in the modern day. A vulgar form of the Latin language overtook the native Iberian tongue and soon became the dominant language of Spain, this language is what we call Spanish today.

Mexico, Central, and South America have only been speaking Spanish since the 16th Century when the Spaniards brought Spanish to their land. Had Mexico and the area that is now known as Latin America not been colonized by the Spaniards, they’d still be speaking Nahuatl and other native dialects, and would certainly not be classified as Latin.

While Latin is technically considered a dead language by most scholars, the truth is that it never really died, it just became Italian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Today, any culture that speaks a derivation of Latin, whether Italian, French, Portuguese, or Spanish is considered “Latin” the world over, except here in the U.S.A.

In the United States, the Latin, Latino, Latina, or Latinx culture almost exclusively refers to those descended from Mexico, Central, and South America. In fact, in the U.S. the cultural reference to Latin specifically excludes those from European Latin countries.

If we rely on the facts of history, the term “Latin Americans” is only truly an accurate nomenclature for describing Italian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish Americans. So how does the United States get away with only calling everyone from Mexico, Central, and South America “Latins”, while ignoring the facts of history and the true meaning of what it is to be Latin, which includes all of the European Latin populous and their descendants?

How has such an egregious cultural offense occurred without so much as anyone challenging or dissenting the common misconception of it in the United States?