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    What Does it Mean to be Latino?

    By Jeremy | January 31, 2005

    My dad goofs on me because I claim to be Latino. He's got a point, I guess, because (a) I don't speak Spanish (well), (b) I look like a white boy, and (c) his wife, my mother, is about as northern European as Americans come -- her parents both immigrated to the States from Norway. While I root for Norway in the Winter Olympics and my in-laws all call my son "Viking Baby," my surname's Del Rio. I have close relationships with my abuelo, three sets of aunts and uncles, and seven first cousins who live in Puerto Rico, plus I've met dozens of extended family there. In contrast, I've never met most of my relatives from Norway. I've always felt most at home in a predominantly Nuyorican neighborhood. And my closest friends are Latino. I love the fact that I even get to have this debate about my ethnicity. Is there anywhere else but America where I could father a child who is equal parts Puerto Rican, Norwegian, Irish, and Italian and who will probably marry a Carib-Afro-Asian-Latina? What a great country. It's a shame, though, that race-baiters and ethnocentrists try to incite divisions where they need not exist. Thank God for RC and others who are fighting back.

    Topics: community, latino, multiethnic, norway, puerto rico, race, urban | 2 Comments »

    2 Responses to “What Does it Mean to be Latino?”

    1. Katie Sweeting Says:
      February 1st, 2005 at 4:16 pm

      I smiled when I read your blog, Jeremy. Raising three sons who are African-Irish American, I can identify with both your joy and your angst. My middle son is thoroughly ensconced in an Asian church, and may well marry an Asian woman. So I guess their kids would be African-Irish-Chinese! And beautiful, no doubt. What bugs me is when people, society, forms make bi- and multi-racial people choose one ethnicity to identify with. Maybe they have a mixed background and identify with more than one race. Mix it up! Finally, on the census forms a person can check more than one box. It’s about time!!!

    2. Bob Says:
      February 2nd, 2005 at 1:31 pm

      Ah, yes, I have two adopted sons, one African-American, one African-American/Jamaican. My grandmother, also a Norwegian, has great grandchildren that are White (of which one is handicapped), Chinese and Black, grandchildren that are White, Jewish, Morrocan, and Catalanian (not sure if that’s said correctly, but from an area within Spain called Catalan). A granddaughter who lives in Singapore and a daughter who spent many years in Guatemala and serves as the local hospital’s primary translator. Needless to say, family gatherings are pretty interesting.