Part 1
The Historical Definition
It all begins with the central Italian region knows as "Latium." This region was the home of various groups of people each
with their own tribe and agenda. These people had Latin as a common language and from among them came the Roman city-state.
According to legend, Rome was founded in April 21, 753 B.C.; and was called Rome after it’s first ruler Romulus. The
Romans spoke Latin which they latter made the official language of the Roman Empire. As their conquest expanded throughout
most of Europe they gave rise to the "Romantic" languages. It was not till latter in history that the word Latin or "Latino"
became a term to identify the people who shared linguistic roots to the Latin language. These linguistic Latins became the
Spanish, French, Portuguese, and of course the Italians themselves.
The Method of Conquest
Roman imperialists would subjugate the conquered people by appointing governors to rule the conquered
lands. This action facilitated the course of cultural diffusion*.
As it is customary that people’s fashions and tastes are often carved by those that form the governing elite then it
is also most natural that the subordinate population would strive for these fashions and customs since they would be seen
as a token of the upper class. People tend to be motivated towards moving up the social scale and they often idolize the fashions
of the ruling elite in order to get a sense moving out of their lower condition. This is much in the same way that today’s
youngsters emulate the ideas and customs of the older kids in order to get a sense of what is cool so that they can
also be cool by imitation.
The Romans would also morally justify their conquest by saying it was their mission to "civilize" the
world they perceived outside themselves. But of course they fooled no one and their clear intention was hegemonic control.
They would paint the outside (non Roman) world as being barbaric and primitive and view themselves as being modern and civilized;
this made them feel superior to the rest of the world and gave them a sense of mission or duty to civilize. (this ideology
was latter resonate in Spanish and English imperialism and then again in the form of "Manifest Destiny" in the United States’s
western expansion). The conquest and imperialist expansion of the Romans was both militarily and linguistic; with their
language being the main carrier of their people’s culture. Although they did not force the conquered people to
adopt every aspect of their culture and daily life they did pave the way for cultural diffusion when their language became
the standard means of communication amongst the empire. This was precisely what made their conquest all the more effective
and more stable than those who would rely on tactics of fear and intimidation. The conquered people would lose just enough
sense of their autonomy and self-identity in becoming Latinized that they would rarely want to ward off the invader.
I know that it was not a total cultural conquest and that most people retained their individual identity, but they would only
need to subjugate key persons among the ruling elite of those they sought to conquer in order for the rest of the population
to follow suit.
Let me place you in perspective. Say you are an emperor and you want to conquer a country just across the sea. First you
know that you cannot kill every single citizen of that country so you would need to devise a method of permanent subservience.
A lengthy military campaign required to keep the conquered villagers in check will cost you labor and money; both of which
are costly and unprofitable which would render your empire useless, unstable, and prone to collapse. The solution that the
Romans found was to turn the conquered people into your subjects so that they live to serve your interests. Your purpose is
to acquire wealth and territory as fast as possible and in such a way that the conquered people themselves wont revolt against
you in the future. The best way to accomplish this is to propagate among the commoners the idea that you offer something better,
this will get the common people’s attention. This sort of propaganda will also muffle any moral objection to your campaign
from among your own ranks. Soldiers will be less likely to think that what they are doing is wrong if they are lead to believe
they are doing something good such as bringing the light of civilization unto these people. But these people’s rulers
will be reluctant to give up their power or may be patriotic enough to battle you to the death. So you will eventually need
to send a surgical military campaign to take them out by force and at the same time convince the people that you are bringing
the light of civilization to them and that your language and your customs are better than their former ways (If any of this
sounds familiar to recent events it is purely an astronomical coincidence). So now that you have taken out their rules you
will need to implement your own dummy rulers which will be loyal to you and will do your bidding.
This new puppet government will naturally carry on your language and your ways so as to maintain clear communication and
comfortable familiarity despite the rest of the village being completely alien to you. The new government
will have control of the lines of communication. And upon doing so they will express the culture of the conqueror while
the people of the lower class observe them as I explained above thence diffuse it unto the general populace. Over time the
receiving end will become indoctrinated in this new culture and new way of thinking that they will identify with it and believe
they are one with the conqueror. Thus you have now fully conquered not just this country’s land and riches but also
the minds of it’s people who now serve you believing you did them a favor while you suckle at their labor and wealth
and die a fat old wealthy tyrant.
This little example may have been a crude outline of the habits of conquest but the point I was trying to make is that
the Roman empire showed Europe a better method to set out in their own colonies. Why send armies to fight another nation when
you can just take over the people’s mentality and have them serve you willingly under an identity you created for them?
I hope that by now you have opened your eyes at the sort of warfare we fight in the
21st centuy. A war that you cannot see nor hear nor taste nor touch, a war for the conquest of your mind.
Rome conquers Spain
The Roman’s conquest of the Iberian Peninsula is key in moving through the history of the modern term "Latino." In
the Iberian Peninsula, which is modern day Spain and Portugal, the Romans found a city called Hispalis (Modern day Seville).
It is not clear if Hispalis was originally Greek or Phoenician. From the name it appears that the city was originally a Greek
colony (Hispalus was a mythical Greek hero who was related to Hercules). The Romans eventually annexed the Iberian peninsula
and made it a province which they called Hispania, most probably named after the city of Hispalis. Right here it should be
understood, that the word EspaZa (Spain) comes from the Latin word Hispania and
not the other way around and some believe. Latter on it was probably the Anglo-Saxons who, having difficulty pronouncing the
Latin word Hispania, coined the English term, "Hispanic."
I see no need to elaborate on the dealings of Rome with Spain except to say that the Spanish had been much influenced by
the Romans. The Roman language, as we all know, gave root to the Spanish language which was carried by the Spaniards unto
Mexico.
Spain Invades Mexico
Up to this point Mexico is nowhere in this picture. This is because Latino is a European concept that
did not apply to this continent until Columbus stumbled unto us. So how did it ever become associated to all the people
south of the U.S. border? I don’t mean just Mexicans I am including all those other unrelated groups who have also been
branded to be Latinos such as Whites (Ricky Martin), Blacks (Sammy Sosa), Native Americans (Benito Juarez), Japanese (Alberto
Fujimori) etc. The answer is: European cultural diffusion through imperialism which as I stated followed in the footsteps
of the Roman Empire.
It all started when someone decided that Europe had "discovered" a whole new continent despite it having it’s own
civilizations and thousands of years of history and languages. Europeans began to invade and colonize our world and with them
they carried the legacy of the Roman empire, the new conquered people of the Americas have been branded
to be Latinos just as the Romans would brand and Latinize all the people they would conquer. This basically means that
by calling Mexicans Latinos you are implying that we are only an extension of the Spanish and not our own country.
The manner in which the conquest was carried out here in the Americas is this: after the Spanish overthrew the Aztec Empire
they established a new government in order to organize and rule over us. Sound familiar?
This system was called the Ecomienda. Under this rule the Spanish conquistadores, now dubbed encomenderos,
were given a quota as to how many Native American slaves each could have; roughly less than 300 each. They also enjoyed the
right to tax and organize the masses under each encomendero’s rule. The Spanish claim that the Ecomienda system was
set in place in order to evangelize and treat Native Americans fairly. Even the Pope at the time, Alexander VI, had his hands
in the matter when he sent out a Papal bull from Rome called Inter Caetera in 1493 that stated that he granted our
land to the Spanish crown in condition that they evangelize the natives and bring us the light of their civilization. Feeling
DéjB vu yet?
The Spanish of course did not care for the part of evangelizing, they were here to plunder our land and immediately began
to brutalize our people and exploit them, often forced labor to mine for precious metals, beatings, branding with hot metal,
infanticide, genocide, and rape. During the whole colonial period the degradation of our people was so bad that another papal
bull was sent forth to try and stop the abuse of our people from the Spanish.
In the words of Stephen Greenblatt citing Lewis Hanke: "[t]he debate (wether Native Americans were human or not) was dampened
but by no means extinguished by Pope Paul III’s condemnation, in the bull Sublimis Deus (1537), of the opinion
that the ‘Indians are dumb brutes created for our service’ and ‘incapable of receiving the Catholic faith’"(Greenblatt
11). All the while this is happening the communication back and forth between Mexico, Spain, and Rome as well as all of Europe
was carried on in Latin. This language was the standard and scholarly medium of communication in Europe at the time.
Spain itself spoke a language with Latin roots. In their quest to evangelize the natives of
the Americas they gradually implemented their language unto them. This is why in Mexico Spanish
is the common language, although not the official one (Mexico has no official language: Title 1, Chapter 1 of the Mexican
Constitution).
Due to their own racism and prejudice they never fully indoctrinated our people into believing we are Spanish, the only
ones who placed any real effort were the Catholic missionaries. Often those born in Spain would discriminate those born in
Mexico despite being full blooded Spanish. But despite this incompetence the language de facto in colonial Mexico was Spanish.
To call someone a Latino back then was something obscure. The term was in place though but it was not a mainstream generic
term as we have it today. When one reads the work of Manuel P. Servin in his book titled "The Mexican Americans" one notices
that the early Spanish chroniclers would prefer racial profiling (Mestizo, Blanco, Zambo, Negro, Criollo etc) as opposed to
a generic term like Latino.
Footnotes:
*Cultural Diffusion: Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries.
-Greenblatt, Stephen. "Learning to Curse: Aspects of Linguistic Colonialism in the Sixteenth Century." Ed. Fredi
Chiapelli. First images of America: The Impact of New World on the Old. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996.
