Those of you who know me well, and those of you who know me through my writing, know that one of my pet peeves is the usage of "labels" to box people and art, or art and people, into easily distinguishable categories.One such label is the American invention of the Hispanic (now apparently not a PC term because technically it includes two European nationalities) or Latino label to pass for ethnicity and often and always wrongly for race.
What does that mean in art? And what does it mean to "Latino" artists? Does it mean anything?
If you want to hear my opinion on the subject then start by penciling in October 11, 2012, where starting at 5PM I will be presenting a lecture titled "On Identity in the Arts: What Does It Mean to be Latino?" at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD.
More details later...
Great subject Lenny. I dread the label "latino" or "hispanic" it'll be interesting to hear what you have to say about that.
ReplyDeleteSame situation applies to black Americans who are often labeled 'African-Americans', there is a huge distinction. A gallery owner recently contacted me because she had a client who only purchased art for his collection from 'African-American' artists. She asked, "Do you have any work that says 'you are black'?. This is not the first such inquiry, but I still cringe when I hear it.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are opening up this dialogue. Plan to be there!!
try explaining that to the latino collectiva or whatever name they picked!!!! I definitely will be going to see you Len.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna invite ALL of them to come!
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean to be Anglo?
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteTouche! If there is one ethnic label that is misused and more confusing (the way that it is used here in the US) is "anglo"!
I would guess that about 90% of the time it is used incorrectly... the old WASP term was a little more defined and thus better focused, so there was no way that an American of German, or Irish or Scottish, or French, etc, ancestry would ever be confused with a WASP.
Properly defined I would submit that there are probably not too many "true" Anglos left in the US after 200+ years of cross breeding with other ethnicities... an "anglo" (English) who marries a Scot is now the parent of a half Celt half Anglo child... and so on...
Although the Scots refer to their English neighbors to the South as "Sassanach", which in Gaelic literally means "Saxon" since the modern English are technically Anglo-Saxon and not just Angles...
Count me in! I too resent the term "Latino" or "Hispanic" which people pin on me AFTER they see my last name, because I don'"look" what people think a Hispanic looks like!
ReplyDeleteArmando
I also think people is not conscious the labels they are being imposed to them, they just accept them without questioning. For the reasons you talk about in the NBC Gaffe, an Argentinean with parents coming from Germany cannot technically say he or she is Latino. The same applies to Mayan-Mexicans who come to the US, they have no Latin blood. This mistake is also getting a niche in Spain where people from LA is being called Latinos. It is so stupid to hear them talk about "Latinos" when they are actually more Latin than any of the people they are referring to. An Italian friend of mine used to check "latino" when ever they had him filled forms that asked this until he realized he wasn't understood to be one. He told me, hey but I am the REAL latino!!!
ReplyDeleteI hate being labeled Latino or Hispanic, and nobody in my family likes that either. We came from El Salvador, not from Hispania or Latinia and we are 100% native american/original peoples of Central America.
ReplyDeleteChulo