By Marlene Peralta
AM New York (October 7, 2010)

October is Hispanic Heritage Month, but the name of the observance is, for some, fraught with ambivalence, since many Latin American New Yorkers do not identify with the word Hispanic.

Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, said there are multiple reasons why people stick to Hispanic, which national surveys show to be the preference, and others are embracing Latino to describe their heritage.

Hispanic is used to identify all those with Spanish heritage, but some "prefer not connecting ourselves with colonizers," he explained.

John Jay Latin American studies professor Suzanne Oboler said the term Hispanic enjoyed new prevalence in the United States as a way to measure integration following the civil rights movement. That's why the federal government chose the term Hispanic, first used in the 1980 Census.

The term Hispanic has a long history, though. The phrase was used to describe Spanish speakers who came to the southwest U.S. On the other hand, the word Latino rose as a grassroots term, part of the Chicano movement.

"They complained, saying 'we don't want to be called Hispanics because it leaves out most of us since we are all mixed.'"

In fact, Oboler said, "Afro-Latinos were left out, indigenous [people] whose relation to Spain [was] not of ancestry but of oppression and suppression."

Both experts agree that Latino and Hispanic were both created in the U.S., and Latino made it into the 2000 Census. That also benefited Brazilians. "They had no category, they are not Hispanics, they are not African-Americans, they have Portuguese ancestry."

They also point out that the younger generation also seems to be embracing the term Latino.

"They are calling themselves Latino more often than they call themselves Americans, due to exclusion from racial prejudice, [doesn't] make them feel that they belong," added Oboler.

For Falcon, it's an "idea in constant motion."

"Some people prefer their national origin but that also is changing; we are in the middle of all that change."