AFRO-LATINO-AMERICAN WE ARE: Haitian is a Demonym

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Haiti:

The population of Haiti is 8.7 million, of which 95% are of African descent and the remaining 5% is mulatto and white.[28]

Marabou is a term of Haitian origin denoting a Haitian of multiracial ethnicity.

The term describes the offspring of a Black African/European or mulatto and an Amerindian, specifically the native Taíno, born in Haiti (formerly Saint-Domingue).

The heavy population of Africans on the island established by the French and Spanish diluted the generations of so-called "marabous" over the decades and virtually all Haitians today of supposed Amerindian descent are assumed to also possess African ancestry.

Several other terms exist for the marabou racial mixture in other countries (see Cafuzo, Zambo).

Haiti is an Afro-Latin nation with strong African contributions to the culture as well as its language, music and religion.

To a lesser degree French, Spaniard, and in rare occasions (food, art, and folk religion) Taino and Arab customs are present in society.

Racial and ethnic distinctions:

Terms used within Latin America which pertain to black heritage include mulato (black - white mixture), and zambo (indigenous - black mixture) and moreno.

Mestizo refers to an indigenous - white mixture.

The term mestizaje refers to the intermixing or fusing of races, whether by mere custom or deliberate policy.

In Latin America this happened extensively between all the racial groups and cultures, but usually involved European men and indigenous and African women.

Unions of white females and non-white males were almost taboo.

These distinctive terms were used in part to distinguish between different social strata in which the Europeans and criollos (people of pure European heritage born in the Americas) who generally were the ruling and administrative parties were at the top, and the African and Indian races who were the laboring class were at the bottom.

The offspring of mixed marriages generally occupied a status closer to that of the father's, thereby putting children with a black or Indian father at a disadvantage.[9]

Contentious issues:

Several issues arise from the theme of African Latin American.

One is based on the selection of countries normally included in the definition of Latin America which, being based on the language spoken, excludes all countries in the geographical area, such as Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, where the people do not speak a Latin-based language.

As a result several countries which have significant Black heritage are excluded from study.

From a strictly statistical point of view, it is perfectly valid to collect data concerning a group defined by one criterion (Blackness) within another group defined by other factors (Language), however, if you change the definition of either group, then the results obtained will also be subject to change.

Another issue is the validity of the numbers of people who are classified as Black.

In many countries the people who are counted as "black" or some mixture is based on choices made by individuals in responding to census questionnaires who may, or may not, define themselves as black based on their own ideas or specific cultural biases concerning blackness.

In the late 1990s it has become possible to determine racial origin by studying certain DNA factors in individuals, however, this practice is not widely used, to date.

A further issue is that of the validity of racial identity.

In some countries, it is believed that there has been an almost universal homogenization of the races and there have been attempts in other countries, such as Colombia, to eliminate racial differences by encouraging inter-racial marriages.

History:

People of African origin probably first arrived in the Americas with the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries.

For example, Pedro Alonso Niño, traditionally considered the first of many New World explorers of African descent [7] was a navigator in the 1492 Columbus expedition.

Those who were directly from Africa mostly arrived in Latin America as part of the Atlantic slave trade, as agricultural, domestic and menial laborers and as mineworkers.

They were also employed in mapping and exploration (for example, Estevanico) and were even involved in conquest (for example, Juan Valiente).

They were mostly brought from West Africa and Central Africa in what are now the nations of Nigeria, Benin, Angola and Congo, There are two major groups, the Yoruba and the Bantu.

Most of the slaves were sent to Brazil, Peru and the Caribbean, but lesser numbers went to Colombia and Venezuela.

Countries with significant black, mulatto, or zambo populations today include Brazil (86 million), Colombia (10 million), Haiti (8.7 million), Dominican Republic (8 million), Cuba (7 million), and Puerto Rico (20%-46%).

Recent genetic research in UPR Mayaguez has brought to light that 26.4% of Puerto Ricans have African heritage on the X chromosome and 20% on the Y chromosome, thus between 20%-46% of the Puerto Rican population has African heritage.[8] (For more on this see Demographics of Puerto Rico).

Traditional terms for Afro-Latin Americans with their own developed culture include Garífuna (in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize), cafuzo or mameluco (in Brazil), and zambo in the Andes and Central America.

Marabou is a term of Haitian origin denoting a Haitian of multiracial ethnicity.

The term describes the offspring of a Black African/European or mulatto and an Amerindian, specifically the native Taíno, born in Haiti (formerly Saint-Domingue).

The heavy population of Africans on the island established by the French and Spanish diluted the generations of so-called "marabous" over the decades and virtually all Haitians today of supposed Amerindian descent are assumed to also possess African ancestry.

Several other terms exist for the "marabou" racial mixture in other countries.

The mix of these African cultures with the Spanish, Portuguese, French and indigenous cultures of Latin America has produced many unique forms of language (e.g., Palenquero, Garífuna and Creole), religions (e.g., Candomblé, Abakuá, Santería, Lucumi and Vodou), music (e.g., salsa, bachata, cumbia, Palo de Mayo, plena), samba, martial arts (capoeira) and dance (rumba, merengue).

Many of these cultural expressions have become pervasive in Latin America.

Afro-Latin American:

An Afro-Latin American (also Afro-Latino) is a Latin American person of at least partial African ancestry; the term may also refer to historical or cultural elements in Latin America thought to emanate from this community.[1] The term can refer to the mixing of African and other cultural elements found in Latin American society such as religion, music, language, the arts and social class.

The term African Latin American, as used in this article refers specifically to black African ancestry and not to European colonial or Arab African ancestry, such as Arab Moroccan or white South African ancestry.[2] The term is not widely used in Latin America outside of academic circles.

Normally Afro Latin Americans are called "black" (in Spanish negro, in Portuguese negro or preto).

More commonly, when referring to cultural aspects of African origin within specific countries of Latin America, terms carry an Afro- prefix followed by the relevant nationality.

Notable examples include Afro-Cuban (Spanish:Afro Cubano)[3] and Afro-Brazilian.[4] However usage varies considerably from nation to nation.

The accuracy of statistics reporting on African Latin Americans has been questioned, especially where they are derived from census reports in which the subjects choose their own designation, due to the fact that in all countries the concept of black ancestry is viewed with differing attitudes.

In the United States of America African Latinos make up the Hispanic population, along with whites, Amerindians (including mestizo and Asian).

Of a total Latin American population of 549,549,000, an estimated 100 million are Afro Latin-American.

[5][6] Approximately 5% of the Latin American population identify themselves, or are classified by census takers, as being primarily of black ancestry.

A further 16% of the population is mulatto, while Zambos are a small minority.

By combining all three, another definition of Afro-Latin American is arrived at, one that in Latin America would be widely considered overly broad.

(In fact, it would more resemble the one drop rule commonly accepted in the United States).

By such a definition, about one-fourth of Latin America's population would be African Latin American.

Another fairly large minority probably has at least some black African ancestry.

Demonym
A demonym or gentilic is a word that denotes the members of a people or the inhabitants of a place.

In English, a demonym is often the same as the name of the people's native language: e.g., the "French" (people from France).

The word comes from the Greek word for 'populace' (&#948;&#8134;&#956;&#959;&#962; demos) plus the suffix -onym and was popularized in 1997 by Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in his book Labels for Locals.[1] The term is not widely employed or known outside geographical circles and does not appear in mainstream dictionaries.

It is used by some geographers, both online and within their studies and teaching.[2]

The dictionary aggregation site OneLook.com only finds the word in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and The Word Spy, and not in any print dictionaries.

[3] The alternative gentilic is even less frequently used, and only two references can be found through OneLook.com, both citing Wikipedia as the source, one of the citations being this page.[4]

Some places, particularly smaller cities and towns, may not have an established word for their residents; toponymists have a particular challenge in researching these.

See also ethnonym -- An ethnonym (Gk. &#941;&#952;&#957;&#959;&#962; ethnos, 'tribe', + &#972;&#957;&#959;&#956;&#945; onoma, 'name') is the name applied to a given ethnic group.

Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (where the name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms (where the name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).

As an example, the ethnonym for the ethnically dominant group in Germany is the Germans.

This ethnonym is an exonym used by the English-speaking world, although the term itself is derived from Latin.

Conversely, Germans themselves use the autonym of Deutsch.

The English language uses several models to create demonyms.

The most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location's name, slightly modified in some instances.

These may be modelled after Late Latin, Semitic or Germanic suffixes, such as:

(Korea&#8594; Korean,
America &#8594; American,
India &#8594; Indian,
San Diego &#8594; San Diegan,
Haiti &#8594; Haitian,
Rome &#8594; Roman,
Australia &#8594; Australian)

Variations:

Numerous ethnonyms can apply to the same ethnic or racial group, with various levels of recognition, acceptance and use. The State Library of South Australia contemplated this issue when considering Library of Congress Headings for literature pertaining to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Some 20 different ethnonyms were considered as potential Library of Congress headings, but it was recommended that only a fraction of them be employed for the puposes of cataloguing[1].

Change over time:

Ethnonyms can take on a political aspect over time, when they evolve from socially acceptable terms to socially unacceptable terms.

For instance, the term Gypsy has been used to refer to the Roma. Other examples include Vandal, Bushman, Barbarian and Philistine.

The ethnonyms applied to African Americans have demonstrated a greater evolution; older terms such as colored carried negative connotations and have been replaced by modern-day equivalents such as black or African-American[2].

Other ethnonyms such as negro have a different status.

The term was considered acceptable in its use by activists such as Martin Luther King in the 1960s[3], but other activists took a different perspective.

In discussing an address in 1960 by Elijah Muhammad, it was stated "to the Muslims, terms like Negro and colored are labels created by white people to negate the past greatness of the black race"[4].

Four decades later, a similar difference of opinion remains.

In 2006, one commentator suggested that the term is outdated or offensive in many quarters[5], although its use remains in organisations such as the United Negro College Fund[6].

In this context, an ethnonym has the potential to mimic the phenomenon of the euphemism treadmill.

Linguistics:

Main article - demonym in English, ethnonyms are generally formulated through suffixation; by applying an -n to people of Austria, their nationality is known as Austrian.

Ethnonyms can be used erroneously in determining the language spoken by an ethnic group.

A child may assume that people from India speak "Indian"[7], despite there being no such language which is called by that name.

Popular Culture

The subjectivity and occasional confusion with ethnonyms was demonstrated in The Simpsons episode Much Apu About Nothing:

Apu: Today, I am no longer an Indian living in America.

I am an Indian-American.

Lisa: You know, in a way, all Americans are immigrants.

Except, of course Native Americans.

Homer: Yeah, Native Americans like us.
Lisa: No, I mean American Indians.

Apu: Like me.

Wilgeens Rosenberg, May 26 2008, 3:13 PM

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