An Overview of Latino and Latin American Identity

The initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA explored Latin American and Latino arts and culture through exhibitions and events in Southern California in fall and winter 2017–18.

As part of the curatorial team for one of the Getty exhibitions, we’ve been asked several times: where is Latin America? What is “Latinx?” Is Spanish the only spoken language in all of Latin America? For anyone wondering the same things, we’ve compiled a guide to the many facets of Latin American and Latino identity.

Defining Latin America

To begin, where is Latin America? Geographically, the term refers to a set of nations belonging to the regions of North America, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Culturally and linguistically, Latin America is defined as nations in the Americas and the Caribbean whose residents predominantly speak Spanish or Portuguese—two of the many languages descended from Latin.

The first use of the term “Latin America” can be traced back to the 1850s in the writings of Michel Chevalier (1806–1879), who employed the term as a way to differentiate the “Latin” peoples from the “Anglo-Saxon” peoples of the Americas, using language to create a geographic distinction.(1)

This definition has proven to be difficult, as there are many nations that are not considered part of Latin America despite their geographic locales. The Guianas, for example, are geographically part of Latin America yet were never occupied by Portugal or Spain, but rather France (French Guiana), the Dutch Empire (Suriname), or the United Kingdom (Guyana). Likewise, many of these nations do not predominantly speak Spanish or Portuguese. There are also other nations that are geographically and culturally related to Latin America, but that are political territories of other nations—such as Puerto Rico, which remains a territory of the United States.

Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico: segun lo organizado y definido por las varias actas del congreso de dicha républica y construido por las mejores autoridades, John Disturnell. New York: J. Disturnell, 1847. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C. 20540-4650

By Chevalier’s definition, all American nations that speak a language of “Latin” origin should be defined as “Latin American.” However, the United States, where Spanish is and was one of the dominant languages, is not technically considered part of Latin America, even though in 1847, Mexico encompassed territories as far north as Oregon and as far east as Utah.

“Latin America” came into wide use only in the middle of the twentieth century. Indigenous peoples inhabited the Americas for thousands of years before the European conquest, and likely did not think of themselves as part of a single geographic entity.

What we consider today as Latin America has been shaped by hundreds of years of European imperialist rule, battles for independence from colonial powers, civil and world wars, and both voluntary and involuntary migration. (The effects of urbanization under colonial rule and after independence are explored in detail in the exhibition The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930, which focuses on the rise and development of six capital cities in Latin America.)

Hispanic, Latin American, Latina/o, Latino@, Latinx…Oh My!

According to the US Census Bureau, the US Hispanic population reached approximately 57 million in 2015. California had the largest Hispanic population of any state (15.2 million), and Los Angeles County had the largest Hispanic population of any county (4.9 million). But what does the term “Hispanic” mean, and whom exactly does the term represent?

The term Hispanic was first introduced by the US Census Bureau in 1970, after groups such as the National Council of La Raza advocated for the category as an alternative to classifying Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican immigrants as “white.” Today Hispanic covers people of a variety of ethnic identities who have origins in Spanish-speaking countries—basically Spain and all of Latin America (minus Brazil, where the official language is Portuguese). The US Census Bureau now counts both Hispanics and Latinos in the same category.

US Postal Service Stamp: “Hispanic Americans, A Proud Heritage.” 1st Day Issue. US Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections, Solomon Bogard Collection (COLL/45)

Photo: licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (CC BY 2.0). Source: USMC Archives on Flickr

Latin America has a rich and diverse history of indigenous cultures, European colonization, African slavery, and global immigration that makes it complex and difficult to describe its people with a single ethnic category or identifier. People in the US who have origins in a Latin American country occasionally self-identify or are referred to as Latin American, but many prefer the term Latino/a (for Latino, masculine, or Latina, feminine).

1,750 Ways to Say Hello

Modern linguistic map of Latin America. Green denotes Spanish-speaking countries; orange denotes Portuguese, and blue French. Map by Fossum. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Picking Coffee Beans, ca. 1885, Marc Ferrez. The Getty Research Institute, Gilberto Ferrez collection of photographs of nineteenth-century Brazil, 92-F242

Get Inspired

Enjoy stories about art, and news about Getty exhibitions and events, with our free e-newsletter

Subscribe now

There is and was a broad diversity of black experience in the Americas. During the colonial period, some free black people and “mulattos” (a colonial term to describe people of interracial parentage) opposed the Spanish imperialist rule, while others participated in various ways in the European conquest. Some of these individuals also worked in Andean chácaras (ranches), owned mule-skinning businesses, ran cacao plantations in Santiago de Guatemala, or worked as farmers and cowboys on Mexico’s Pacific coast, among many other roles.

Children Gathering Firewood in Street, Panama, about 1900. Stereograph. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.XC.870.741

East Asian Diasporas in Latin America

There are 6,000 Chinese restaurants (called chifas) in Peru. Havana is home to one of the oldest Chinatowns in Latin America. There is a flourishing Japanese community in Brazil. Almost 1% of the population of Latin America, over four million people, is of Asian descent. Yet the history of this East Asian diaspora is not well known outside of Latin America.

The so-called “abolition” of the transatlantic African slave trade in 1807 created a vacuum in the free labor force, leading the Portuguese, Spanish, and British Empires to seek new low-wage laborers in East and South Asia. Citizens of these nations were kidnapped, deceived, or sold into indentured servitude, which was equal to slavery in all regards except in name. Laborers from East and South Asia were dispersed throughout Latin America. Laborers of East Asian descent were primarily sent to the Caribbean and Latin America to work on sugar cane, cotton, and coffee plantations, alongside an existing population of African slaves. In Peru, Chinese laborers were integral to the construction of the Andean railroad and worked in the silver mines.

After the abolition of the African slave trade, the owners of Brazil’s numerous coffee plantations were in need of a new labor force. The Japanese government encouraged Japanese laborers to migrate to Brazil and Peru. Although many of these laborers voluntarily agreed to work for a contracted number of years, they became entrapped in the indentured labor system and suffered harsh labor conditions. The subsequent world wars led to more waves of Japanese immigration to Brazil, as did the U.S. exclusion of Asian immigration in 1924, which led many East Asian refugees to seek a home in Latin America. Between 1908 and 1961, approximately 237,000 Japanese people immigrated to Brazil. In Brazil today, 1.3 million people are of Japanese descent—the largest diaspora of Japanese people in the world.

In the early twentieth century, Havana had one of the largest and most vibrant Chinese communities in Latin America. Chinese indentured laborers were brought to work in the sugar and tobacco fields alongside the existing population of African indentured laborers. Chinese laborers fought in Cuba’s Ten Years’ War (1868–78) and were essential in the battle for independence from Spanish rule. Today there are fewer than 150 native Chinese people still living in Cuba, but their traditions still live on. Traditional Chinese opera is still performed, and a reed instrument originating from China, called the corneta china in Cuba, remains a staple of Cuban music.

Chinatown Gate in Havana, Cuba

Photo: Kaldari. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Many of the diasporic populations of both African and Asian descent in Latin America have embraced their dual heritages. Despite the persistence of racism, systemic discrimination, and forced assimilation, many of the Afro and Asian Latinx communities within and outside Latin America continue to celebrate and discover their multilayered heritages.

A New Definition of Latin America

To sum up, the heritage of Latin America blends indigenous, European, African, and Asian peoples, languages, and cultural traditions. There is no one Latin America, or Latino or Latin American culture—rather, it is all these things.

Many modern and contemporary artists have addressed issues of Latin American identity in their work—to discover more, we encourage you to explore the group of Pacific Standard Time exhibitions examining themes of exile, migration, immigration, and borders.