I didn't say I didn't know the difference. I said I don't see a difference. To me it is the same as being someone else being called White or Caucasian.
At what point do you draw the line? How much does someone have to know before they can be considered culturally educated? What if they know everything there is to know about the culture but still chose to use the word Hispanic? What then?

So you know the difference between "Hispanic" and "Latino" but still use them interchangeably? That's interesting.

To add to that both my parents, both born and raised in Mexico, prefer Hispanic over Latino(a). My mom says she dislikes the word Latina. I don't know why, they have never explained it to me.

Your phrasing is prejudicial on the matter.

Try:
"So you know that some people see a value difference between the two labels, yet since you do not see such a difference you have no particular preference about how you identify? That's interesting!"

Yea, sure, um, duly noted for next time. :cool:

Let me get this straight...

Not caring about something that you were born with (thus, you have no control over it), makes you a sell out?

I just don't get it. Do you also deeply care about other stuff you don't control that affect you like the weather?

You don't have this straight and you do not understand.

In my experience and part of the country, when a person chooses to call himself/herself Hispanic, that person is taking care to signal to others that while he/she may have been born into a culture, he/she is CHOOSING to distance him or herself from it. That is different than simply "not caring" what you are born into.

It's like saying, "I'm Latino, but don't group me in with all 'those people' because I am different."

There might be another word in another region of the country that fits here, but in my case, it's "Hispanic."

Cultural assimilation is a bitch.

Why would it matter what culture someone was born into? It's not like you are responsible for it. It's not like you created the culture. You simply had the fortune or misfortune to be born into it. Why should anyone care about it? Something to be born into is beyond control. I have a trouble understanding why anyone would care about something that they did not accomplish or have any future control over. I guess my basic question is: Why shouldn't someone distance themselves from a culture?

Anecdotally speaking, my workplace puts me in a position to speak with around a hundred of hispanics/latinos a day. I don't believe I have heard anyone even once refer to themselves as latinos. The most common reference even is "Spanish" in terms of their race/ethnicity and not Hispanic. So you got a long way to go before your word-holocaust happens.

I don't believe that for one minute.

You don't have to.

Under-educated and possibly illiterate people will tend to say things like that. From what I have come to understand of my workforce, their issue is not skin-color but the language barrier. Thus the issue between them and someone who is Anglo or Teutonic, is Spanish. El Hefe who is hispanic but does not speak a word of Spanish is still called white.

What I do love of hispanic culture is the mom's willingness to hook you up with their daughters. I told one mom that I was going to Puerto Vallarta in a couple weeks...she is wanting her daughter in Mexico to meet me there. I wish all cultures/ethnicities would embrace this.

I'm glad that people know that we're not born "as" or "with" race, ethnicity, and culture but are instead placed "into" race, ethnicity, and culture.

Language can definitely be a barrier. However, language is not the only barrier in a larger sense, even if you don't notice that in your specific workforce. Evidence of this in a larger sense can be found when examining "white Hispanics" who are able to physically, politically, and economically assimilate into whiteness (and the white diaspora). The language barrier is buffered as a result.

Similar to Noel Ignatiev's How the Irish Became White is "how the 'white Hispanics' became/become white."

That only applies to those particular mothers' willingness to hook their daughters up. Don't stereotype.

Agreed.

Although, in my opinion, even dark Hispanics will eventually assimilate into "whiteness" as well.. It's already happening. Might take a little bit longer than the lighter hispanics.

I shouldn't have because it also applies to the Laotian and Vietnamese within my workforce. Going to a Laotian Buddhist Temple celebration next weekend because a Laotian lady wants to set me up with someone. I will oblige.

No, nonwhite "Hispanics" will never assimilate into whiteness. Those who speak English will assimilate into America in terms of nationalism; and those who are Black Hispanic will assimilate into Black America. They will never be unidentifiable as "not white." People have to be unidentifiable as "the other" in order to assimilate into whiteness.