Why do Puerto Ricans call themselves "Spanish?"

Mexicans call themselves "italian" or "spanish" where I live. Native Americans call themselves "mixed," or "european" or "middle eastern" or "other." Yes it's self-loathing, and sometimes it's an attempt at getting laid by deception.

Here we go.

I though they called themselves "Puerto Ricans."

Why do Americans say they speak English?? They speak American, dammit!

They don't. I live in NYC which has probably the largest Puerto Rican population outside of Puerto Rico, and I've never heard someone say "Spanish" ever.

Only as it pertains to the language we speak- in other words, we may use it as another word to mean Hispanic. Notice we never call ourselves Spaniards, unless there's some ancestry from the old world /mother country involved.

It's not just Puerto Ricans. Dominicans, too.

Must be a Caribbean thing..

I only hear white and black people call Hispanic people "Spanish". I've never heard a Hispanic person call themselves "Spanish". If they do, they are probably only doing it in front of white or black people for ease of understanding

This post is bullshit

The Nuyorican ones have nasty attitudes.

They do not, they're as nice or not nice as any other ethnic group. It depends on that person. What a generalization.

I'm both PR and DR and I have never referred to myself and my tribes as "Spanish". I think folks who are ignorant of all things "foreign" just refer to Latinos as Spanish. I think those of a certain generation don't know the diff and just use Spanish as a blanket word. Those of us from the Carib and Central/South Americas would NEVER call ourselves Spanish although we do acknowledge we have some of that blood.

As a white guy with many Latino friends, none of them ever call themselves Spanish. Some say they have Spanish (or German, Arabic, or Jewish) ancestry, but everyone one claims their nationality based on which particular country they (or their ancestros) were born.

Dominicans hate them, and with good reason. PRs treated them like crap when they arrived to NYC.

R12 Thank you for your post. In addition to the points you make, you also just introduced the word and concept of Carib into this discussion and it is much needed. Please keep talking. Thank you if you choose to do so.

OP we dont refer to ourselves as Spanish. We refer to ourselves as Borinken. Anyway what the fuck does it matter to you how we refer to ourselves?

Because this is DL and we drag everybody through the mud, R16, so grow a thicker skin and stop being such a little bitch.

I like to be in America! Everything free in America!

Thats what you call dragging you fucking idiot. Op is a stupid bitch.

R19 is another stupid, retard, lazy, ghetto Rican who can't even spell. No wonder the mainland Puerto Ricans are embarassed by New York Ricans and their ghetto attitude.

Angry loser wants to get fucked by a PR.

They try to act black and piggyback on black culture.

The Puerto Ricans I've known called themselves "Puerto Rican" and say they speak both Spanish and English.

Black people love our good hair.

No offense R22, but no Puerto Rican I know wants to act black. PR culture is much richer and PRs are more respected than blacks overall.

What does it mean to piggyback on black culture?

I guess they must have been Spanish at some point - where else did the language come from.

R25: Puerto Ricans are not more respected than blacks lol. That is only in your racist PR mind. They are seen as a different side of the same coin (i.e. niggers with good hair). Don't get it twisted.

I am not Puerto Rican.

Nice try though.

R28: but you're still a racist and clueless cunt

Wrong again. I am just observant.

Keep trying

[quote]Mexicans call themselves "italian" or "spanish" where I live. Native Americans call themselves "mixed," or "european" or "middle eastern" or "other." Yes it's self-loathing, and sometimes it's an attempt at getting laid by deception.

I highly doubt Latin American Hispanics are calling themselves Spanish when Latino cultures are notoriously aggressive with those who don't see them as individual ethnicities. Latino Hispanics carry a big chip on their shoulders because around the world people lump them as if they were one group, which ignores the incredible diversity in Latin America. You don't call a Colombian an Aztec, you don't group an Argie with Central Americans, and you definitely don't call a Mexican a Spaniard.

The Southwest has a large population Italian-Mexicans and Spanish-Mexicans (the two most likely Mixtures within the Mexican-American community) and not all are raised in the Mexican culture.

It is more likely that something is getting missed in translation between your ignorance and the real world around you.

[quote] No offense [R22], but no Puerto Rican I know wants to act black

Yes they do,especially emulating hip hop culture and style.

Hip Hop culture happened simultaneously in the Latin community. The Boogie Down has a huge Puerto Rican population which is the birthplace of Hip hop culture as you call it. Try again sad sack.

Hip Hop is not your invention, sorry, but you do deserve credit for that fucking awful reggaeton music, which is quite possibly the most annoying shit in the world!

Look up hip hop in Wikipedia. It was started by Puerto Ricans in the Bronx.

"The South Bronx Hip-Hop scene emerged in the 1960s and 1970s from neighborhood block parties thrown by the Ghetto Brothers, a Puerto Rican group that has been described as being a gang, a club, and a music group"

reggaeton is much better than rap or hip hop, but I always thought it started in Colombia.

What is with all of the ethnic-baiting threads, specifically calling out ethnic groups of New York lately?

There was one about Italians and another about Irish, too. Somebody is trolling hard!

"Can't we all just get along?"

The answer to that, of course, is a resounding NO!!!

They don't. They're proud of being Puerto Rican and they don't care about being perceived as European. At least the nuyoricans I know.

Now when I was a kid in white 1970s Connecticut, all Latino people were "Spanish".

I'm Puerto Rican and first and foremost we never let people forget that. Spanish is basically slang for people who speak Spanish. It does not mean that they want to be Spanish. If someone is describing a person, but they're unsure of their ethnic background, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan, they'll say the person was "Spanish". It's not meant to be taken literally.

Like I said way upthread, r39, sometimes the word "Spanish" is used to lazily substitute for the word "Hispanic."

That's basically the gist of it and this entire thread has decided to drown in a glass of water over it.

Spanish is a language - Spaniard is A nationslitu

A nationality

Para r34

OK, I'm not Hispanic, and I won't mind being corrected by any genuine Puerto Ricans on DL. Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony from 1493 to 1898, when the US acquired it after the Spanish American War. Notice that, unlike other tracts of land the US acquired (often through illegitimate means) , the US has only made half-hearted attempts to absorb Puerto Rico as another state. The language was Spanish for many more years than it's been an American Commonwealth. I'm a Midwestern American, and have never met a Puerto Rican in real life, although I'm friendly with one I adore here on DL. As a US citizen, I have to clarify, sometimes, that I can only read or write (or understand) English. Why would a Puerto Rican not use the same reasoning to claim 'Spanish' (the language, not the ethnicity)?

As others have said, they don't.

OP is just a shit-stirring troll.

Nasty, aggressive, defensive people. Ain't nobody jealous of no motherfucking PRs. The Puerto Rican Day parade is the biggest joke in NYC!

And they try to be all buddy-buddy with black people. Clowns.

Let's get together, R2 . This will only end in tears! I refuse to read this thread beyond your post, R2 .

Thanks for tucking and hiding when I did, R2 .

[quote]I'm a Midwestern American, and have never met a Puerto Rican in real life,

As a person from the Northeast, this statement just blows my mind.

It makes perfect sense. There aren't many in California at all. I grew up in the shadow of all the Central Americans. It was always interesting to visit my family in NYC and CT.

These threads are SO stupid. Yes, OP, everybody of a single ethnic group possesses the same exact characteristics...

R46 stop projecting. You are obviously determined on promoting your hatred towards Puerto Ricans.

r25, you clearly are Puerto Rican. No one who isn't PR (whole or part) would give enough of a shit about PRs' role in the creation of hip hop to defend it the way you have. Whether you admit it or not, we know you're PR.

Exactly, r27. To a non-black, non-PR, PRs are just a darkie that can speak Spanish. It's hilarious r25 thinks such a person would care enough to parse any differences.

R25, as a fellow Puerto Rican, I'm a little embarrassed by your statement. There are many black Puerto Ricans...so you must be confused.

R53, darkie? Where in the fuck do you people come from?

[Quote]but no Puerto Rican I know wants to act black.

[Italic]Nuyoricans[/italic] are the ones who tend to have an African-American influenced culture. Many Puerto Ricans learned their English from Blacks, and American Black culture played a role in certain types of New York Puerto Rican music.

[quote]There aren't many in California at all.

There are over 200,000 here, largely concentrated in Southern California.

And yet they make fun of Dominicans for being black.

R57, I grew up in San Francisco. I knew very few.

I have notice the Puerto Ricans in the Southwest speak more like Mexicans, the famous Puerto Rican accent is not as pronounced as it is with NYricans.

I'm R25 and am as white as they come. Ancestry is Wesrern European. I happen to have many close friends who are Puerto Rican (and Dominican, Mexican, South American, as well as Black and Asian). I would say that from my perspective, Caribbeans have a lot of cultural similarities (including Venezuelans who live by the coast) with one another as do Central Americans with each other.

None of my Latin friends listen to gangsta rap or pure hip hop. Was Latin music and fashion from NYC influenced by the music and fashion of other enthic groups from the same neighborhoods? Certainly. But so was "white" pop music and clothes whites wear today. Same with Asian clothing trends. Culture is much more than music and clothing. Culturally speaking (traditions, values, work ethic, ability to assimilate, what they find humorous, food) ... African American blacks and Puerto Ricans of any color are two totally different groups. Of course this is my experience. I'm sure you can find examples to debate my argument. There are so many white girls who (other than their skin color) are "blacker" than most African Americans. (Think slicked back died red hair with a pony tail of kinky frizz, huge hoop earrings, ebonic speak, huge ass in tight jeans, pushing a baby stroller with with two mixed race babies). They are like the poster of black girl stereotype while most black women I know dress much more stylish and act (by conventional American standards) much classier.

I don't think I've ever encounters girls like that here in the US, R61. But what you described does definitely sound familiar among the urban lower class girls in the UK, the whole subculture is pretty much ridiculed as 'chav' by the class obsessed British.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Puerto Ricans that I know refer to themselves as just that- Puerto Ricans.

Could you be any dumber OP? Get a hobby.

Some Puerto Ricans do want a reunification with Spain, though mainly for economic and autonomy reasons.

[Quote]“In reality it was an integral part of Spain. The US invaded us in 1898, and they separated us against our will.”

[Quote]“Puerto Ricans love the Spanish people; we’re Spanish. We want to return to the country to which we belong,” said the 43-year-old.

I wonder if Spain would hand out endless benefits to them, like the US does.

[Quote]I wonder if Spain would hand out endless benefits to them, like the US does.

Interesting question. As part of Spain and the European Union, they would probably receive comparable benefits, perhaps even more in regard to education and health care. They would also probably have voting representation in Spain's parliament (Puerto Rican residents have no voting representation in the US Congress, nor can they vote for president).

The only people I've ever heard refer to various American ethnicities as "Spanish" are now elderly white people from Back East. They mean "Hispanic" by it - or Spanish-speaking.

Also - Oldsters think saying "Spanish" is more polite than saying "Mexican" or "Puerto Rican". Lol - which goes to show that they think those words are insulting enough on their own to need a euphemism.

[Quote]The only people I've ever heard refer to various American ethnicities as "Spanish" are now elderly white people from Back East.

Black people in New York would say it that way, too. In fact, everyone did - including me. It was the typical way to generally describe anyone from a Spanish-speaking culture. Of course, I use "Latino" now (unless one is actually [italic]from[/italic] Spain.

I do, however, remember [italic]certain[/italic] New York Puerto Ricans referring to themselves as "Spanish," in an effort to play down their ethnicity. There was a certain stigma in being Puerto Rican in those days, especially if you wanted to assimilate to mainstream American culture. I don't think that happens much anymore.

zzzz

The ones I know, and I know plenty, identify as Puerto Rican or Latino. Some also use Hispanic, although that id dying out in favor of Latino. No one I know calls them "Spanish" except old and out of touch white people who haven't even caught up to Hispanic let alone Latino. No Latinos that I know identify as Spanish unless they are directly descended from Iberian Spaniards on one or both sides of their family, which is rare in general and extremely rare for Puerto Ricans, who are predominently mixed (which means Spanish and Taino, and likely some African).

Calling Latinos from the Americas "Spanish" would be like calling Anglo North Americans "English." It makes no sense.

Most of them I know use decidedly un-Spaniard urban black vernacular.

dominicans call themselves crazy delicious

My Puerto Rican friends have told me that Puerto Rico was a Spanish penal colony. The Spaniards couldn't keep Spanish colonists on the island so they resorted to sending prisoners. and some of whom intermarried with the native Taíno Indians.

Today, Puerto Ricans call themselves "homeless."

My bf is Puerto Rican. His father's side is almost pure Spanish. His mother is a Spanish and native mix.

Where do you think people who speak Spanish originate from? Antarctica?

They are total trash!!

I know alot of people of Mexican-American decent here in the U.S.will claim to be Spanish because of the negative stereotypes and attitudes towards Mexicans in American culture. They go to huge lengths to draw straight lines between themselves and Spain even though they are clearly of Mexican heritage.

Claiming Spanish heritage is a way of distancing yourself from that stigma and trying to be perceived more favorably. Mexican culture is a rich and vibrant culture, but instead of embracing it, they deny it by identifying some distant Spanish relative who came to Mexico in the 1800s- but whose descendants somehow remained Spanish despite numerous generations in Mexico. 🙄. It’s akin to me claiming to be English rather than. American because I can trace an ancestor who arrived from England in 1803.

I’ve had a number of Americans ask me if I speak Spanish or “Mexican”, with the ignorant question demonstrating their obvious cultural bias. And if I told them I spoke French that would be even more impressed because it is seen as culturally superior. Obviously in their mind, one is “better” than the other. It’s all so dumb.

The English men who were settlers in North America waited for the "Maiden Voyages." Ships full of Englishwomen.

They did not care to intermarry with the indigenous women, like the Spanish men did.

I disagree, R5. The Puerto Ricans I know are proudly Puerto Rican but feel they have an affinity and connection to Spain and Spanish history. Why do you ask?

Never heard of anyone from PR claiming Spanish heritage. Usually it’s from bougie Latinos trying to seem more European and less Latin American. Classism is huge so for many hanging your hat on something that sets you apart from the rabble is a big deal for those in the upper classes. If your ancestors were Spanish, great, but if the last 3 generations of your family were Puerto Rican, that makes you Puerto Rican.

The flip side is how some Americans claim Native American heritage because some great aunt 10 generations back might have been Cherokee. 🙄

I know English speaking Puerto Ricans call themselves Port Riches