16 i Latine—Wait, or is it supposed to be Hispanic, Latino, Latinx or Chicano? (Dr. Jerry Garcia, Daniel Padron)

• Timespan: 44 minutes and 09 seconds
• Transcription Type: Cleaned Verbatim
• Speakers: (Dr. Jerry Garcia, Daniel Padron & Raj Sundar)

00:00

Raj Sundar: Hi, you're listening to Healthcare for Humans Podcast, the podcast dedicated to educating you on how to care for culturally diverse communities, so you can be a better healer. This is about everything that you wish you knew, to really care for the person in front of you, not just a body system. Let's learn together. Welcome to Healthcare for humans. Today, we're starting a new journey with the launch of our Latin  series. With so many communities and topics to cover, I've decided to have multiple series running simultaneously. Many of the recent episodes have talked about the AAPI community, the Asian American Pacific Islander community and there are many other topics and communities to cover there. But I didn't want to delay the release o f the Latin A series. So I'm kicking it off today with this episode. Let's talk about terminology before we get started. One, it's confusing. Two, it seems important and not important at the same time. And three, it's actually about autonomy and self-determination. Let me explain. Trying to organize this series, I was struggling to figure out what term I should use. Compared to other episodes where there was a specific ethnicity. The word Latino Latina Latin X is a term that is not based on a specific country. It's actually a term that's used to describe a very diverse group of people from very different countries. We use it as clinicians a lot defining the background of our patients, or healthcare systems and public health analyzing different populations. And if you're doing this work, there's a lot of disagreement on what term to use. And I've witnessed others becoming flustered by the complexity of this terminology. And I have to admit, at times, I become flustered too, because if I use the term Hispanic, it was overly academic and something people used in the census, but not by the people that are actually part of the community. Very rarely do people say "I'm Hispanic". And then you have the term Latino, that's commonly used. But there's a movement to change that term because it wasn't gender inclusive. Then there's Latin X, which is a gender-inclusive term. But there's a new variation on it, like Latine, which has an easier pronunciation. It aligns better with the cultural roots of Latin America, and is more inclusive or nonbinary individuals. But if I used Latin X or Latine with the older generation of Latinos, they actively push back against it. I don't know what that means. But I'm not that. I'm not part of that community. There's a lot to talk about here. On one hand, language is not important. Like who cares what term we use? We're hoping to describe a group of individuals that are the same. These group of individuals are diverse groups of individuals who are at some point, colonized by Europeans, specifically Spain, often speak Spanish, with some similarities and cultures and values, with roots in Latin America and the Caribbean. Yeah, that group. And what are you going to do if you don't have a term for that? In that way, language is important. But it's also important because it shapes how people understand and express their identity, culture, and shared experiences. People like us, when you say people like us, who is the "US", the "US" that we can advocate for and allocate resources for with government policies, the US that shares some semblance of history and values, however diverse, the US where we find a sense of belonging, and connection. Language is also important in those ways. And this language we use to describe a community is not fixed, it can evolve over time. As people's understanding of experiences change. New terms and concepts may be articulated to reflect the true diversity and complexity of a community. While old terms become outdated, inappropriate, and frankly, racist. You'll hear the term wetback today. And yet that was commonly used and accepted in certain circles. But the most important point with this discussion about language and terminology is actually about how it comes to be and as developed, the term needs to be created or defined by the group of people who are being, quote-unquote, named me or you trying to name this other group. It's not right. It's actually about people experiencing or being part of this group, naming a group for themselves. It's about self determination, having the capacity and right to be a community of your own definition, and autonomy, feeling like you have the control and power to do that yourself. It comes back to defining the us in a way where you can find a sense of belonging and connection, the choices sometimes personal, and after all this, I know it didn't get you closer to know what term to use for this series of be using the term Latina. But today let's take the first step of understanding this a little bit better to be part of the dialogue. So for our first episode, we're going to start here on terminology and language. I'm thrilled to introduce our guests for this episode, Dr. Garcia, a historian and a professor who has a PhD in Mexican and Chicano history and has authored five books. Check them out on jerrygarcialives.com. Daniel put  thrown is our other guest today, who's a community health educator, and someone who has been instrumental in putting this series together and imagining what this could look like. I also want to acknowledge all the others who have helped put this together, you'll find their names in the show notes. This will be part one of our conversation with Dr. Garcia and Daniel. Thank you, as always, for tuning in to healthcare for humans. And for those of you who are joining us for the first time, welcome. You can listen to our podcasts on any platform, including Apple and Spotify, and visit healthcare for humans.org to sign up for updates and access our full archive of episodes. And without further ado, here's Dr. Garcia and Daniel. Welcome to the show, Daniel and Dr. Garcia. It's a pleasure to have you both here.

6:16

Danile Padrone:Thanks for having me.

6:17

Dr. Jerry Garcia: Thank you for the invitation.

6:19

Raj Sundar: Let's do a quick intro. Maybe you go first Daniel, and then after Garcia.

6:25

Daniel Padrone: Hello, everyone. Thanks for showing up to the episode. My name is Daniel Padrone and I'm a community health educator within the Office of Community Outreach Engagement.

6:35

Dr. Jerry Garcia: Nice to meet you, Daniel. I'm Dr. Jerry Garcia. As I mentioned, I'm originally from Quincy Washington, little community in eastern Washington where I was born and raised. And then I was fortunate to start my educational journey. And after I finished my PhD at Washington State University had been a professor at various institutions. And I'm currently at Fort Worth and teaching history, which is my background. I teach Chicano Latino history amongst other classes, but those are my favorite courses, anything to do with history.

7:04

Raj Sundar: Thank you for being here. Well, we have an audience that's throughout the United States. So we'll try to cover all aspects and then zoom in on Washington State because you all are from here. And it's so great to have the perfect people for the podcast episode. And I think I have it here. So Daniel, I wanted to start out actually talking about your family history to get people anchored into history ancestors and how people end up where they are.

7:31

Daniel Padrone: Thanks for allowing. This time, I will give a background about my family history in Washington state for some context, my great grandparents on in 1931 in 1934, both moved from Mexico in 1952. Mainly doing farm laborer, working in fields, picking rocks, anything they can do, or that was provided or offered to them. Speed up a little bit. Grandpa Roy was born in Arizona 1952. My grandmother was born in Mexico in 1952. They met in Washington in 1974. A year later, my mother was born. And so we start to see a third and fourth generation starting to be born in Washington. I was just kind of looking at the dates in here in 2052. I know it kind of seems far away, but that will be 100 years in which my family has had history in Quincy and Washington. So that was really cool to realize, myself, I was born in 1992 and Wenatchee Washington. So 30 years of Washington history, if you will.

8:36

Raj Sundar: Thanks, Daniel, I talk about history a lot, although a lot of people who are listening are clinicians, and I'm always trying to convince people understanding history is important. You said it felt good to understand the history of your family? And how does that link to your mental health and well being?

8:52

Daniel Padrone:  I think, as many clinicians know, a lot of what we do is dictated by our social networks, whether that's family, that's peers, that's work life, that school life, a lot of what they're doing is what we consider, quote unquote, normal. So looking at that and looking at health and if certain populations are receiving or accessing health care, and what are those reasons being for that is it have to do with their previous generations not necessarily have in forted the time to go and seek care? Were they just about I have to go clock in I have to clock this many hours to get this number on a paycheck to provide for my family. So thinking in that context of why by not to go to the hospital, just receive care when I know that I may have something wrong with me. What are those reasonings? And I think a lot of it does stem from  your family did growing up. I had a mother who was within the health field system. So I did get routine checkups. I did go to the yearly physicals, I did all that sort of things. But I acknowledged when speaking with committee need based organizations, when they did have insurance and access and availability, they, for whatever reason just didn't necessarily feel it was a priority that they needed to do preventative screenings or do the routine checkups. And I think that might come from what we did generation wise, I think it is starting to change the more awareness, education and access to information that we are afforded via our phones and social media, whatever it may be. To add to that, I think our health care systems not necessarily turned a blind eye, but don't acknowledge how much these communities of color or migrant communities are able to accomplish with little access to proper resources, being in the appropriate materials, being able to navigate the healthcare system is kind of challenged all in itself. Yeah, I think it's important to acknowledge what your family did, what your peers are doing, what your social networks doing, and how is that impacting your health negatively or positively.

11:05

Raj Sundar: Thanks so much, Daniel,I found a lot of power and what you just said, because I do think about how a lot of our values and beliefs are instilled in us from our family, and the generations prior to us and our ancestors, who chose those values. Because of the context they were living in, and had to find ways to survive and thrive in a world that often wasn't supportive, especially if you're an immigrant coming to a foreign land. And thinking about what does health mean to a population? Why aren't they getting the health care they need, you really have to dig into history of like, why wasn't a priority, because they were just trying to make it through the day and didn't have time to get healthcare. So when you were growing up, you never thought going to the doctor was a normal thing. So all of those are important to understand, because now we have to figure out how to support these communities, how to unlearn some of those coping mechanisms that healthcare is not accessible, we need to make it accessible first, but once we do, the underlying belief that healthcare is not important, or is not made for us, we need to first create it, and then get people to trust that we can provide that care for them. Thank you, Daniel. Dr. Garcia, I wonder if we can provide some clarity on some terminology, Hispanic Latin X, Chicano? There's so many words that people used sometimes interchangeably. And I don't know if people fully understand what they mean. So could you provide some clarity on these terms?

12:37

Dr. Jerry Garcia: I'll certainly try. Absolutely. Well, first Daniel, thanks for sharing that story. A lot of commonalities, of course, between your family and my family. Our families grew up together, they're in Quincy, so your story is very familiar to me. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that with the audience. Appreciate it. Yeah, getting back to that when I called labels and names and regards to the Chicano Latino population at a state. That's one of the things that it's kind of difficult to avoid when you're talking about the Chicano Latino population is all the names that have emerged, since we've been part of the United States going back to the 1830s 1840s. There's actually quite a few, I have a whole list that I go over in my classes, you're right, it's important to know why some of these terms, why they emerge, and then they disappeared, some never to return again. For example, we're looking at the 19th century post 1848. And we'll talk about the significance of that year a little bit later. But there are terms like, you know, a Spanish, American, Hispano, Latin American, those aren't used too much anymore, but they're very popular for a very long time. And for historical reasons. Oftentimes, when you look at these labels, it's often about the time period, and what is happening to the Chicano Latino population during that given moment in history, especially in regards to the political climate, social climate, economic climate and how they've been treated. I'll just mention one term for the 19th century to provide some clarity. For example, I mentioned the term Spanish American a little bit ago. But that was a very popular term in the 19th century post 1848. And it can get kind of confusing, until you understand the history. So one of the things that we'll probably mention a little deeper is at 1840s that is an important year because that's when we get our first Latino group, incorporate United States and those are people of Mexican ancestry, who were a part of northern Mexico, which was invaded and conquered by the United States, with the war ending in 1848, through a chapter understand is the condition of Mexicans during that time period and regards to a new population of whites who have come in into what we call the conquered territories, which would include Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, etc. And the climate was pretty bad. So that's one of the things we had to understand in regards to some of these labels. For example, the term Mexican was alive and well during this time as well. But it fell out of favor, believe it or not, for a good 50 or 60 70 years because the term Mexican as he moves through the end of the 19th century is becoming racialized, is becoming a, quote-unquote, a dirty work, that people don't want to be associated with it. But it's also about this. So when you understand what it means to be Mexican, it also means that you're part indigenous. And people knew this back in 18th century. In fact, one of the things that I think Rogers got to talk about a little bit are some indigenous civilizations from antiquity. And one of the things that I always talk to my students about, when I look at myself in the mirror, what I see as an indigenous person, is just that my indigenous identity has been erased by Christianity by the Catholic Church, who came in and erased a lot of the indigenous history, for example, as I mentioned, and there's no doubt I have indigenous blood running through me. But I had no idea unless I did a really deep dive into genealogy, what ain't just his tribe I belong to, and that's primarily because of the Catholic Church, erasure of that history. And along Deray of the colonial period, which lasted 300 years, I brought that in for this reason, when we ended up understanding the term Mexican in the 19 century, there's got to be a part of that population that's going to move away from that term, because they don't want to be identified as an indigenous person. And the reason for is because when you look at the indigenous population, in Mexico and the United States, it didn't matter what country you belong to, indigenous people would cheat horribly. And so nobody wants to be identified as an indigenous person. So nobody wants to be identified as a Mexican, because that meant that you were indigenous, they moved away from that term. And it began to adopt terms like Spanish American, because I highlighted their whiteness, their European, this, and that their indigenous. So it didn't matter. That to white people, these people didn't look white, they look indigenous, that didn't matter to them. They just wanted to move away from the term Mexican. So then when I tell people in my classes, you have to there's often rationalization of why people pick particular terms. So on the one hand, some elite Mexicans are choosing Spanish American over Mexican, because they're trying to avoid the intense racism that's emerging in the late 19th century. But it's also what we'd call a fantasy heretic because even to this day, there are people in parts of especially New Mexico who believe they're pure Spaniards. And this is how we remove this idea of the pure Spaniard in North America, or here in New Mexico, or California or Texas, is that when the Spaniards ended up evading conquering the Americas, including this part that we're talking about right now, make with Northern Territory, they came as single men. And when they went up to the Lord, which is now today in New Mexico, the men miscegenation, with the women, indigenous women. So from day one mixing began to occur. So the idea that there remain pure Spaniards in that region is an impossibility because of those relationships that occurred during that time period. And often tell students this that even before the Spaniards got to the Americas, they're already mixed, because if we understand our history, well, we know that the African Moors invade and conquer Spain for 700 years. And it's very difficult for me to believe in those 700 years, there is no mixing going on between those two populations. So long before they ended up in the Americas, there was already a mixed population in Spain because of that 700 years of Moorish occupation. So that's why there's a rationalization that we can understand because nobody wants to be treated bad. Nobody wants to feel that intense racism. So they adopted for word Spanish American, but it's also part of this fantasy heritage that developed over time. So we get a lot of this stuff that's occurring with all these labels. So there's definitely rationalizations and explanations. For example, Raj mentioned the term Hispanic. That is the current one that is probably one of the many we could talk about, is the most popular one, because that is the current official nomenclature that the US government uses where people's Spanish speaking ancestry here, United States, it is one that was created back in 1973. In other words, been around, since Bannon has been around forever. But as far as a nomenclature as far as a term that was developed in 1973, by the Nixon administration, and by a Republican, kind of ad hoc committee that was put together during that time period. And what they ended up doing is creating what we call an umbrella rubric. So you got this term, Hispanic, we call an umbrella root because under this term, Hispanic, you have literally every 30 Something odd people from Latin America under this. So a Hispanic can be from any place in Latin America, Colombia, Guatemala, TEPCO, somebody from Costa Rica from Cuba. So it's an umbrella rubric is so much of what I talk about here today in all my classes, I just want the audience to know they, it comes from the Chicano Latino perspective that Chicano Latino Studies, that's the area they've been trained in, as we've been trained is to look at these labels with a critical eye, not only to understand them, but what they meant in regards to the impact on our communities. And so then when we look at this term, Hispanic, I think one of the biggest critiques that we got even to date is that it tends to homogenize all people, Hispanic ancestry, right? It makes people believe, especially the mainstream white population, that we're all the same. You can meet a Mehicano or a Cubano today, Kenya were identical when is that we're very different. We have a tremendous amount of diversity. In our like Latino population, we may have some commonalities, such as Spanish language, but even that diverse, we all speak it with different accents, we actually have different words, depending on where you're located. For example, the Spanish in the Caribbean, is influenced by African languages, because of the slave trade in Africa, as I went there, the Spanish book in Mexico is influenced by indigenous languages because of the heavy population of indigenous people. So that's just the tip of the iceberg of the diversity I'm talking about. It's still around, it's the one that most people recognize, as Raj was mentioning earlier, it's the one thing that that we had to check off. So one of the things that to understand in regards to that is terms like Hispanic Latino, that next these are not racial categories, there are ethnic labels. So that's why then when you look at the census data, going back to Rogers, earlier comment is that you will never see any of these terms as a racial choice for people Hispanic ancestry to choose, right? And so when we look at the race categories, which are socially constructed, by the way, there is no scientific basis for any of the racial categories that we have. So when you look at the categories, I believe there's white, African American, Asian American, Native American, and their aesthetic is a mixed category you can choose, and I'm gonna give you my personal experience, because as a Chicano Latino, were asked to choose one of these categories. And I haven't done that research on this, but I get a feeling that a lot of people who are, quote, either Hispanic or Latino, when it comes to picking a racial category, they're gonna gravitate towards white, it's my sense, however, I do not, I click off a Native American. And of those groups that I just mentioned, as as far as racial categories, that's the one that I feel most connected is the indigenous background, as you can let D long if I was to choose or click off white, then that increases the power of white people in the country, because the way the census data is used, it increases the numbers of whites in the country. That's one of the other reasons besides my connection to indigeneity. I click Native American. So these are the kinds of things that people be aware of, right, when they're filling out boxes, checking boxes, etc, that in the end, when you click on the census data has an impact. You may not think so because you're an individual, and you're thinking, Oh, I'm just one person, I'm like, it's not gonna have any impact. But multiply that by millions, that is going to have a huge impact. Because if everybody's picking that one category, then yeah, it does have an impact, that it has an impact. I'll make it as simple as I can. In regards to representation in Congress, how many representatives we're going to have depends on people in each state in regards to how we use these terms.

23:14

Raj Sundar: Identity is complex, and labeling is complex, and it has real consequences. And I hear that loud and clear. And I'm wondering if you can help me integrate one thing that I read about, because there's this labeling from others, the Nixon administration and the Census Bureau saying Hispanic, let's use that term to cover all these groups of people. But there was also some written articles. And you can tell me how true this was about Mexican Americans feeling frustrated, there wasn't enough people to obtain resources for job training. So the National Council of La Raza and only those lobbied Census Bureau to unite Puerto Ricans and Mexicans to create this term of Hispanic. So you can say, hey, look, actually, there's a lot of Hispanic people here. So we do need to dedicate resources to this group of this advocacy by the group itself to make a larger group to advocate and have more power. I'm not sure how true that was in the creation of terminology.

24:16

Dr. Jerry Garcia: I've come across something like that, as well. And there's probably some validity to it. But at the same time, it sounds like it's more of a rationalization. Because I think if you look at how resources are allotted, whether you're Puerto Rican, Mexican, American, Cuban, or, or Celena, I don't think any and it's really, again, matter resources based on the label. I think that's especially true with the quote-unquote, Hispanic population, because if you are Puerto Rican, or pick your region of Latin America, that's here, the United States. I think you still have access to the same kind of resources regardless if you put down Hispanic or Chicano or Puerto Rican. So again, I think it's a rationalization for some folk about why Hispanic has is useful. Well, that and that's where I would gravitate towards Raj is from that perspective

25:03

Raj Sundar: Okay, that makes sense. Go ahead with the Latino Latin x term, because what I read about that was trying to separate out the Spain from the Hispanic term because Spain colonized everyone. So Latinos supposed to be everybody except Spaniards?

25:19

Dr. Jerry Garcia: Yeah. So these are interesting, confusing. Like, for example, these two terms, Hispanic Latino, they're almost identical. Because we, if we go back to the term Hispanic, we know that when we look at that word in a dictionary, it talks about somebody being from Spain. And most people who are from the Americas, really don't associate with Spain, they associate with their nation state, take your Latin American country, etc. Or if you look at the term Latino, it's almost identical as that. But here's the difference, it's very simple, is that Hispanics is a term that we called an imposed label that has been imposed by an outsider, impose in this case by the US government, Latino, and again, this is the very simple difference is that it's a self identifier, that people chose it for themselves. It wasn't one that was imposed by an outside group or organization or the government that Chicanos on their own free will choose to call it soft Latinos. Other than that, they're almost identical. Because when we look at the origin of the term, Latino, its root word is Latin. And where's that? That's from Rome, Italy. And there's a long history, Holly ended up here in the Americas, but it was through invasion and conquest, once again, this time, not by the English, or the Spanish, but this time by the French, who invaded Mexico for about five years in the 19th century. And that was one of the things that was left for us was his term, Latin America, by the French who came in. So again, regardless of these two terms, you trace the origins that take us back to Europe. Okay. And so once they impose label Hispanic ones, a soft identifier, Latino, and that's the biggest difference. So there's some other nuances. But in general, they're very similar, with the exception of bit one being imposed, and one being a soft identifier. That makes sense a little bit?

27:04

Raj Sundar: Yeah. Daniel, I wonder if I could ask you this question, because Dr. Garcia shared his way of identifying himself with this terminology now that we have a little more context. Like when you think of yourself, like how do you navigate this term for yourselves and communicating with other people?

27:20

Daniel Padrone: No, yeah. So again, thank you for allowing me time to give my perspective. And it's kind of funny that Dr. Garcia asked how we can answer these questions. So a being that there has been talk of wanting to avoid any racism, I think growing up, my mom may have been going through that in 1975. So for whatever reason, a lot of my peers and social groups were white. sure if that was her choosing, if I was assimilating, or what would happen. But it was always really funny, because when we would go to family barbecues, I would always kind of get picked on being called whitewash, I was kind of the outsider to brown for the white to white for the brown, if you will. But it wasn't until growing up getting through high school, and kind of being removed from Quincy as a whole. And being put in kind of a new pond, I started really identifying with my color, and that not only because that is how I felt it, but realistically, that is how the world sees me, regardless of how I identify the world is going to see me as a brown male. And I'm proud of that, now, I'm proud to hold this Hi, I'm proud to get those looks of oh, he's probably not very, very well-spoken. And then when they hear me speak, you can see their demeanor change. And it's not a reflection of me, it's a reflection of them. And they have to live with their prejudice nests, if you will. Nowadays, I really do identify with my skin color, whether that's Latino, Hispanic, I identify as brown. And I love that Dr. Garcia gave some context to that umbrella term of Hispanic because these are things you look at the census, you look at any kind of survey, it always has these demographics broken out, and it's like, well, who determine these demographics. And, again, going through public health, you learn that there are social constructs that are used to be divisive. It's really kind of a circle that we're having this conversation because you would have asked me this in high school, it would have been a totally different answer. I've had some time to reflect in be in the real world, if you will, not sheltered by my hometown, not sheltered by my family, not sheltered by my mother. I got to experience the world for what it is and what the world sees me as if I didn't answer it. I identify as Latino proudly.

29:38

Dr. Jerry Garcia: Thanks for sharing that. I have no doubt Quincy hasn't changed very much because kind of a strange place to grow up because it's a small rural community. You don't get exposed to a lot of different diversity. In cuisine. It's a binary community made up of whites and brown, whites and Latinos and I always share their story. I didn't meet my first person of color outside my group until I left Quincy just like that you Am I so you're very cocoon. So on the one hand, it's understandable when you listen to his story about his friendships and his growing up in the small community of made up of white people or brown people. And there's no doubt like it was back in my day. I'm a generation ahead of Danielle, I struggle with the same ideas in regards to identity. I was able to travel both groups. But it wasn't easy. Again, there's a lot of things that you go through. In regards to trying to figure out your identity as a person of color. I met, all three of us went through that at some point in our lives, I share a little bit of what Danielle shared in regards to his experience growing up in Quincy, when I left, I did have a very strong identity of who I was, I think what happens to a lot of us is that because we come from this small place, places like Quincy and there's a lot of places like Quincy throughout the country, we ended up being trapped into one or two places. And that's it is that we break out of our hometowns, those of us who are fortunate to do that, that way ends up being exposed to so much other groups and diversity in this country. For me, it was just one Chicano Studies class that I took as a freshman college, that changed my whole life. Not only did it solidify my identity, but it also told me what I was gonna do in the future that is teach Chicano studies. So for me, that's what changed my whole reality was understanding identify as a Chicano, which I haven't talked about yet, but I'll mention it before we leave today. But again, thank you for sharing that, because it brings back a lot of memories from my time in Quincy as a individual through K through 12 in that system.

31:36

Raj Sundar: Yeah. I just think about how important it is for our journey and how little sometimes people who are taking care of us understand that. Just finding our identity in this world, and how hard it is, in the communities that we're part of, when essentially you're trying to do your best, and people call you whitewashed or you're trying to stand up for yourself and be yourself. And you're looking at this some weird other person and trying to navigate that through the world. I think the last term to cover Chicago, and you mentioned that a few times. Tell us about that.

32:07

Dr Jerry Garcia: Sure, would you like me to cover that first or Latinx?

32:10

Raj Sundar: Oh, Latine X and Chicago.

32:12:

Dr. Jerry Garcia: Okay. It depends on who's listening to this podcast, will determine whether or not you're engaged with this term, whether you heard about it, or whether it's something that's brand new to you what I have found, the term Latin X is primarily used on university campuses, by faculty members of staff, it has less resonance outside of that domain. Now ventured one statistic that I came across is the Pew Research Center, which does a tremendous amount of work in the Latino community conducted a survey about three or four years ago on this label Latin neck. And what they found was 93% of the people they surveyed rejected the term 93%. So it's overwhelming. Now, I've also come across some surveys more recently, and that number has dropped to about 50 something percent, but I think is changing somewhat. But the term itself, right, it's relatively new. I mean, its origins can be traced back to roughly about 2004. And it actually originated from the queer community. That's where we can find the first time we see it being used and literature is in the queer community. It kind of makes sense because the argument is this is that Latino Latina from their position of people creating the term Latin next is not gender neutral. People who study Spanish who understand Spanish who are professors Spanish were argue against that and say that span is already gender neutral. So there is no need for an x to come into play. So those are two sides of the coin. On the one hand, you got one group saying that the O and A is not gender neutral. And on the other hand, Spanish practitioners say that it is gender neutral. And of course, the X came into play, because it does create from that perspective of people who are using that term, not only a gender neutral, but also a non binary label, which means that there are a lot of people in this country who first of all, don't want to be identified as male, female. There are other groups right in this country who don't want to be identified also by binary mode of what they consider a social construction of gender. So then you got this new term coming in Latin neck is becoming more popular. If you trace it back to 2004. Fast forward even 10 years 2014 It's, it's hardly known, right? Well, we fast forward another 567 years. Now let's talk of the town now. It's being debated. Right now there are scholarly articles bit written on this term. Latinx. Right? So the big thing I like about this term is a dialogue. In regards again, another form of identity, whether you identify as a male, female, non-binary, etc, is creating that dialogue. Me personally, I'm kind of on the fence in regards to this because here's the one thing as a historian looking at all these labels over time, one of the things that would bother me If I found out that this label was imposed by a non Latino group, then I would probably have to reject it outright. Because in our follow up pattern, when we look at this country, where it's not Latinos, creating labels for ourselves, it's whites, who are creating labels for us in order to make themselves feel comfortable. I don't know if we'll ever get to the root who she created the label. So there are three labels added. We just went over Hispanic, Latino, and Latin neck, there was actually another one that's connected Latin X called Latin A, right. So the x, you have an E with the accent mark on it coming around a little bit, people who are against the x, but who are also against the Latino, Latina, tend to prefer Latin a. Any questions that man, Daniel or Raj again, I don't really consider myself an expert on the term Latin X. I read about it. And I know about it, and I'm able to get this kind of discussion about it. But to go even further into the weeds. I'd pay seen it. For myself, I had to stop at this point.

36:03

Raj Sundar: I think that's good. Just having more context, because it's hard to find that context in a nuanced way. Yeah, especially these days, whenever you Google or look up something, it's optimized to give you same articles over and over about certain terminology. So I think I feel like my mind's exploding with all the knowledge. So this is helpful.

36:23

Dr. Jerry Garcia: I think it's not just important for me, but it's important for people that look like me, growing up going to the doctor, there wasn't a lot of representation of physicians who look like myself, there wasn't a lot of people at these applied internships that look like me. So I think if anything, if I can be someone to look up to who resembles or they can relate to is really where I have found that strength in being comfortable in my own skin is that it's not necessarily me, but those who are coming after me, my family, my younger cousins can see, oh, this is doable. We can get out of Quincy, we can do what you want. Essentially, I know it's kind of a cliche, shoot for the stars, shoot for the moon, do whatever you want. But no truthfully, you can yourself advocate and you know who you are what you stand for.

37:48

Raj Sundar: Have some a little bit. Okay, let's wrap it up Dr. Garcia with the Chicago terminology, and then we'll move on to history.

37:56

Dr. Jerry Garcia: There's a couple of reasons why I identify as Chicano these this perspective is that, first of all, is to feel that I teach it. And as I mentioned earlier, I took my first class as a first year student at Eastern Washington University, and really changed my life dramatically. And as I continue to take classes, and understand that she kind of experience United States that I understood that this term had a long history, and that history is not unlike many other labels that we kind of discussed, right, it had kind of a strange origin story and ebbs and flows to it. The term itself is indigenous can be traced back to antiquity, for a very long time. I'm talking hundreds of years, if not longer, this term was really kind of a derogatory term negative term, because people associate a Chicano or Chicana as somebody who was criminally prone, or delinquent, from the working class, so that parents didn't want their children associated with this term, competing terms. For example, I think, Raj, you mentioned earlier the term Mexican American, that's another label that we could go if we want it, but that was really the preferred labor for the first half of the 20th century was Mexican American here, United States. And again, to put into historical context, even though we could probably find more diversity. Beyond Mexican Americans United States, the overwhelming majority of people labeled Latino in this country were of Mexican origin for a very long time until really, the 1960s 1970s really don't see more diversity in the Latino population, until certain things begin to happen, historical events that are gonna push Latin Americans into United States. So up until that point, then we're really talking about a Mexican diaspora here in the US. So then Mexican American is preferred term, right? parents prefer that one for their kids rather than Chicano. Where that changes and this is important kind of a demarcation point. Where that changes for their identity for a couple reasons. One is because they understood. For generations, this had been a negative term. And they wanted to turn this negative into a positive term. And the way they did that is by telling people that Chicano Chicana is not somebody who's criminally prone as somebody who's delinquent, that somebody doesn't care about the world is just the opposite of that. A Chicano Chicana now means somebody who is an activist, somebody who is involved with their community, somebody who wants to change their worldview, in regards to what has taken place in their communities, that's what it meant, after post 1960s, to be a Chicano Chicana. And so, chose a Chicano Chicana, activist of the 60s that really kind of turned that label on its head. There's one other thing that I do want to mention, it's connected to this. So in my classes, there are two rows of labels that I discuss. One row is the ones we'll be talking about right now, these last four or five. The other side are the derogatory terms that have come up, right? And the only one I'll mention here today, because connected here, right? This is an educational setting, probably only the one place, we can say this word. And that is the word quote unquote, wetback, right. And so I had no doubt that everybody's heard that primary because of popular culture, but unfortunately, still used today, that term, quote, unquote, went back was popular. For 70 years, it was used in replacement of the word Mexican. And here, I'm not talking about just racist people saying this, I'm talking about US government documents, newspapers throughout the country, is that of saying Mexican immigrants, they would say wetbacks, I guarantee you go to any newspaper, that's talking about Mexicans in the 1940s 50s 60s, even into the 70s. Instead of seeing the word Mexican, you'll see the word web back. So here's what happens. The same activists from the Chicano movement, put the word out, that word went back would no longer be used, because of the harmful impact and effect it's having on the community. And that's all it took, believe it or not, it took a moment or two. But when the word was put out to the community, that this term was going to be used. Everybody stopped using it, from the government, to newspapers, to the average person on the street, except your racist people who still use it to this day. But it's connected because that's the kind of worldview I'm talking about. That's the kind of view that Chicano Chicano activists wanted to see in the post 1960s era. And it's why I identify as a Chicano because of what it represents more than anything else, just just a world that has opportunity for everybody, and not just a select few. That's not only my definition of it, but I think anybody who identifies as a Chicano Chicana has that same idea. And then more importantly, that field that I teach it has that worldview. I teach that every day in my classes at some level.

43:01

Raj Sundar: Thanks, Dr. Garcia. I did not expect to talk about this for that long, because I didn't understand the depths and nuances of these terminology compared to my four lines of notes that I had. But thank you for sharing that.

43;14

Dr. Jerry Garcia: I had 15 years to research these tariffs.

43:17

Raj Sundar: Thank you for joining us on this episode of healthcare for humans. I hope you found this conversation positive, thought provoking. Remember,caring for culturally diverse communities requires an open mind, a willingness to listen, and a commitment to ongoing education. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me through our website at healthcareforhumans.org or any of our social media channels. Until next time, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep putting people at the center of your care. This is Dr. Sundar signing off.

43:53

Speaker 4: This podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast do not represent any of the participants past, current or future employers unless explicitly expressed so, always seek advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with regards to your own personal questions about what medical conditions you may be experiencing. This Healthcare for Humans project is based on Duwamish land that makes a regular commitment to Real Rental Duwamish.

The transcript ends here.