Latina Says She Invented The Word “Hispanic” And Is Proud

Grace Flores-Hughes is a federal employee who says she created the word “Hispanic” for official government use. She’s from South Texas and seems to be  Republican. There’s a long interview with her in The Washington Post from 2009 and I think it’s pretty interesting, here are a few highlights:

I believe that it represents the Hispanic Americans of this country. It best describes who we are based on our Hispanic surnames. . . . The reason I am not in favor of “Latino” or “Latina” is that those terms can represent the people of the Mediterranean. Then you’d be including Portuguese and Italians, if you take it literally… [I would definitely argue that, but whatever.]

There are many Hispanic activists who think that Richard Nixon did it. Well, no, Richard Nixon was very busy — he didn’t have time to be doing this. When I explain it, they get relieved. They were holding this anger that some nasty Anglo named them. Well, no, it wasn’t. It was this little Hispanic bureaucrat…

It was very contentious. Others were pulling for the word “Latino.” I wanted “Hispanic.” And I was the youngest one in the group. They said: ” ‘Latino’ and ‘Latina’ is what we all are, that’s why we should be called that.” But to me the only way to accurately count us is by using the term “Hispanic.”

Flores-Hughes goes on to say that it’s unfortunate that Democrats tend to use the word “Latino” while Republicans tend to use “Hispanic.” She seems to be very proud of her work and looks like she believes she did something of great importance for her community — you go girl.

We at News Taco, obviously, believe in the word “Latino” for reasons we’ve outlined here, but also because Latino refers to Latin America (latinoamérica) whereas Hispanic doesn’t refer to anyplace, really. It’s a long argument, but it is what it is.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD