Do you consider Latin Americans to be real Latins?

[monfret]

only castizos and harnizos and some quadroon blacks.

[Balmung]

Ofcourse they are.

[Allexx9]

Well, they have latin roots because they are a mixture between european "conquistadores" (spain,portugal) and natives; I would say they have latin culture and heritage but not "real latins".

The reality is that they don't have a Latin Culture because if they had it they would behave the same as the Latin Europeans. The only thing Latin that they have is in their languages: Portuguese and Spanish which come from the Latin language and, I repeat, the Latin language comes from Italy and not from Spain and not from Latin America.
But what mostly bothers me is the fact that they want to use the term Latino exclusively for themselves to identify their race and or ethnicity. Why would they want to identify with a language and culture which doesn't even come from Spain or Portugal? What a stubborn people!!!
Even some the Mexicans are beginning to understand:
http://www.mexica-movement.org

[Billund]

The reality is that they don't have a Latin Culture because if they had it they would behave the same as the Latin Europeans. The only thing Latin that they have is in their languages: Portuguese and Spanish which come from the Latin language and, I repeat, the Latin language comes from Italy and not from Spain and not from Latin America.
But what mostly bothers me is the fact that they want to use the term Latino exclusively for themselves to identify their race and or ethnicity. Why would they want to identify with a language and culture which doesn't even come from Spain or Portugal? What a stubborn people!!!
Even some the Mexicans are beginning to understand:
http://www.mexica-movement.org

Italians are Germanic not latin

[Renegade Abraham]

I don't consider Latin Americans to be real Latins. They are only linguistically Latins and not culturally. While they speak Latin derived Languages they don't really behave like European Latins do and this is very important to note. Moreover,there is so much confusion about what it means to be considered a Latino or a Latin person. A Latin person is a person who originates from Countries whose languages are based on the Latin language of Roman Italy and whose Countries have adopted Roman Laws, practice the Roman Catholic faith and inherited the cultural heritage of Roman Italy. While people of Latin America qualify on most of it they fail on the cultural dimension.
And most blogger and posters have no really clue of the birth and developments of the Latins (Latinos). The Latins were a group of people out of many others living in a particular area of Italy in what it was known as Latium in Latin and now Lazio in Italian. They spoke the Latin language (Lingua Latina) and were highly sophisticated in their civil administration. The Romans were powerful and lived next door to them and eventually they waged war on the Latins and made them part of their own inner government. They adopted the Latin language as their own. Together they embarked in the unification of all the various groups living in Italy. All became Romans and all became Latins through the language,Romans laws and Roman Culture.
As a united people of Roman Italy they moved out of Italy and started what is known as the total colonization of Europe. There were no Countries in Europe in pre-Roman times. Country was a Roman concept. What is now France,Great Britain,Spain,Portugal, Germany etc, etc were given their names by the occupying Romans. The Romans imposed their language,the Latin Language (Lingua Latina) Roman Laws,Roman Culture and later Christianity. There were no laws in Europe before the Romans introduced their system of laws which are now the foundation of all the system of laws of Europe, Latin America and in the civilized world spread through European colonialism.
This is in a nutshell.
Why don't European Latins:Italian,French,Romanian, Portuguese and Spaniards call themselves Latins/Latinos??? That's because we don't identify ourselves by the origin of our languages. We identify ourselves by our races: Whites. These are the races:Whites,Black,Asian and Red-Skin Indian. Latin/Latino is not a race and is not an ethnicity but this is what the people from Latin America would like us to believe that Latin and Latino is their race and ethnicity. That's not true. And Latin America doesn't mean Latino and it doesn't mean Latin. A person from Latin America is a Latin American and Latin America being a geographical location only where languages derived from the Latin of Italy are spoken: French,Portuguese and Spanish. But the U.S. Census Bureau by way of pandering and throwing aside documented history identifies as a Latino a person from Latin America going back to Spain. Italy, Roman Italy for them doesn't exist. They really believe,as the Hispanics do, that the Latin language and everything Latin comes from Latin America and Spain!!!
The fact is that Latino doesn't have anything to do with speaking Spanish,being mestizo or coming from Latin America. I wonder why the Hispanics here would want to be associated with with an identity, Latin identity, which they got as a result of colonialism. Roman colonialism in Spain and Spanish/Portuguese colonialism in the what is known now Latin America. And forget about the Latina Women,the Latin Music,the Latin Food, there is no such a thing. But how can we get this information to people who don't even know who they are but if they say that they are Latinos they feel like being somebody?

[Allexx9]

Italians are Germanic not latin

And you want the whole world to believe you?

[SupaThug]

Ofcourse they are.

Are african americans real germanics?

[Balmung]

Are african americans real germanics?

The problem with equating Latin with a race and modern European nations; not everyone who lived in these nations were descended from Latins of old. Thus all you have to go on is culture and language. Just as the Latin Americans do.

That is a pretty crappy comparison if i've ever seen one. Noone refers to African Americans as either Germanics or Anglo Saxon. Terms like Anglo Saxon and Germanic aren't even used by Americans to define their culture. This is North America not Saxon America. Saxons are extinct too, if thats what you wanted to hear. Using old world terms to define modern ethnic groups? yeah I don't agree with it, never have.

[SupaThug]

The problem with equating Latin with a race and modern European nations; not everyone who lived in these nations were descended from Latins of old. Thus all you have to go on is culture and language. Just as the Latin Americans do.

That is a pretty crappy comparison if i've ever seen one. Noone refers to African Americans as either Germanics or Anglo Saxon. Terms like Anglo Saxon and Germanic aren't even used by Americans to define their culture. This is North America not Saxon America. Saxons are extinct too, if thats what you wanted to hear. Using old world terms to define modern ethnic groups? yeah I don't agree with it, never have.

I never use the terms germanic and latin as ethnic terms.To me they are just linguistic terms and the real latins and germanics are ethnic europeans from countries where these languages originated!I makes no sense to say that a brazilian from Bahia(Brazil´s most african state) is a true latin while you have ethnic portuguese from Portugal who may not descend from the original latins but are part of the original Latin world,they are the original speakers of the portuguese language,do you think it's fair to put them in the same group as a black from Bahia?