Just Don't Call Me 'Anglo': A White Person's View

I thoroughly enjoyed Manuel F. Cachan's editorial "Don't call Me Latino," where he explains the differences and strengths of different U.S. Latin American communities and encourages them to divide along these lines in order to explore their differing heritages.

However it seems that Cachan is not willing to grant the same courtesy he demands for Latino students to their white peers, Several times, he uses the term "Anglo" to refer to all white Americans.

"Anglo" is a ethnic-specific term referring only to people of English descent. It excludes people of Irish, Italian, German, Greek, and other European ancestries. Indiscriminately calling white Americans "Anglo" is equivalent to calling all Latino "Mexican" or all Asian-Americans "Chinese." No one would question that such labels would be inaccurate and inadequate, and perhaps even racist.

It seems that perhaps the prevalence of the word "Anglo" among Latin American students and scholarship is due to the need to find some catch all term for the many white ethnic groups that constitute the white America population. I encourage everyone to reread Cachan's editorial to understand why this is ridiculous and dangerous.

While the term "white American" may not indicate the common heritage that "Anglo" strives to imply, I still feel that it is a more appropriate description of Americans of (usually mixed) European backgrounds.

If Cachan feels (rightly so) that it is inappropriate to lump all "Latinos" together under that label, then he shouldn't use similar terms for other groups. Clare A. Sammells '95