Latino (demonym) - Etymology

Etymology

The terms latino and latina originate from American Spanish, and ultimately from the Latin terms latinus and latina, which literally mean Latin. The terms may be an abbreviated form of the Spanish word latinoamericano (Latin American). This use of the expression Latin derives from the cultural distinctions between the Romance language countries of modern-day Italy, Spain, France and Portugal; and other European nations, including the Germanic countries of Northwestern and Central Europe. These distinctions grew as the Germanic countries tended to embrace Protestantism while the Romance language countries remained Roman Catholic.

In its modern usage, the idea that a part of the Americas has affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of the Americas was inhabited by people of a "Latin race" and that it could, therefore, ally itself with "Latin Europe" in a struggle with "Teutonic Europe", "Anglo-Saxon America" and "Slavic Europe". The term Latin America was supported by the French Empire of Napoleon III during the French invasion of Mexico, as a way to include France among countries with influence in America and to exclude Anglophone countries, and played a role in his campaign to imply cultural kinship of the region with France. The idea was taken up by Latin American intellectuals and political leaders of the mid- and late-nineteenth century, who no longer looked to Spain or Portugal as cultural models, but rather to France.