Hey all. Great to be back at Prawfs again. I was going to post something less legal, and probably more interesting, for introductory purposes, but yesterday this item in the NY Times caught my eye. I’m certainly not the first person in the blogosphere to mention this, but the issue is: if Sonia Sotomayor were confirmed, would she really be the first Hispanic justice? The possible problem is that there was already a jurist of Portuguese descent on the Court that you may have heard of: Justice Benjamin Cardozo.
The question this turns on, then, is whether Portuguese people are Hispanic. I normally don’t get embroiled in issues like this, and I don’t think there are right or wrong answers to questions that depend on whether individuals relate to or belong in awkwardly constructed ethno-racial categories, but this one is a wee bit different for me. As it happens, I’m Portuguese (specifically, half: my father is from the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean), so I’ve thought about the meaning of “Hispanic” and whether Portuguese people fit into it way more than I would have otherwise.
The short (and easy) answer from my perspective as a (mildly) interested party is this: one could plausibly shoehorn Cardozo into a broad, formal definition of “Hispanic”, but that’s not really the issue. What people find significant about Sotomayor’s ethnic status—what they’re really excited about or resistant to when they invoke the phrase “first Hispanic Justice”—is not a technical question about ancestry and temporal primacy, but is rather about the social meaning of her elevation to the Court. I say a few more words about the Portuguese/Hispanic terminological kerfuffle, and the reason why it’s ultimately beside the point below the fold.
First, as the NYT article pointed out, the issue is a bit contested. There are some formal sources that make it plausible to squeeze Portuguese people within the outer bounds of the term “Hispanic”. There’s a CFR section that includes people of Portuguese descent as Hispanic for the purposes of Department of Transportation regulations, and the OED apparently defines the term as encompassing those of Spanish or Portuguese descent. Portuguese Congressmen are members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Nelly Furtado (of Azorean descent, like DF) regularly performs at the Latin Grammys.
So. If someone who is Portuguese claimed to be Hispanic, I wouldn’t think the assertion false or dishonest. It’s a borderline case, but the meaning of Hispanic is contested and unclear enough that it’s hard to know where its outer bounds begin and end. Of course, there are many ethnic-category conundrums one can imagine along these lines. Should we consider a blue-eyed, blond-haired third-generation Argentinian who is a descendant of German immigrants Hispanic? Consider a white U.S. citizen who recently immigrated from Zimbabwe, and whose family had lived in that country for a century? Would such a person legitimately be “African-American”? These are, in my view, questions of self-identification that have to be left to individuals.
For my own purposes, though, I’ve never self-identified as Hispanic when asked to check an ethnic-category box, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is formal and simple: the root of the word “Hispanic” is “Spain”, and if there’s one thing Portuguese people are adamant about not being (sometimes to the point of neurosis), it’s Spanish. So I think the definition doesn’t apply, on a plain-meaning theory. The second reason is that somehow it feels wrong for me to check that box. This is a tricky instinct to explain, but I think it’s that my family assimilated really quickly and thoroughly (I know less than twenty Portuguese words), and I feel and am treated more or less as a plain old, mainstream white American. This is a hard issue, and others might make a different decision for perfectly legit reasons, but that’s how I approach it.
And this leads me to the ultimate point: thatthe whole ethnic categorization issue regarding Cardozo and Sotomayor, and “Portuguese” and “Hispanic”, is really beside the point. However exasperating the public’s obsession with her ethnicity may be, there’s clearly something resonant about Sotomayor’s possible status as the first Hispanic Justice. I think there are a couple reasons that this issue seems significant to many people. The first is that her elevation to the Court would mean that a large (and, obviously, ill-defined) ethnic group would have representation in the federal judiciary in a distinctly visible way that they have never had before (because even if Cardozo counts as Hispanic, he certainly didn’t self-identify as such and wasn’t perceived that way, not least because the term “Hispanic” wasn’t in common usage during his judicial tenure). The second is that her elevation to the Court would be taken by many as an indication that the highest echelons of American government are trending in a direction of more inclusivity (cf. Obama’s election).
Whether having Sotomayor on the Court would actually be a bellwether for inclusivity or have any other kind of broad social significance is, of course, an empirical question that will take time to answer. And even if I’m right about the social meaning of her nomination, those points are unrelated to the question whether she merits confirmation. The point of this post is simply that references to Sotomayor potentially being the first Hispanic Justice aren’t really about formal questions of ethnicity and primacy (Jackie Robinson wasn’t actually the first Black major leaguer, but that doesn’t detract from the social significance of his accomplishments), so the whole Cardozo/Portuguese issue is, I think, beside the point.
Posted by Dave_Fagundes on June 2, 2009 at 09:37 PM
Comments
Impressive stuff, dmv. I think you’re right on both counts: the etymological point, and that my argument hinges more on contemporary reactions to the social meaning of “Hispanic” than its historical derivation.
Posted by: Dave | Jun 5, 2009 2:53:00 PM
Dave:
I take the point about the more important aspect being what the modern social meaning is, rather than etymology. In truth, I have no idea when “Hispanic” came to be associated only with Spain, but I obviously don’t dispute it. Nevertheless, I’m going to push back a bit on this:
“The sources I’ve looked at indicate ambiguity about whether the Latin terms Hispania (or Hispanus) can refer to Spain (or to Spaniards) in particular.”
The Romans had divided the whole Iberian peninsula into “Hispania Citerior” and “Hispania Ulterior,” during the Republic. The part of the peninsula that is now Portugal was included in “Hispania Ulterior,” which expanded and contracted throughout the 2nd century B.C., owing in part to an on-going struggle against the Lusitanians. Lusitanians lived in most of what is today Portugal, though not all of it (particularly the north and south); very early on the Romans gained and held a foothold in extreme southern Portugal, basically on the coast, where a people called the Cunei lived. It’s not clear precisely where Lusitanians came from. Some people think they were Celtic, some think they were indigenous to the Iberian peninsula, and I’m sure there are other theories. Anyway, they gave the Romans a giant headache for about 200 years, culminating in the rebellion by their leader around the 140s, Viriathus. D. Iunius Brutus campaigned against Viriathus and had him assassinated. D. Iunius Brutus became Brutus Callaicus, taking the honorific surname from the Callaeci, a tribe of people who lived north of the Douro River, in the very northwest corner of the peninsula (north of the Miño River). Fighting would continue largely until the time of Augustus. Augustus himself led the armies in 26 B.C., fighting the Cantabri and Astores, who both occupied the northern part of the peninsula (with the Callaeci by that time confined to the very northwest tip). Agrippa finally broke the northern resistance in 19 B.C. Around 27 B.C., Augustus installed two legati Augusti pro praetore in the peninsula, one for Hispania Citerior and one for Hispania Ulterior. Sometime around 13 B.C. (it’s not clear, because there wasn’t one single act of reform, but we know that by 13 B.C. it had happened), Hispania Ulterior was divided into two separate provinces, namely Baetica and Lusitania. Hispania Citerior remained. The northernmost part of the peninsula (the territory where the Callaeci and Astures had lived) was made part of Hispania Citerior (which also became known as Hispania Terraconensis, because of its capital at Terraco). Hispania Terraconensis was considered the chief of the three provinces (with its governor being a senior ex-consul, usually of high birth, and the province also had the only garrison of legionary soldiers in the peninsula). The peninsula would be known as Hispaniae tres for the next three hundred years or so.
Anyway, that’s the rough and dirty. There are a lot of interesting little details, though, because of the peninsula’s connection with the 2nd Punic War, and the fact that the Romans didn’t seem able to put down resistance on the peninsula until the Empire, though they certainly tried.
Posted by: dmv | Jun 3, 2009 6:01:07 PM
Thanks for the comments. dmv, I’m not sure I agree on the etymological point. The sources I’ve looked at indicate ambiguity about whether the Latin terms Hispania (or Hispanus) can refer to Spain (or to Spaniards) in particular. The point is also complicated by the existence of a separate Latin word to refer to what is largely now modern-day Portugal (Lusitania).
Regardless, your point is helpful because it points out that the ultimate derivation of the term “Hispanic” is less important than its modern social meaning. My observation above is that the term “Hispanic” evokes associations with Spain (even if this shouldn’t be the case), and as a result, Portuguese people find it particularly inapt.
Greg, Kaufman is also quoted in the NY Times article I linked to in the original post, but your point is well taken. There are layers of ambiguity about Cardozo’s ethnic status beyond the initial Portuguese-as-Hispanic issue. Most salient seems to be the matter of self-identification. If Cardozo regarded himself (and was regarded as) primarily Jewish rather than Iberian, then it’s hard to think of him as a representative (symbolic or otherwise) of Hispanic identity or interest in the same way that Sotomayor may be.
Posted by: Dave | Jun 3, 2009 3:04:32 PM
In a correction yesterday, NPR went to Cardozo-biographer Andrew Kaufman, for more information.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104574800
“Cardozo was nominated to the court by President Herbert Hoover in 1932. He was a member of a prominent family of Sephardic Jews who claim Portuguese heritage.
That’s where the certainty ends.”
There’s the definitional issue of whether Hispanic contains Portugal or not, the fact that there’s no documentary evidence of a link to Portugal, the consideration of whether Jews or Sephardic Jews consider themselves part of the European country they can trace their heritage to or to the greater Jewish Diaspora, and the fact that Cardozo probably never considered himself Hispanic because the term was not one of common usage at the time.
Posted by: Greg | Jun 3, 2009 8:08:36 AM
There was a factual error in your post:
the root of the word “Hispanic” is “Spain”, and if there’s one thing Portuguese people are adamant about not being (sometimes to the point of neurosis), it’s Spanish. So I think the definition doesn’t apply, on a plain-meaning theory.
“Hispanic” comes from the Latin, “Hispania,” (by way of “Hispanicus.”) “Hispania” was the name initially given by the Romans to the entire Iberian peninsula, including what would later become Portugal (though later on (in the Empire, I think), that part of the Iberian peninsula that became Portugal was named the province of Lusitania). This link goes to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography hosted on Perseus, which gives extensive information about “Hispania.”
Posted by: dmv | Jun 3, 2009 7:01:50 AM