Food for thought: Latin@s, Hispanics and Spanish... How PC should we be?

Latin@s. Hispanics. Spanish.
There are differences people!
First, say them out loud. Repeat after me:
-Lah-tee-n@s (@ stands for the a or o that we use to identify a feminine or masculine word)
-His-panics. (easy one)
-Span-ish. (it's getting easier fellow English readers)

What brings this up is a comment left by someone who corrected the poster here at this blog:
http://tlloh.com/hate-spanish-people-who-dont-speak-spanish/comment-page-1/#comment-4235
I've fallen in live with this blog for how much I can relate to it. The post I'm referring to in particular is about latin@s that don't speak a lick of Spanish and how we the Spanish- speakers tend to look down on them. I admit that I'm guilty of this. But I'm also not an asshole and don't try to teach them a little something-something or try to help them when they WANT to try to speak the language and need help in translating. But I digress. Whats making me post is the use of the three words I mentioned before. Latin@s. Hispanics. Spanish. A commenter decided to correct the poster/blogger on her blog. She knows the difference as cleared up in her comments but the words are unfortunately used synonymously in this country. ESP by people who refuse to educate themselves and remain ignorant of other cultures. We know how much Americans love culture shock. (digressing, again, ANYWAY) Back to today's lesson.

The similarities:
There is only one similarity and that is that it refers to the same people. These words, labels, are used to identify one population. Just because it is used synonymously, does not mean that they aren't different. There are differences and a lot of folks just don't understand them so let me break it down.

The differences:

First off, SPANISH is a language and a reference to people who are born or descended directly from Spain. It is a noun that defines itself by referring to people of a particular country, herein being Spain. The romance language that the 18 Latino countries use and have created their respective dialects also still referred to and called Spanish. It's our mother country. The Spanish ruled and reigned over us for many decades. How can we not use Spanish over our indigenous languages? (possibly maybe because people will understand us even less and we'd be stuck trying to understand each other. Think of Africa and how there are many dialects in respective areas. That would be the latin@s without Spanish, it's what binds us together.)

Granted, without our language and history, we would not be binded to each other and probably not called Hispanics or latin@s. Which brings me to Hispanics.

Hispanics. To many, it's a dirty word. It's a social construct created by the government of the USA to try and group us together. We are a huge population. As latin@s, we have other countries who don't speak primarily Spanish but because of their geographical location find themselves sucked into this creation called Hispanics. (I don't remember when the word was created but) I believe this was introduced in the reagan era(I'm
Being lazy and don't feel like looking it up, my memory only goes so far, how bout some time before my time?) where we were cluster fucked into including the west indies, belize, brazil and the 3 old French countries above brazil, the guianas and can't remember the third country's name right now. Anyway, Hispanics is also to include Filipino and Spanish from Spain.

Hispanics- anyone with a former Spanish background.

Let it sink in. Sunk yet? Good.
Now try to see where our population is disturbed by this. You, the government, are trying to group us all into a category but can't find a real way to define us aside from our historical details that we all were owned and ruled by spain at one point. It's disgusting. This didn't make us!!! Not only that but even worse, you are telling us that we ALL descended from spaniards? WHAT? I may have predominantly Spanish features but I am NOT all Spanish descending. And this is where the Latino movement began.

Those who understand the power of words and their epidemiologies find ourselves arguing that Latin@s is the word to describe us. Latin@ does not just say we're descended from Spain but instead that we're a racially-ethnically super combination melting pot of a people. We've got all sorts of European, African and Taino (as well as what the natives of other countries are called) in our blood. No one is not mixed. No one is pure bred of something. I am puerto rican and no matter what anyone says my blood is mixed generations back. More than 200 years worth. Just because I can trace that far back and tell you exactly what I am doesn't mean I'm going to. Puerto rican sums it up just fine. The point is latino describes us better. It's not the best we can do but it's a viable replacement.

Do you understand the proper usage?
Hope so. History lesson over. Dismissed.