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Originally posted by jaxnmarko
edit on 1-8-2013 by jaxnmarko because: accidental enter button pressing
Originally posted by starfoxxx
MOD Removed Ill Mannered Comment
Originally posted by James1982
In south America people are not all pure natives. They are a mixture of native and european. When people think of "A Mexican" they are thinking of a person who is mixed euro/native.
That's the reason they are called latinos, hispanics, and speak spanish. Because they were taken over by european powers, which interbred with the locals and spawned a new race basically.
In the northern Americas there was not such extreme levels of interbreeding, so they stayed more native than their friends to the south.
That's not to say there aren't any pure natives left, there's plenty of places in southern america that still have populations of natives. But the term "native american" is really just a PC/legal term in the USA, not an accurate descriptor to detail all of the continents inhabitants. Basically it's just a term used to refer to the native populations of the USA's territory.
A guy in south america probably wouldn't call himself a native american, he would call himself whatever country he lives in, territory, tribe, whatever you want to use. The term is used in America because there is a big difference between the natives and the current "ruling class"
In a place where the natives ARE the people in charge of the country, there really isn't any need to further signify themselves as being native. It's kind of implied.
jaxnmarko
I wonder why we call Native Americans of the U.S. and Canada Native Americans while we call Native Americans of Mexico and further South, Hispanics and Latinos.