Edition: U.S. / Global

Latino? Hispanic? Quechua? No, American

Published: November 18, 1992

To the Editor:

"Latino, Si. Hispanic, No." (Op-Ed, Oct. 28) by Earl Shorris is a fine example of the creation of artificial groups of people so that they can be counted and controlled politically.

I have a friend who was born in Peru. She is a naturalized United States citizen. Her first language was Quechua. Her second language was Italian. Her third language was Spanish. Her fourth language was English, and now she is studying Yiddish.

I am an amateur historian, and I have been able to trace her genealogy back to before 1460. She is a descendant of an Inca prince, a former president of Argentina and a Spanish conquistador who left Spain to avoid the Inquisition. One branch of her family went to Galicia from Portugal in 1460. Later there was a marriage to a young Basque woman.

So to me, my friend is not Latino or Hispanic. She is a Portuguese, Galician, Basque, Spanish, Quechua, Argentine, Peruvian, Jewish 100 percent American.

But ask her where her family came from, and she says, "If you go back far enough my family came from the Garden of Eden, so I guess that makes me Edish." BOB KREBS Mount Vernon, N.Y., Oct. 29, 1992