The Latin American name and identity (April 2025)
The name is part of the identity. Logicians knew it, taxonomists know it, and writers experience it daily. What doesn't have a name is as if it didn't have existence. In many ways, naming is creating. The lack of a unique, defined, and satisfactory name is not unrelated to the old problem of the identity of what we call Hispanic America
In the early days of the "discovery," the New Continent was called "the Indies." For greater precision, but no less ambiguity, "the West Indies." Later it was known that it wasn't Asia, but the inhabitants continued to be referred to by the improper name of Indians.
Each region of the American geography received its own name from the beginning. There was La Española, New Spain, Peru, Virginia, New England... The name "America" was the result of an enthusiastic inspiration by Vespucci on the part of the cartographer Waldseemüller, and it only slowly imposed itself. In Spain, the name "Indies" decidedly predominated. There has been talk of a Spanish resistance to the name "America." Las Casas and Oviedo mention nothing but "the Indies, Islands, and Mainland of the Ocean Sea».
A curious polarization occurred, to which the growing importance of the United States since its independence contributed, which consisted of the name "America" predominating in the northern countries and coming to be applied to the northern part of the continent.
In the language of the men of independence, the name that appears is America. Not only did they call themselves Americans, but they also projected a continental vision that included all Americans. Bolívar could say without hesitation: «Our Homeland is America».
With the independence of the United States and its enormous impact worldwide, the uncontrollable process of its appropriation of the name «America» and «American» begins».
They were not juridically a state, but a federation, without another generic name than America, and that's why they decided to call themselves the United States of America, almost without realizing the usurpation they were committing. That's where the ambiguity begins. Certainly, they were American states, but they were not, by far, the only ones that could take that name. Most of the continental population was in the Iberian fold. When 34 years later the independence of the countries that had been part of the Spanish and Portuguese empires occurs, they adopt their old provincial names. Perhaps, if the enlightened Bolivarian purpose of establishing a union between all of them could have been fulfilled, the difficult question would have been dramatically raised
There remained in the north a growing nation with the name of America, and in the rest, about twenty countries with local and distinct names.While in the world, those from the north were known as Americans, those from the south were designated by the name of their respective countries..
The immense wave of immigration that overflowed into the United States in the 19th century made them, for Europeans, the only America, and their children, the only Americans. The loss of the name imposed the need to search for different designations for that other America. All reflected the anguishing problem of identity, and none was entirely satisfactory. It was called Spanish America, Hispanic America, Ibero-America, South America, Latin America, Indo-America…
Those from the north never had any hesitation about the name. They were, called themselves, and proclaimed themselves Americans. The others had to search for qualifiers that would distinguish them.A similar case has not occurred in any other continental context. Europeans are all those from Europe, Asians are all those from Asia, and Africans are all those from Africa, without any portion of humanity from those continents thinking or being able to claim ownership of the name of the respective continent. It has never been attempted, despite all the differences that exist among them, to reserve the name Europeans for the nationals of some countries, leaving the rest covered by some qualifier, such as Latin-Europeans, Germanic-Europeans, Anglo-Europeans, or Slavic-Europeans. All are Europeans with equal entitlement, and they do not need to add any qualifier to indicate their situation.
The long string of names for this other world can be pointed out in its historical sequence, from "indiano" or "criollo" to "Latin American". The variety of appellations clearly implies a doubt or insecurity about one's own identity. When a person from the United States says they are American, it expresses a firm and secure conviction of identity. It's not the same when a person from that other America with a changing name is asked what they are, or is arbitrarily designated by one of the various possible designations.
There is no entirely innocent name. "Nomen est omen" said the ancients. There is some obscure or impenetrable relationship between the name and the thing, as linguist philosophers know, who in recent years have strived to penetrate the mystery of language and the undeniable correspondence between the name and the object. It's not mere chance or whim to name something without creating or revealing a powerful relationship between the name and the thing. One doesn't name without reasons or consequences. Every name mysteriously represents the thing named. Today we cannot accept Shakespeare's assertion that under another name the rose would have the same sweet aroma; possibly it would have the same appearance, but it wouldn't be exactly what the rose has come to signify, both thing and name..
The vacillation of the name is part of the vacillation about identity that has characterized this vast part of the American continent to this day. And it reflects and confirms the contentious difficulty of defining its human and cultural identity. It would be bold to say whether the absence of a name influences the problem of identity or whether the doubt about identity manifests itself in the vacillation about the name. This passage highlights the complex relationship between identity and naming, suggesting that the uncertainty surrounding the name reflects a deeper uncertainty about identity, and vice versa.
Arturo Uslar Pietri
Collaboration/Research by:
Researchers and Writers Circle. California Hispanic & Latin American Research Lodge.
Source:
http://archivosagenda.org/es/el-nombre-y-la-identidad-de-america-latina
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