Big difference is that Spain, especially Andalucia, is really proud of it's Arabic heritage and recognises the lunacy of the inquisition and the counter-reformation. "Lowest nation of Europe"? What does that even mean? Don't make a good point about Latin American history by showing pig ignorance of European history.
Actually, I didn't intend offense to you personally, though I do regard Hispanicization of America as somewhat of a perverse abomination, but I think the same of Anglicization. I refer there to the inculcation of a foreign Iberian identity at the expense of indigenous American identity, with the stereotype of a "Hispanic" being someone with reddish-brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes; in other words, an Indian called something else. I've had too many Anglos tell me to "go back where I came from" because of their idiotic misconception that I was "Mexican" because of the Spanish surname that the expansion of the empire into the U.S. Southwest and beyond left me and so many other U.S. Indians with.
And beyond that, I do recognize the majority of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Bolivians, etc. as something fundamentally different than the majority of Cubans, Chileans, Uruguayans, Argentinians, etc. Most people in the former countries are predominantly Indian; most people in the latter countries are predominantly white despite an allegedly homogenous "Latin American" identity. Too many people in the U.S. don't understand the fact that the Mexican working class is an oppressed racial group composed of various Indian ethnicities because they foolishly assume that "Mexicans" and "Hispanics" are a race.
And while I still caution that I don't intend personal offense, I'm rather sick of many people in the U.S. that are descended from the Indians and mestizos of Latin American countries believing that they're "Spanish" because their ancestors were compelled to adopt Spanish names, customs, and language. African-Americans are not and never were under the illusion that they are "English" because of their compulsory adoption of those English elements. Native Americans in the parts of the U.S. controlled by the British since European contact are similarly un-illusioned. Even the Indians of actual Latin American countries realize this (and the whites deny their Spanish heritage for nationalistic reasons). But idiotic "Chicanos" in the U.S. apparently don't. I've been called a "pocho" for my lack of Spanish aptitude despite being non-Spanish and a U.S. citizen, as it's apparently presumed that a language imposed on an indigenous population by European invaders is "Chicano."
Urban Dictionary: pocho
A comment from "Chiborn":
A Mexican sees a Chicano stuttering out his Spanish and thinks to himself - pocho - what an embarrassment.
A far more insightful comment:
Supposedly a "hispanic" who is a traitor to his "Spanish" roots.
This is absurdly ironic because the natives of Meso-America did not speak Spanish. In fact Spanish was a language forced onto them.
Read about what Las Casas witnessed to get an idea of why the natives of America speak Spanish today. Rape, forced labor, and betrayal by the Aztec (sic; she was a Nahuatl-speaking Mayan) Malinche.
I hope Chiborn realizes that the Spanish language comes from Spain, and by speaking Spanish he or she could be considered a Malinche as well, or shall I say, "pocho".
Chiborn should come to Spain and see how the Spanish really feel about Spanish speaking Amerindians.
Chiborn in Spain: HOLA! mi hermano espanol! Yo ODIO pochos!
Spaniard: Callate tu sudaca. Volver a mexico subhumano.
Mexico is deep in North America and as the map illustrated, Spanish rule stretched far beyond Mesoamerica, of course, but those are the stereotypes...
To get this more, have a look at Lazaro Gutierrez de Lara's
The Mexican People; I frown on him for not writing with a name better suited to his heritage, but as Mexico is the best-known example of a region that contained various Indian nations subjugated under Hispanic identity, it's an interesting read.
Thus we have in Europe two well-defined psychologies, Spanish and non-Spanish, which were to influence profoundly the history of the New Worlds, South and North. The first was to impart to the great Continent of Latin-America its own characteristic lust of blood, despotism, and intolerance; and the second, which, owing to the small part played by the Latin peoples in the colonization of the United States and Canada, was essentially a Saxon psychology, was to impart to the great Continent of North America its own characteristic love of peace, justice, and industry.
This is what has come to be known as the "Black Legend," the sentiment that Hispanic conduct in America was exceptionally brutal. There might be some basis for that claim, but we cannot excuse the British with this nonsense about the Saxons' "love of peace, justice, and industry." But apart from the inaccurate geographical description there and issues I take with his exaltation of the Aztecs and disparagement of ethnic groups such as the various Apachean peoples as "wild nomads" as distantly related to them as Europeans are, it's an interesting read. But there needs to be an analysis of the scars of Spanish influence on what's now U.S. territory, not just "Latin America."
Ultimately, my hope is that our common enemy is the Spanish ruling class that has attempted to legitimize their authoritarian measures through appeals to common ethnic and national identity despite both the substantial diversity of the Catalonians, Andalusians, Castillans, Aragonians, and most famously (or infamously), the Basque, as well as the fact that persons do not consciously choose their ethnic or national identities and should not be restricted due to irrelevant attributes that they bear no responsibility for acquiring.
The industrial workers of Catalonia and the Mission Indians of California found a common foe in separate generations of the same brutal ruling class, most significantly the centuries-old establishment of the Roman Catholic church in Spanish political authority.
