Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-25184427-20140722165407/@comment-14168656-20140728164626

DManCO wrote: See, and I tend to go the opposite way. I see him as "white" because of the way he talks. As I mentioned above, my first cousin is half Puerto Rican as well. But he and I look a lot alike and we have the same NJ/NY accent, and his Spanish is the school-learned kind, not the spoken-in-the-home kind. So I (and his mother) tend to question why he thinks of himself as Latino when he (in our minds) has neither a distinctive look nor accent that would pass him as anything other than white without revealing his surname. I also joke that because his wife is of Irish ancestry, and thus his two young kids are very white (unless blond and light-brown hair darken significantly as they grow up) and they have surname-ethnicity-mismatch. They could pass for actual Spaniards (Spanish people have a lot of Celtic ancestry), but they don't look Latin American.

Of course, neither do a lot of Latin American's. When talking about the vast swath of land south of the U.S. border, there is a HUGE amount of racial diversity. Just as much as in the U.S. actually. There's also a big difference between countries where the population is still predominantly native, versus ones where there is a lot of European or African ancestry in the gene pool.

"African-American" is a politically-correct term, not an accurate one. We don't use "European-American" for whites, even though it would be just as accurate, since white people are rarely one ethnicity. Technically I'm mostly Polish, with a little Irish and French. But, my maternal grandmother's ancestors included a lot of Prussians (that's where the borders were back then) and thus I am a little bit Germanic, despite being mainly Slavic with some Celt. Europe had shifting borders throughout most of its history, and until Hitler came along there was a lot of mixing between ethnic groups. Neo-Nazi types adored the Icelanders for a long time as supposedly being a perfect example of "pure" Nordic/Germanic ancestry. But then DNA testing revealed they are as much Celt as Norse. Oops!

Posey can play it either way, although he largely comes across as Californian rather than Mexican. It would actually be interesting to see him play a Latino role and might make it easier to visualize him that way. Again, "Latino" and "Hispanic" are linguisitic terms. They tell you nothing about genetics. It is funny how many people assume that Melissa Ponzio (Scott's mom's actress) is also Latino when in fact she isn't. We don't even know if Melissa McCall is in-show! I don't recall her character's ethnicity ever coming up.

Like I was saying before it’s really cool to hear different perspectives! I think you and your Aunt see it that way because you’re not Latino, so you can’t relate. Being Latino, it makes perfect sense to me. I have known a lot of Latino people completely disconnected from their native culture that still adamantly claim it. At the same time I also know others (like how Tyler Posey SEEMS to be) that don’t feel connected at all. Everybody is different and it’s a very nuanced concept.

Puerto Rico specifically is actually a lot more like the US in terms of Racial makeup than people understand. There are A LOT of people on the island that are mostly Spaniard and would be indistinguishable from a White person here. The idea that there is some blended racially ambiguous combination of Spaniard, Native American, and African is actually not accurate (which really shocked my wife when we went there). Puerto Ricans can look European, Native, or Black, sometimes a combination of the three sometimes (in appearance) just one as you already alluded to  J.

You’re right about Melissa Ponzio, but not about the character Melissa McCall. I think you missed my other comment so I’ll quote it

“ You are correct Melissa Ponzio is Italian-American (not Latina), but on the show it is her (not Agent McCall) who has been explicitly written as Latina. In “Galvanize” it’s revealed that her maiden name is Delgado. It was so insignificant that when Posey was asked at this year’s Comic Con he didn’t even remember whether his Character was Latino or not (even though he was in the scene), but Jeff Davis reminded him of the scene and confirmed that he did write Scott’s character as at least Half-Mexican (which explains why the scene was even included in the first place). We know nothing at all about Agent McCall’s nationality, but could infer from the name that it’s possible he is at least partially Scottish (barring adoption).”