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I know that French is a romance language and my family's culture is Latin, When my grandmother was alive and younger she was able to choose Latin American in the United States census, My question is what happened when our family crossed the border from Quebec into the United States and started speaking English are we suddenly no longer Latin? This is insulting!

Roland Smith
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    Not really the right place to discuss this, but what do you mean by "Latin"? – Hot Licks Jun 24 '20 at 23:19
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    I’m voting to close this question because it's about demographic categories rather than language. – The Photon Jun 24 '20 at 23:52
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    Just for the record, & reenforcing what Mitch said, "Latin American" means someone from Central or South America. I would never expect someone whose ancestors came from Europe to be "Latin American". – Hot Licks Jun 25 '20 at 02:00
  • When you say your family’s culture is Latin. What do you mean? They all spoke Latin? And what does French have to do with anything with respect to Latin culture? (whatever that means) What leads you ’to believe that crossing the border and speaking English could possibly force an insulting change to your culture? – Jim Jun 25 '20 at 03:32

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In American English (it may well be different in Canadian English), 'Romance' refers to any language derivative of Ancient Latin. But the adjective 'Latin' and variations of that are never applied to French-Canadians. 'Latin' only refers mostly Spanish and Portuguese and Italian speakers, not to French or Romanian.

To say that your family's culture is 'latin' implies, in American English, that you were immigrants from Central or South America.

Of course, crossing a border doesn't change what you are, but it certainly may change the words that are used. Words you are used to using in Canada in French may just not apply in the US in English. It's not an insult. It's just the way words works. In the US 'fanny' is just a childish word as a euphemism for 'butt', but in the UK it's a childish word for the American word 'pussy' (which is somewhat taboo).

So in the US, you wouldn't be called Latin at all but rather just French Canadian.

Mitch
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