My parents said this too. I BEEN saying this and continue to. Latinidad (Hispanidad) was originally the kinship/lineage to white Spain or assimilation & Hispanicization of "savages"...then it came to mean the mono-cultural mestizaje of Euro-whites & indigenous assimilation. https://twitter.com/Prof_JWallace/status/1305878880239185924

The casta system situated white Peninsulares (whites from Spain/Portugal) at the top. White was what the mixed & coloreds"aspired" to reach. Twas about blood & ancestral "purity" by breeding out stained blood. Where is Blackness in that? At the base of the hierarchy.

Black ancestry was not redeemable. The goal was/is to "adelantar." When I met my husband, to describe a mulato he said they were "un poco mas adelantado." Without even realizing the subtext of the saying. When I pushed back on it he was like "oh shit." And felt terrible.

It was the colonizers that rooted their genocide/human trafficking/enslavement/sex abuse in Hispanidad, it was furthered by white men whose wealth came from African and indigenous labor, it was inspired by eugenics, fascist Franco even used as a platform....This yall King?