
Map of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie

Map of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
There are also all kinds of French speakers and their descendants in the United States, but no folk term like Latino to group them into a "racial" category. There are québécois and acadiens from Canada, and Cajuns in Louisiana descended from acadiens. We have many immigrants and their descendants from the French Caribbean. These include Haiti, a country that has been independent from France nearly as long as the US has been independent from England; Martinique and Guadeloupe, which are parts of France just as Hawaii is part of the US; and other islands whose status is more analogous to that of Puerto Rico. Smaller numbers come from other former French colonies around the world. Many people have French surnames; and they are every bit as varied in what they look like as are Latinos. Why don't we group them together into a French "race"?
Interestingly, the French have a category, la francophonie, which unites these diverse peoples. It means more than just communities of French speakers, but attempts to imply some shared essence that creates a unity of values and identity. (There is even an International Organization of the Francophonie, with dozens of member countries not all of which are French speaking.) It is easy to see that such a cultural category is in the interest of France; and the prestige of "Frenchness" is a global marketing triumph. For example, in the 1970s the Brazilian upper class would send its sons to America to learn English and business, and its daughters to France to learn French and become refined.
One difference between Latinos and French-affiliated people in the United States is numbers. There are so many Latin Americans that it serves the interest of the majority to group them together for reference purposes; and as minorities it is also in their interest to band together for mutual support under a shared rubric.
Our history of slavery led to the development of racial folk classifications, with white as an exclusionary category, based on ancestry. In the US, a person who looks white but has "black blood" isn't really white. Because Americans think in racial terms, Latinos and other minority groups get racial labels. Racial categories are socially constructed and change over time. Italian immigrants and Eastern European Jewish immigrants weren't always considered white; now they are. We haven't constructed a French race in the US because, quite possibly, there simply aren't enough French-affiliated people here.
Image sources:
Flag of France by Rainer Ebert
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_France.jpg
Map of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie by Bourrichon
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Map-Fran...
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