Tuesday, July 21, 2020

whiteness: blanquedad or blanquitud?

I have been using blanquedad, but recently I've been seeing blanquitud more often. So I did a google hits check, a trick that I often use when translating (or when I'm serving as the backup interpreter) and considering different options. It turns out that blanquedad only has 7,280 hits while blanquitud has 91,500. The hits on blanquedad are decent sources (sometimes they will all be clearly translations using false cognates) but still, I am going to shift to blanquitud since it is more widely used online. Thoughts? Comments?

These thoughts brought to you thanks to the article below, which is based on the Latin American wide PERLA survey that uses the color palette I mentioned a few weeks ago in the black and brown post. If you are interested in reading it and don't have access just ask me for a copy. 

Vásquez-Padilla, Darío Hernán, and Castriela Esther Hernández-Reyes. “Interrogando la gramática racial de la blanquitud: Hacia una analítica del blanqueamiento en el orden racial colombiano.” Latin American Research Review 55, no. 1 (March 19, 2020): 64–80. https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.170.