Imagining the new community is made easier by the new communications technology, including television and post-television media, such as the internet and online computer services...

Spanish language television has become part of a united audience, learning of the same events and hearing their language spoken in relatively homogenous accents... and on television the imagined community also has faces.

Earlier imagined communities had been based on a shared faith, such as the fellowship of Christians, or a myth of common ancestry, but not on language. Most communities were not imagined so much as experienced; that is one's community was simply made up of people one saw and dealt with everyday.

Hispanics or Latinos

Hispanics, Latinos are these terms interchangeable? What or who defines them? In chapter 2 of this book called "Counting" Geoffrey Fox addresses this conundrum.

 "Hispanics," the census bureau remind us..."can be of any race, religion, and any citizen ship status, from undocumented to U.S citizen by birth, and may have any of twenty distinct national histories.

 They do not even share the same first language... in contemporary American ethno speak Hispanic is any person who either speaks Spanish as a first language or had some ancestor who did, even if this person speaks only English.

Other definitions I've heard suggested that all Latin American people living in the U.S are Latino, anywhere else there're Hispanic. Some even suggest Filipinos as Hispanic, as a result of their long occupation by the Spaniards..

Earlier in the third paragraph we learned  that the electronic media [Spanish television] in principle, is pivotal in creating a virtual "Hispanics-land," So now the question arises. How are the many Hispanics who do not speak or even understand Spanish connected?

In chapter one "Imagining a nation," (it what seems a bit dismissive) Fox uses the term "Unity of Language," as the most important constituent of the Hispanic nation. "The language, is a mark of membership. It is also a source of pride, because it connects U.S Hispanics -- even those who barley speak and read [Spanish] to a prestigious literary tradition...."Today's Americans of Spanish speaking ancestry who do not speak the language try to learn it and most want they children to learn it....

Probably as a result of America's occupation with the pigeonholing of Spanish speaking peoples (as well as, other groups). Some would rather be referred to by their nationality. In my personal experience, response to the question regarding Hispanic or Latino probably depends on how it's framed.

But who are these folk that represent the fastest growing segment of America's population? This seems to rest on weather you are looking out, or looking in. But quite frankly, I find that even from the inside this issue has yet to be resolved .