Latin & American Family Med (2024)

FAQs

Are Mexicans considered Latino? ›

OMB defines "Hispanic or Latino" as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

If the group's language is the most important factor (i.e. describing a Spanish-speaking population), Hispanic may be the better choice. If where a person or group comes from (especially if from Latin America or the Caribbean) is most important, Latino and its variations are probably the better choice.

Latine is what's commonly used among Spanish speakers as it's more easily pronounced than Latinx and can be used in plural forms.

Hispanic and Latino are often used interchangeably though they actually mean two different things. Hispanic refers to people who speak Spanish or are descended from Spanish-speaking populations, while Latino refers to people who are from or descended from people from Latin America.

Filipino Americans, for example, helped establish the Asian American movement and are classified by the U.S. Census as Asian. But the legacy of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines means that they share many cultural characteristics with Latinos, such as last names, religion, and language.

Mexican Americans (Spanish: mexicano-estadounidenses, mexico-americanos, or estadounidenses de origen mexicano) are Americans of Mexican heritage. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans.

"Latino" does not include speakers of Romance languages from Europe, such as Italians or Spaniards, and some people have (tenuously) argued that it excludes Spanish speakers from the Caribbean.

In 1976, the U.S. Congress passed a law that required the government to collect and analyze data for a specific ethnic group: “Americans of Spanish origin or descent.” That legislation defined this group as “Americans who identify themselves as being of Spanish-speaking background and trace their origin or descent from ...

A Word From Verywell

While Hispanic and Latino are sometimes used interchangeably, they have different meanings. Hispanic refers to individuals who are Spanish-speaking or have a background in a Spanish-speaking country. Latino refers to those who are from or have a background in a Latin American country.

Officially, Brazilians are not considered to be Hispanic or Latino because the federal government's definition of the term – last revised in 1997 – applies only to those of “Spanish culture or origin” such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American or other origins, regardless of race.

What is queer Latinx? ›

Latinx is the gender-neutral alternative to Latina or Latino. It is a term used to describe a diverse group of people who have roots in Latin America. While it is unclear exactly when and where the term emerged, it is clear it emerged from queer Latinx online communities in order to challenge the gender binary.

Hispanic and Latino remain the dominant terms to refer to people from this group, according to the Pew Research Center. However, other terms have been growing in popularity, including Latinx and Latine, gender-neutral versions of the masculine and feminine words for Latino and Latina.

Cubans are the fourth-largest population (tied with Dominicans) of Hispanic origin living in the United States, accounting for 4% of the U.S. Hispanic population in 2021. From 2000 to 2021, the Cuban-origin population increased 92%, growing from 1.2 million to 2.4 million.

Jamaica, an English–speaking nation, isn't always included as being part of Latin America either, and Jamaicans do not tend to identify as Latino.

This includes people from or descended from Spain—but Spain is part of Europe, and thus not part of Latin America. Therefore, Spanish people could be described as Hispanic, but not Latino/Latina/Latinx.

Latin America is generally understood to consist of the entire continent of South America in addition to Mexico, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean whose inhabitants speak a Romance language.

Latino: The second most widely used term, Latino represents individuals who live in or descend from the Latin American region. While Latina is used to represent women, official U.S. documentation only uses Latino as an ethnic descriptor.

How did Hispanics identify their race in the 2020 census? In the eyes of the Census Bureau, Hispanics can be of any race, because “Hispanic” is an ethnicity and not a race. However, this distinction is subject to debate.

The term “Latino” also came into being in the 19th century. A shortening of the word latinoamerico, or “Latin American,” it was coined as a variety of former Spanish colonies declared independence around the 1850s. The pan-national, pan-ethnic term was a nod toward the similarities of nations once owned by Spain.