Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans (Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spaniard and/or Latin American ancestry. These demographics include all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino regardless of ancestry. As of 2020, the Census Bureau estimated that there were almost 65.3 million Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States and its territories. "Origin" can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States of America. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. As one of the only two specifically designated categories of ethnicity in the United States, Hispanics and Latinos form a pan-ethnicity incorporating a diversity of inter-related cultural and linguistic heritages, the use of the Romance languages being the most important of all. Most Hispanic and Latino Americans are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Spanish, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, Colombian, or Venezuelan origin. The predominant origin of regional Hispanic and Latino populations varies widely in different locations across the country. In 2012, Hispanic Americans were the second fastest-growing ethnic group by percentage growth in the United States after Asian Americans. Hispanics of Indigenous descent and Spanish descent are the oldest ethnic groups to inhabit much of what is today the United States. Spain colonized large areas of what is today the American Southwest and West Coast, as well as Florida. Its holdings included present-day California, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Florida, all of which constituted part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, based in Mexico City. Later, this vast territory became part of Mexico after its independence from Spain in 1821 and until the end of the Mexican–American War in 1848. Hispanic immigrants to the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area derive from a broad spectrum of Hispanic countries.