Black Hispanic and Latino Americans

Black Hispanic and Latino Americans, also called Afro-Hispanics (Afrohispano), Afro-Latinos or Black Hispanics, or Black Latinos are classified by the United States Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget, and other U.S. government agencies as Black people living in the United States with ancestry in Spain, Portugal or Latin America and/or who speak Spanish, and/or Portuguese as their first language. Hispanidad, which is independent of race, is the only ethnic category, as opposed to racial category, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. The distinction made by government agencies for those within the population of any official race category, including "Black", is between those who report Hispanic backgrounds and all others who do not. Non-Hispanic Blacks consists of an ethnically diverse collection of all others who are classified as Black or African American that do not report Hispanic ethnic backgrounds. New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island have some of the highest percentages of Hispanics identifying as Black, where up to 25% of Hispanics identify as black, compared to 2.5% of Hispanics nationwide. Overall, the Northeast region has the largest concentration of Black Hispanics; this is partly because of the large Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other mostly or partly African descended Hispanic populations in the region. Black Hispanics accounted for 2.5% of the entire U.S. Hispanic population in 2010. Most Black Hispanics in the United States come from within the Dominican and Puerto Rican populations. Aside from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, large numbers of Black Hispanics can also be found in populations originating from northern South America, and the Caribbean coast of Central America as well, including the Panamanian and Colombian communities, and to a lesser extent, the Cuban-American community.