White Hispanic and Latino Americans

In the United States, a Hispanic or Latino is an individual who is of full or partial Hispanic or Latino descent. Although not differentiated in the U.S. Census definition, White Latino Americans may also be defined to include those who identify as white and either originate from or have descent from not only Spanish speaking countries in Latin America but also other Romance languages other than Spanish, such as Brazil, Haiti, and French Guiana. Based on the definitions created by the Office of Management and Budget and the US Census Bureau, the concepts of race and ethnicity are mutually independent. For the Census Bureau, ethnicity distinguishes between those who report ancestral origins in Spain or Latin America (Hispanic and Latino Americans), and those who do not (non-Hispanic Americans). From 1850 to 1920, Mexicans in the United States were generally classified as white by the U.S. Census. In 1930, "Mexican" was officially added as a racial category on the United States Census but was soon after removed due to political pressure from the Mexican consul general in New York, the Mexican ambassador in Washington, the Mexican government itself, Mexican Americans, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) who protested the exclusion from whiteness. In 1970, a 5 percent sample of the Census was asked if their “origin or descent” was Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or Other Spanish. In 1980, the full population was asked about "Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent" identifying three nationalities (“Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano”). Thereafter "Latino" was classified solely as an ethnicity separate from race. In 2000, the US Census Bureau allowed persons to check multiple race identifiers. As of 2020, 62 million or 18.7% of residents of the United States of America identified as Hispanic or Latino of which 12.5 million or 20.3% self-identified as white alone down from the 2019 American Community Survey when 38.3 million, or 65.5% of Latinos self-identified as white.