For lack of a better word is why the term was made up-I suppose that technically it is all of us who are descended from those who came from Spain to the new world after around 1500 AD.
That most of our ancestors became racially and/or ethnically mixed once they arrived there, especially with the indigenous Native Americans-also makes us different from old world Spaniards.
“American” is my nationality-any ethnic connections come after that...
NOTHING could be further from the truth. mecha adopted the word for no other reason than to make themselves seem more powerul than they were. Many Mexicans and Central and South Americans were forced into speaking or acting spanish but that doesn’t stop them from having their own indigenous cultures.