Any American of Spanish heritage should now be deemed hispanic for the purpose of affirmative action programs.
They already are.
The name "Gallegos" means "Gaels".
They play the bagpipe in Galicia--it's called the 'Gaita'
The area of Spain and Portugal they are talking about is the extreme north-western corner, "coincidentally" called Galicia, which is linguistically related to the word "Celt."
The people they are talking about were forced into that area by the last Ice Age, and then, when the glaciers retreated, they expanded into the rest of Europe maybe 10,000 BC.
The Y-chromosome haplogroup they are talking about is R1b.
My husband, whose ancestors came from England, and my father, whose ancestors came from Brittany, are both R1b, as is the vast majority of males whose ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Western France, Western Spain, and Portugal.
They aren't just R1b, they're also WAMH (Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Modal_Haplotype
About 70% of males in Britain and their descendents are R1b, and about 90% of males from Ireland, Wales, Western France, Western Spain, and Portugal. Many of those are also WAMH.
Since so many of the early European colonists of the Americas came from those regions, it's also among the most common Y-chromosome haplotypes in North America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R1b