Hispanics or Latinos are those people who classified themselves in one of the specific Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino categories listed on the Census 2000 questionnaire -"Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano," "Puerto Rican", or "Cuban" -as well as those who indicate that they are "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino." Persons who indicated that they are "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" include those whose origins are from Spain, the Spanish-speaking countries of Central or South America, the Dominican Republic or people identifying themselves generally as Spanish, Spanish-American, Hispanic, Hispano, Latino, and so on.
Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States.People who identify their origin as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race. Thus, the percent Hispanic should not be added to percentages for racial categories. Tallies that show race categories for Hispanics and nonHispanics separately are available.
It's interesting that several of my Portuguese-speaking friends from Brazil also now think of themselves as "hispanics." I doubt that Portuguese in Portugal do!
Good information, thanks. I really did not contemplate the origins of the word hispanic. And if we contemplate the orgins of the people claiming to be hispanic, I suppose we find many of them are actually Europeans.