Why are Hispanics (folks with at least part Spanish ancestry) not counted as White?
Because many "Hispanics" in this country are really pure-blood Mexican Indians.
The only metro area I know of with a large "white hispanic" population is Miami.
"Why are Hispanics (folks with at least part Spanish ancestry) not counted as White?"
They used to be counted as white when crimes were reported. I don't know if they still are. Skewed the data quite a bit.
Hispanics can be of any race; most Hispanics in the U.S. are either part Indian (mestizo) or part black (mulatto) or in some cases part Indian and part black, and there are even Hispanics of Asian descent (quite a few Asians migrated to Panama, Peru and neighboring countries a few decades ago). The Census Bureau (correctly) does not list Hispanic as a race, and most Hispanics list either white or "some other race" in their Census forms. But when this article refers to "whites" it is referring to non-Hispanic whites, sometimes known as "Anglos."
My understanding is that they sometimes are. It depends on if it is beneficial for them and further establishes their credentials as minority victims or not. For example, when Hispanics commit crimes, they are tracked in the database as whites. (This overstates crimes by whites and makes it impossible to determine how much crime Hispanics are causing.) But when Hispanics are victims of crimes they are tracked separately from whites.