Many people use the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino"
interchangeably, they actually have different meanings. There is
significant overlap between the terms, but their differences may
make only one term correct in certain circumstances.
Hispanic and Latino
are often mistakenly used to refer to race or color. Instead,
these terms actually describe ethnicity.
Hispanic is a term
that focuses on language and describes the culture and people of
areas formerly ruled by the Spanish Empire. The common thread
among Hispanics is the shared common language of Spanish. This
would include areas such as Mexico, Central America, and most of
South America.
Latino (or Latina for
females), on the other hand, focuses on geography and describes
people of Latin American descent. This would include countries
in South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and North
America whose people speak Romance languages, such as Spanish,
French, Italian, and Portuguese.
Based upon those
definitions, it's easy to see how much overlap there is between
the terms Hispanic and Latino. To make things more confusing,
the term "Hispanic" comes from the Latin word for "Spain," while
Latino comes from the Spanish word for "Latin."
To see where the two
terms differ, consider the people of Brazilian descent. Since
the people of Brazil speak Portuguese rather than Spanish, they
would be considered Latino but not Hispanic.
So, the terms have
much overlap, but they are not completely interchangeable.
Hispanics and Latinos
generally choose not to use either term. Instead, most prefer to
be referred to simply as Americans or by their family's national
origin, such as Mexican-American, Cuban-American, etc.
Today, there are more
than 56 million Hispanic and Latino people in the United States,
over 17% of the US population.