The Big Latino/Hispanic Difference
Reuters

Despite the common norm that allows the terms Hispanic and Latino to be interchanged, in concept, they are not the same. The Latino Hispanic difference is mostly unnoticed by the public.

In general, Hispanic means that these groups of people speak Spanish and or are offspring of Spanish-speaking communities and there are 400 million people in the world that speak the Spanish language. Latino, on the other hand, are a group of people who are from or are the descendants of people from Latin America.

In the present, the United States of America considers these two words as a name of a category of race such as Asian, Black, and white despite the Latino Hispanic difference.

Despite this common notion, Hispanics and Latinos compose of people from different racial groups and it is inaccurate to categorize them as a single race.

The two terms are important in giving identities for many migrant citizens of the United States of America. These two are also used by the US government in conducting research regarding crimes and punishment, social studies, economics, and political trends. It also helps in making studies on social problems provide more accurate results.

Hispanic is an English term that came from the Latin word Hispanicus. This refers to people who are living in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula in Spain) during the reign of the Roman Empire.

Hispanic is considered to be an element of culture for its definition of being a language that a group of people speaks.

It is closely related to ethnicity being an identity category. This means that this represents a group of individuals with a common culture.

Lots of people from different ethnicities may be identified as Hispanic which means that the term has a wider scope than ethnicity. For example, individuals originating from Mexico and Puerto Rico will possess different cultural backgrounds despite their similarity in the language they speak. This is the reason why most people who consider themselves Hispanic connect their ethnicity with their originating country or the ethnic community in the country.

According to some reports, the term Hispanic was used by the US government during former president Richard Nixon's reign. The term was first used in a United States Census in 1980.

The term was commonly used by the eastern part of the United States of America such as in Texas and in Florida. People from different races may be identified as Hispanic, even whites.

Latino is a term used to determine the location of where a person originated from. The term Latino pertains to people originating from Latin America. It is the short version of the Spanish phrase "Latino Americano" which is Latin American in the English language.

The term Latino does not also pertain to a race. Any person from Central America or South America can be described as Latino. Within the group of Latinos, many races can be identified. Latinos can be the descendants of Mestizos, white, Asian or Black.

The standard definition of the term Latino is different from its actual usage. The Latino Hispanic difference had inspired the United States Census Bureau to plan a way to change how they ask about race and ethnicity in their Census in the year 2020.