Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans/Featured article/1

Alamo Mission, San Antonio, Texas

Hispanic (Spanish: hispano, hispánico, Portuguese: hispânico, Galician: hispánico, Basque: hispaniar, Catalan: hispà is an ethnonym that denotes a relationship to Spain or, in some definitions, to ancient Roman Hispania, which roughly comprised the Iberian Peninsula including the contemporary states of Andorra, Portugal, and Spain and the Crown Colony or British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar. Today, organizations in the United States use the term as a broad catchall to refer to persons with a historical and cultural relationship either with Spain, or with Spain and Portugal, regardless of race. The U.S. Census Bureau defines the ethnonym Hispanic or Latino to refer to "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American (except for Brazil), or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.", and states that Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race, any ancestry, any ethnicity. Generically, this limits the definition of Hispanic or Latino to people from the Caribbean, Central and South America, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race, distinctly excluding all persons of Portuguese origin. (more...)