What's the difference from Hispanic, and Latino?

Question

I honestly don't know, what the difference is. I've also had people "correct" me when I use the terms interchangeably to refer to Mexicans, or other's from like Peru, or Guatemala.

Do only "certain countries" fall into one category, and according to whom's standards? How does it work? I'm not trying to start anything, I genuinly would like to know how others feel about this.

Definitions of both according to yahoo:

. Hispanic -
1. Of or relating to Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America.
2. Of or relating to a Spanish-speaking people or culture.

. Latino -
1. A Latin American.
2. A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States. See Usage Note at Hispanic.

God bless you guys.

Answer 1

One Lilith Hides Another said it all, just make things even more clear:

) A Hispanic is a person that has Spanish as the first language. In the US people whose ascentands used to be Hispanic are called Hispanic too.

) A latino, in the US, is someone that was born in Latin America or whose ancestors came from Latin America. As One Lilith... said before, originally the word latino also refers to Latin Europe, but as 99% of the people in the US, where I suppose you come from, don't know that, ignore it. Don't call someone of Italian ascents a latino cause probably this person would disagree with you, even though you're right.

So:

) A person from Spain is Hispanic, but not latino (In the US!, in Spain they consider themselfes latinos)

) A person from Brazil or Haiti is latino, but not Hispanic

) The other Latin American countries are Hispanic and Latino.

If other person censures you because you call a Mexican, Peruvian or Guatemalan of latino or Hispanic, this person was wrong.

Note that Spanish America has some native population that don't speak Spanish as first language, but a native language. In this case I don't know if they should be called Hispanics in the US, but in Latin America they are not called Hispanics.

Answer 2

Latino implies of latin based culture - mediterranean heritage. Italy, Spain, Portugal, to some extent France as well are included in the Latin countries. Ideally, all descendants should be part of that group... however, in the US, the term Latino has come to indicate a group including mostly Hispanic heritage, but that is a twist of the original meaning. It could be correctly used to refer to a Brazilian (Portuguese heritage) for instance. Latin America is so called because it has been colonized by Latin countries, rather than by England... not that the colonization was kinder....

Hispanic is, as the world indicate quite accurately, a person of Spain-related heritage, either through Spain itself, or through Spanish speaking countries.

In other terms, an hispanic heritage person is a latino. A latino is not necessarly from a hispanic group. Note that other terms are definitely derogatory.

Answer 3

Widely speaking, Latin is of or relating to a country/region where a language deriving from Latin is spoken: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. However, and depending on context, Latin could refer only to Latin America (those countries where Spanish is spoken, but also Portuguese).

Hispanic, on the other hand, refers either to Spain or to an US inhabitant that speaks Spanish (as a mother-tongue).

Answer 4

im from guatemala. i think latino and hispanic are pretty much the same thing. some people though, refer to latinos as people from the caribbean and hispanics to people from the actual american continent. its not discriminatory or offensive, dont worry.

Answer 5

I've been told there are lots of differences. Same with "Chicano" and a couple others. And some people get really mad if you use the wrong word. But secretly, I think they are all pretty much the same.

Answer 6

I'm mexican and salvadorean and my mexican side only like to be called hispanic because they are from mexico and my salvadorean side is latino because they are in central latin america. There is a difference

Answer 7

equivalent to Blacks, African-Americas,Whites-Caucasian