About the Hispanic Population and its Origin (2024)

FAQs

What is the origin of Hispanic population? ›

Most Hispanic and Latino Americans are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Colombian, Guatemalan, Honduran, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Venezuelan or Nicaraguan origin. The predominant origin of regional Hispanic and Latino populations varies widely in different locations across the country.

Latino ancestry can be traced back to Indigenous populations, such as the Maya, Aztec, Taíno, and Inca civilizations, as well as to European and African roots from colonization.

Hispanic or Latino origin includes people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central and South American, Dominican, and other or unknown Latin American or Spanish origin. People of Hispanic origin may be of any race.

There were 62.5 million Latinos in the United States in 2021, accounting for approximately 19% of the total U.S. population. In 1980, with a population of 14.8 million, Hispanics made up just 7% of the total U.S. population. For more, read the accompanying blog post, “11 facts about Hispanic origin groups in the U.S.”

Overall, the 10 largest Hispanic origin groups—Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, Hondurans, Ecuadorians and Peruvians—make up 92% of the U.S. Hispanic population. Six Hispanic origin groups have populations greater than 1 million.

Cultural diffusion and intermixing among the Amerindian populations with African and the Europeans created the modern Mexican identity which is a mixture of regional indigenous, European, and African cultures that evolved into a national culture during the Spanish period.

The 1970 census was the first time that a "Hispanic" identifier was used and data collected with the question. The definition of "Hispanic" has been modified in each successive census.

The term Hispanic was adopted by the United States government in the early 1970s during the administration of Richard Nixon after the Hispanic members of an interdepartmental Ad Hoc Committee to develop racial and ethnic definitions recommended that a universal term encompassing all Hispanic subgroups—including Central ...

Historical origins and genetics

The Spanish people's genetic pool largely derives from the pre-Roman inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula: Pre-Indo-European and Indo-European speaking pre-Celtic groups: (Iberians, Vettones, Turdetani, Aquitani).

What does “Hispanic” mean? In general, it refers to those persons with ancestry from Spanish-speaking countries, which is why countries like Brazil and Belize are excluded as they were colonized by Portugal and Great Britain, respectively.

Which Hispanic group is the most successful? ›

Affluence is also not evenly distributed across the Hispanic subgroups. Those of Cuban origin are the most affluent, with 51% of them residing in a household with an income of $200,000 or more per year compared to 48% for Puerto Ricans and 38% for Mexicans.

How many Hispanics are in the U.S. today? The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly 63.7 million Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2022, a new high. They made up 19% of the nation's population.

Hispanic population U.S. 2022, by state

In 2022, California had the highest Hispanic population in the United States, with over 15.73 million people claiming Hispanic heritage.

Hispanic origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before arriving in the United States. People who identify as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be any race.

The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15.

Some historians believe that as many as 25 million people lived in that region when Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492. The Olmec peoples of the Gulf of Mexico are considered by anthropologists to have been mother culture of Mexico.

Genetic estimators revealed that the main genetic components in Mexico as a whole are Native American (ranging from 37.8% in the northern part of the country to 81.5% in the southeastern region) and European (ranging from 11.5% in the southeast to 62.6% in northern Mexico).

In the English language, the term Latino is a loan word from American Spanish. (Oxford Dictionaries attributes the origin to Latin-American Spanish.) Its origin is generally given as a shortening of latinoamericano, Spanish for 'Latin American'.

What is the largest country of origin for the Hispanic population? ›

The roughly 37.4 million people of Mexican origin in the U.S. represented nearly 60% of the nation's Hispanic population in 2022. Those of Puerto Rican origin are the next largest group, at 5.9 million, which does not include another roughly 3.2 million Puerto Ricans who lived on the island in 2022.

Mexican refers to an inhabitant or a native of Mexico which is a Latin American country. Hispanic refers to a person who speaks Spanish, one of Latin American descent and resides in the USA. In Mexico, Spanish is the main language but that doesn't mean that all Mexicans can and do speak the language.