Are Hispanics a race or ethnic group?

Answer 1

The term "Hispanic" is in general a reference to anything that is connected in some way with Spain or Portugal or with the countries in America where Spanish or Portuguese is a primary language.

In the US it is more often a term of convenience used to describe anyone who speaks Spanish or Portuguese, or who has ancestry from Spanish or Portuguese speaking parts of Central and South America. Used in this way it describes a group who have generally been disadvantaged in the US cultural and economic climate prior to the period around the 1970s when a broad agreement was reached to redress those disadvantages.

In the US most groups subject to discrimination in the middle 20th century were racially defined (to the extent that any race can be defined): Blacks, Native Americans (then called "Indians"), various oriental groups. But the cultures of South and Central America often did not distinguish between Black and White in the way the US culture did. All Hispanics were likely to suffer some of the racially- based disadvantages of the US culture, but some could appear to be "white" while others appeared "black" or mestizo (various heritage mixes of European, African and Amerind) In order to readily designate this group as qualified for assistance and corrective measures along with the Blacks and other racial groups, the term "Hispanic" was applied.

In this sense, therefore, Hispanic People are clearly not a single race, as the word "race" is used in the US. They may be one or more ethnic groups, but in the US membership in an Ethnic group is often a matter of self-definition.