It’s basically an “invented” minority category. Hispanics can be White, Mestizo, Native American, or Black.
Hispanic is an ethnicity, like Irish, not a race, like Black. By definition it just means originating in a Spanish-speaking country or having ancestors as such. However, if you’re from Spain, I don’t think the US considers you Hispanic, it seems to have come to only mean Latin American.
Most people we consider Hispanic are some version of Mestizo, i.e., mixed White (Spanish) and Native American ancestry. So their race is technically “White” and/or “Native American.” A girl that works in my office is 100% White but was born in Puerto Rico, so is considered “Hispanic” by the US Census Bureau, but also White, and it annoys me that she “uses” both classifications to her advantage when it’s convenient.
It’s an ethnicity, not a race, which makes me wonder why nobody asks me if I’m Italian (I am on my father’s side). Why Hispanic? Why not Italian, or Irish, or even Cambodian or something?
I have the same confusion as the gal in your office. If they separate race and ethnicity than I’ll check Caucasian for race and Hispanic for ethnicity. If it’s mixed I usually go with White, but I’m not sure which is “correct”.
Many of my great-great grandparents were from Puerto Rico through Spain and the Canary Islands (also Spanish). That would definitely be Hispanic but they never indicate how far back in your lineage they are looking. No indigenous north american though. Me thinks that is her case too. Both are probably correct for us?????