Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans

Welcome to the Hispanic and Latino Americans portal Proportion of Hispanic and Latino Americans in each county of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States Census Hispanic and Latino Americans (Spanish: Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; Portuguese: Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. These demographics include all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino regardless of ancestry. As of 2020, the Census Bureau estimated that there were almost 65.3 million Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States and its territories. "Origin" can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States of America. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race, because similar to what occurred during the colonization and post-independence of the United States, Latin American countries had their populations made up of descendants of white European colonizers (in this case Portuguese and Spaniards), Native peoples of the Americas, descendants of African slaves, post-independence immigrants coming from Europe, Middle East and East Asia, as well as descendants of multiracial unions between these different ethnic groups. As one of the only two specifically designated categories of ethnicity in the United States, Hispanics and Latinos form a pan-ethnicity incorporating a diversity of inter-related cultural and linguistic heritages, the use of the Spanish and Portuguese languages being the most important of all. 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. In 2012, Hispanic Americans were the second fastest-growing ethnic group by percentage growth in the United States after Asian Americans. (Full article...) Selected article Major General Pedro del Valle (second from left) is greeted by Colonel "Chesty" Puller on Pavuvu in late October 1944, while Major General William H. Rupertus (far left) looks on Hispanic Americans, also referred to as Latinos, fought in every major battle in the European Theatre of World War II in which the armed forces of the United States were involved, from North Africa to the Battle of the Bulge, and in the Pacific Theater of Operations, from Bataan to Okinawa. According to the National World War II Museum, between 250,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, out of a total of 12,000,000, constituting 2.3% to 4.7% of the U.S. Armed Forces. The exact number is unknown as, at the time, Hispanics were not tabulated separately, but were generally included in the general white population census count. Separate statistics were kept for African Americans and Asian Americans. On December 7, 1941, when the United States officially entered the war, Hispanic Americans were among the many American citizens who joined the ranks of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps as volunteers or through the draft. Not only did Hispanics serve as active combatants in the European and Pacific Theatres of war, but they also served on the home front as civilians. Hundreds of Hispanic women joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs) and Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), serving as nurses and in administrative positions. Many worked in traditionally male labor jobs in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and materiel, replacing men who were away at war. (more...) Selected image Delores del Rio image credit: public domain Did you know... ... that Tomás Rivera, a Chicano author, poet, and educator, was the first Mexican American chancellor of the University of California system? ... that after the first demonstration by members of Católicos por La Raza at St. Basil's Cathedral, in downtown Los Angeles, the archbishop resigned? ... that Chicanismo is a cultural movement by Mexican Americans to recapture their Mexican, Native American culture, which began in the 1930s in the Southwestern United States? ... that on Christmas Eve 1969, when California lawyer and noted political activist Ricardo Cruz was a law student at Loyola Law School, he was arrested for leading a march of several hundred demonstrators protesting the newly constructed, $4 million St. Basil's Cathedral? ... that the first gang injunction to make headlines was obtained by Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn against the West Los Angeles-based street gang the Playboy Gangster Crips in 1987? ... that Rini Templeton created works of graphic art for the New Mexico Land-Grant movement before moving to Mexico to collaborate with the labor movement there? ... that the parents of Chicana fiction writer and Cornell University English professor Helena Maria Viramontes (pictured) met while working in the fields, and that the impact of César Chávez and the United Farm Workers later influenced her fiction? 2005 Things you can do Join any of the above associated WikiProjects. Suggest portal content here Help maintain the Hispanic and Latino Americans portal. Volunteers are always welcome - ¡Gracias! Selected biography Felicitas Mendez (1916 - April 12, 1998) was a Puerto Rican woman who became an American civil rights pioneer. In 1946, Mendez and her husband led an educational civil rights battle that changed California and set an important legal precedent for ending de jure segregation in the United States. Their landmark desegregation case, known as Mendez v. Westminster, paved the way for meaningful integration, public school reform, and the American civil rights movement. Mendez (birth name: Felicitas Gomez) was born in the town of Juncos in Puerto Rico. The Gomez family moved from Puerto Rico to Arizona. There they faced, and were subject to, the discrimination which was then-rampant throughout the United States. Mendez and her siblings were racialized as "black." (more...) Subcategories Category puzzle Select [►] to view subcategories Category Hispanic and Latino American not found Related Portals Associated WikiProjects WikiProject Latinos WikiProject Mexican-Americans Please join either of these WikiProjects to help create and improve content related to Hispanic and Latino Americans. Hispanic and Latino American Topics Afro-Latin American | Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans | Black Hispanic and Latino Americans | Californio | Chicano | Cuban American | Demographics of Hispanic and Latino Americans | Hispanic | Hispanic Americans in World War II | Hispanic and Latino Americans | Hispanic–Latino naming dispute | Hispanos | Latino | List of Hispanic and Latino Americans | MEChA | Mexican American | Puerto Rican people | Spanish language in the United States | Tejano | White Hispanic and Latino Americans Associated Wikimedia The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: Commons Free media repository Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals Wikidata Free knowledge base Wikinews Free-content news Wikiquote Collection of quotations Wikisource Free-content library Wikiversity Free learning tools Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus Discover Wikipedia using portals List of all portals The arts portal Biography portal Current events portal Geography portal History portal Mathematics portal Science portal Society portal Technology portal Random portal WikiProject Portals