Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans

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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 background, culture, or family origin. These demographics include all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino regardless of race. 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...)

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Arizona Governor Jan Brewer meeting with President Barack Obama in June 2010 in the wake of SB 1070, to discuss immigration and border security issues
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer meeting with President Barack Obama in June 2010 in the wake of SB 1070, to discuss immigration and border security issues
The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (introduced as Arizona Senate Bill 1070 and thus often referred to simply as Arizona SB 1070) is a legislative Act in the U.S. state of Arizona that at the time of passage in 2010 was the broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration measure in recent U.S. history. It has received national and international attention and has spurred considerable controversy.

U.S. federal law requires all aliens over the age of 14 who remain in the United States for longer than 30 days to register with the U.S. government, and to have registration documents in their possession at all times; violation of this requirement is a federal misdemeanor crime. The Arizona Act additionally made it a state misdemeanor crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying the required documents, required that state law enforcement officers attempt to determine an individual's immigration status during a "lawful stop, detention or arrest", or during a "lawful contact" not specific to any activity when there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is an illegal immigrant. The law barred state or local officials or agencies from restricting enforcement of federal immigration laws, and imposed penalties on those sheltering, hiring and transporting unregistered aliens. The paragraph on intent in the legislation says it embodies an "attrition through enforcement" doctrine. (more...)

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John Alberto Leguizamo (/ˌlɛɡwɪˈzɑːm/; born July 22, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, voice actor, producer and screenwriter. John Leguizamo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, to Alberto and Luz Leguizamo. According to Leguizamo, his paternal grandfather was of Puerto Rican and Italian descent and his maternal grandfather was Lebanese. Leguizamo has also described himself as being of Amerindian and Mestizo heritage. Leguizamo's father was once an aspiring film director and studied at Cinecittà, but eventually dropped out due to lack of finances. When Leguizamo was four years old, his family immigrated to the United States and lived in various neighborhoods of Queens in New York City, including Jackson Heights.

He later credited growing up as one of the first Latino children in his Jackson Heights neighborhood as formative in his acting ability: "It was tough. There were lots of fights. I would walk through a park and be attacked, and I had to defend myself all the time. But this helped me to become funny so that I wouldn’t get hit." Leguizamo attended the Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145) and later the Murry Bergtraum High School. As a student at Murry Bergtraum, Leguizamo wrote comedy material and tested it out on his classmates. He was voted "Most Talkative" by his classmates. After graduating from high school, he began his theater career as an undergraduate at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts from which he eventually dropped out in favor of a career in stand-up comedy. Post NYU Leguizamo enrolled at Long Island University C.W. Post Campus where he took theater classes. (more...)

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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

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