Hispanos

Hispanos (from Spanish: adj. prefix Hispano- relating to Spain, from Latin: Hispānus) are people of colonial Spanish descent in what is today the United States who retained a predominantly Spanish culture. The distinction was made to compensate for flawed U.S. Census practices in the 1930s which used to characterize Hispanic people as non-white.

Description

Though the word could describe anyone of Spanish descent, it is specifically used to refer to Hispanic and Latino Americans who live in the Southwestern United States which was formerly the northernmost region of New Spain. They are mostly descendants of Spanish settlers (with Basques and Conversos - Spanish Jews converted to Christianity to escape persecution from the Spanish Inquisition), Mexicans (white Mexicans, mestizos, and indigenous Mexicans) who arrived during the Spanish colonial period and the Mexican period, and Mestizos of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry. Some Hispanos differentiate themselves culturally from the population of Mexican Americans whose ancestors arrived in the Southwest after the Mexican Revolution.