Hispanic? Latino? A Choice of Words...

Filed in archive Latin Culture on June 12, 2009

Is there a semantic difference between the terms hispanic and Latino? Do the words mean different things?

News coverage of Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court has raised some questions about the usage of words. Sotomayor refers to herself as Latina. Many people have strong preferences one way or the other.

I looked at a few web definitions for the two terms. One difference is that Hispanic seems to cover people who speak Spanish, and usually restricts that term to residents of the Americas. On the other hand, Brazilians are usually included under the designation Latino.

Education Week took a look at the question recently.