White Hispanics
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White Hispanic and Latino Americans estadounidenses hispanos y latinos blancos
Notable White Hispanic and Latino Americans: Rita Hayworth · Bob Menendez · Marisol Deluna Andy García · Raquel Welch · Romualdo Pacheco
Total population
White Hispanic or Latino 24,452,046 Americans 8.11% of the U.S. population (2007 est)1
Regions with significant populations
West Coast · Southwest · Northeast · Florida
Languages
American English · Spanish · Spanglish
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic · Protestant, Jewish, and other minorities
Related ethnic groups
Other Hispanic and Latino Americans · White Americans · White Latin Americans · other Latin American groups · Spaniards · Italians · Portuguese · other European groups · Lebanese · Syrians · other Middle Eastern groups

White Hispanic and Latino Americans are White Americans of Hispanic or Latino origin.²³

As the concepts of race and ethnicity — "ethnicity" is used as a synonym for Hispanic or Latino origin — are mutually independent in the Office of Management and Budget's and United States Census Bureau's definitions, every American is identified by both race and ethnicity. Hispanic or Latino people are those who report origins in Spain or Hispanic Latin America, and they may be of any race.⁴ Thus each race, including White American, comprises individuals who are Hispanic or Latino and individuals who are not Hispanic or Latino.

Demographic information

In the 2007 American Community Survey 24.4 million, or 51.9% of the then 45,427,437 total Hispanic and Latino Americans self-identified as white, an increase from 47.9% in the 2000 census.¹² Hispanics and Latinos who reported "Some other race" (meaning they do not identify with any of the standard racial categories given in the census) are the second largest group, at 41.2%, down from 42.2% in 2000. (The 2006 figures for racial categories chosen by Hispanics in the US Census other than "white" or "some other race" are: "Two or more races" or multiracials, 3.9%; Black, 1.4%; American Indian or Alaska Native, 0.8%; Asian, 0.35%; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 0.1%.)¹ Respondents in the "Some other race" category are officially reclassified as white by the Census Bureau in some official estimates of race. This means that more than 90% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans end up being counted as "white" in some statistics of the US Census (which would equal 41 million in 2006).⁵

Mexican Americans compose the majority (64%) of all Hispanic and Latino Americans,⁶ and similarly, White Mexican Americans compose the majority (59% in 2000) of all White Hispanic or Latino Americans.³ The second largest number of Hispanics identifying themselves as "white" are Puerto Rican Americans, and Cuban Americans are the third largest; these three U.S Hispanic groups by national origin compose the overwhelming majority of Hispanic and Latino Americans who self-identified as "white" in the 2000 US census.³

White Hispanics by National Origin, 20003
Hispanic Origin Group	White Population	Percentage
Mexican	9,870,433	47.3
Puerto Rican	1,605,049	47.2
Cuban	1,060,854	85.0
Dominican	180,856	22.7
Central American	735,879	40.4
South American	838,270	59.6
"Spanish" and "Other Hispanic"	2,534,786	44.8

Some Hispanic or Latino American groups, such as Mexican Americans and Chilean Americans, are predominantly white, in contrast to the actual ethnographic profiles of their countries of origin, or of the majority of the people from these countries that have migrated to the United States. For example, the racial make-up of the population of Mexico is 15% white, 60% mestizo (a mixture of European and indigenous peoples), and 25% indigenous;⁷ yet 47% of Mexican Americans identify themselves as white. (See the table.)³

Some Hispanic countries, however, do have white majorities, these being Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.⁸⁹

Because of intermarriage between Hispanics and white non-Hispanics, many White Hispanic and Latino Americans are of these two ancestries, including some of the people shown in this article.

White Hispanic ancestry is primarily Spanish, ultimately. The largest other White Hispanic ancestries are Italian, German, Portuguese, French, Irish, British, Polish, Lebanese, and Russian.

Representation in the media

White Hispanics are overlooked to an extent by the English-language U.S. mass media,^{citation needed} and by general American social perceptions, wherein being Hispanic or Latino is often incorrectly given a racial value, usually non-white.¹¹¹²

Since the early days of the movie industry in the U.S., when White Hispanic actors are given roles, they are usually cast as non-Hispanic Whites.¹¹ Examples include such actors as Jose Ferrer, Benicio Del Toro, Frankie Muniz, Andy Garcia, Joanna García,¹³ and Cameron Diaz. Most Americans who know of them may not be aware that American movie legend Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino) was Hispanic on her father's side, or that the actress who played "all-American" Gilmore Girl Lorelai Leigh "Rory" Gilmore — Alexis Bledel — is also Hispanic.¹⁴

Others accuse the U.S. Hispanic media, as well as the Latin American media, of over-representing White Hispanics, while under-representing the non-White Hispanics, amid claims that telenovelas (soap operas), in particular, do not reflect the color spectrum of Hispanics and Latinos.¹⁵

Notable White Hispanic and Latino Americans

The following White Americans are of full or partial Hispanic or Latino origin.

Kenny Florian Peruvian American	Carolina Herrera Venezuelan American	Michael Lopez-Alegria Spanish American	Christianne Meneses Jacobs Nicaraguan American
Rita Moreno Puerto Rican American	Cote de Pablo Chilean American	Soraya Colombian American	Christina Aguilera Ecuadorian American
Alexis Bledel Argentine-Mexican American	Daphne Zuniga Guatemalan American

See also

• Hispanos
• List of Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Tejano

References

External links

• PBS: A CULTURAL IDENTITY