Hispanic Vs. Latino? What Means What And Which Term Is Preferred [REPORT]

Are you Hispanic or Latino? It's a question that America's growing Hispanic population gets asked everytime we fill out a job application or a survey. But which one do we prefer? Now that Latinos (or Hispanics) make up the largest ethnic minority in the U.S., it is becoming increasingly important to understand how we define ourselves. A new Pew Research Center study shows that most Hispanics don't have a preference: 50 percent of adults don't mind which term you use. However, of those that do have a preference, more than half said they prefer Hispanic over Latino.

The study also showed that terminology preference differs in different parts of the country. For example in California, which has the country's biggest concentration of Latinos (or Hispanics) "30 percent say they prefer "Hispanic" and 17 percent say they prefer the term "Latino." Most states followed a similar pattern, however, in Texas, Hispanic was far preferred with over 46 percent of Latino (or Hispanic) Texans saying they prefered Hispanic to just 8 percent that said they preferred Latino. The most common way to describe our ethnicity, however, seems to be to talk about our country of origin. Thus, 54 percent said they used terms such as Mexican, Cuban or Puerto Rican versus 20 percent who used Hispanic or Latino.

So what difference is there really between the two terms? Well for one thing, Hispanic refers to a language: it means you come from a predominantly Spanish-speaking country, while Latino refers to geography - the countries of Latin America. Thus a Brazilian could be Latino but not Hispanic. Hispanic was first used by the American government under the Nixon administration when the term emerged in the 1980 census. Latino has emerged more recently in official use. So what do you think? Which term do you prefer?