Why do job applications in the U.S. always separate “Hispanic or Latino” from everyone else in the ethnic background section?

Question

Why do job applications in the U.S. always separate “Hispanic or Latino” from everyone else in the ethnic background section?

In: Culture

Answer 1

Hispanic just means you come from a Spanish speaking country, like Spain or Mexico.

Latino means you come from a country in Latin America.

So you’ll see a question like “What’s your race?” with answers like White, Black, Asian, etc. and then you’ll see a separate question asking “Are you Hispanic?”.

Why is it separate? Because Hispanic isn’t a race. You can be a White Hispanic, Black Hispanic, etc.

But being Hispanic is still treated like a minority status in America. So it’s not enough to ask your race because people want to know if you’re Hispanic too.