Race and ethnicity are ubiquitous to life in the United States; they are essential and unavoidable characteristics, especially in a nation where skin color defines much of the individual’s life and perspective. In the United States, there are six distinct racial/ethnic categories that are acknowledged. Yet, Latino is the only one of these classifications that is strictly an ethnicity and not a race. According to the U.S. Census Bureau:
People who identify with the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino [origins]… Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the …show more content…
While each race is associated with a set of stereotypical features and is assigned a generalized racial color, Latino ethnicity is not. The Latino population is racially diverse; they do not have a racial color of their own. Latinos can be of any race, solely identifying themselves as Latino through a shared culture or origin. Latinos and non-Latinos can even both be seen as part of the same race. Nonetheless, Latinos can be “at one or the other end of the color spectrum” (Rodríguez