Latin American diaspora
Over 55 million Hispanic and Latino Americans are residents of the United States, representing 16% of the US population. Hispanic Americans and Latino Americans ( , ) are American citizens who are descendants of immigrants from the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and the Iberian peninsula. More generally, it includes all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, whether of full or partial ancestry. For the 2010 US census, the American Community Survey, "Hispanic" or "Latino" were those who identified as one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the census or ACS questionnaire ("Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or "Cuban") as well as those who indicated that they were "other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino." The peoples of countries considered as Hispanic or Latino American groups by the Census Bureau were the following: Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The Census Bureau uses the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably. The Census office of the United States excluded Brazilian Americans from the Hispanic and Latino American population (Brazil is part of Latin America, but Portuguese is the official language rather than Spanish). Other US government agencies have slightly different definitions of the term, including Brazilians and other Portuguese-speaking groups.
Latino
The U.S. government's Office of Management and Budget has defined "Hispanic or Latino" people as being those who "trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central, and South America (other than Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname), and other Spanish cultures". The United States Census uses the ethnonym "Hispanic or Latino" to refer to "a person of Dominican, Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race". The Census Bureau also explains that "[o]rigin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race." Hence the U.S. Census and the OMB are using the terms differently. The U.S. Census and the OMB use the terms interchangeably, where both terms are synonyms. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, the majority (51%) of Hispanic and Latino Americans prefer to identify with their families' country of origin, while only 24% prefer the term "Hispanic" or "Latino".