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.
Hispanism
Hispanism in the United States has a long tradition and is highly developed. To a certain extent this is a result of the United States's own history, which is tied closely to the Spanish empire and its former colonies, especially Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba. Historically, many Americans have romanticized the Spanish legacy and given a privileged position to the Castilian language and culture, while simultaneously downplaying or rejecting the Latin American and Caribbean dialects and cultures of the Spanish-speaking areas of U.S. influence. There are now more than thirty-five million Spanish-speakers in the United States, making Spanish the second most spoken language in the country and Latinos the largest national minority. Spanish is used actively in some of the most populous states, including California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas, and in large cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio and San Francisco. The American Association of Teachers of Spanish was founded in 1917 and holds a biennial congress outside the United States; "Hispania" is the association's official publication. (Since 1944, it is the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.) The North American Academy of the Spanish Language brings together Spanish speakers in North America.