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.
Hispanic–Latino naming dispute
Despite this, debates regarding the proper name of the perceived homogeneous population of US citizens with Latin American or Spanish background still abound, and are even more acute. To find out how much people agree or disagree with either term, many polls have been conducted. According to a December 2000 poll by Hispanic Trends, 65% of the registered voters preferred the word "Hispanic", while 30% chose to identify themselves as "Latino". Daniel David Arreola, in his book "Hispanic spaces, Latino places: community and cultural diversity in contemporary America", points out that many Latin Americans feel more comfortable identifying themselves with their country of origin: