Hispanic Americans and Latino Americans (Spanish: hispanos, latinos) are an ethnolinguistic group of Americans with genealogical origins in the countries of Latin America and Spain. More generally it includes all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino whether fully or partially. Hispanics form an ethnicity sharing a language (Spanish) and cultural heritage, rather than a race. American Hispanics are predominantly of Mexican, and to a lesser extent, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, and Colombian ancestry. Hispanic Americans are the second fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States after Asian Americans. As of 2012, Hispanics constitute 17% of the United States population, or 53 million people. This figure includes 38 million Hispanophone Americans, making the US home to the largest community of Spanish speakers outside of Mexico, having surpassed Argentina, Colombia, and Spain within the last decade. Latinos overall are the second largest ethnic group in the United States, after non-Hispanic Whites (a group composed of dozens of sub-groups, like Hispanics and Latinos). Hispanics have been in the territory of present-day United States continuously since the sixteenth century founding of Saint Augustine, Florida, by the Spanish. After Native Americans, Hispanics are the oldest ethnic group to inhabit what is today the United States. Spain colonized large areas of the Southwest and West Coast, including present-day California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, all of which were also under the Republic of Mexico after its independence in the 19th century. Hispanics and Latinos have also contributed some prominent actors and others in the film industry, a few of whom includes actors José Ferrer, the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award for his role in Cyrano de Bergerac, Anthony Quinn, Cameron Diaz, Martin Sheen, Rodrigo Santoro, Fernanda Montenegro, Daniel de Oliveira, Wagner Moura, Cheech Marín, Salma Hayek, Dolores del Río, Anita Page, Rita Hayworth, Antonio Banderas, Raquel Welch, Benicio del Toro, Eva Mendes, Zoe Saldana, Edward James Olmos, Maria Montez, Ramón Novarro, Ricardo Montalbán, Cesar Romero, Rosie Perez, Katy Jurado, Rita Moreno, Lupe Vélez, Esai Morales, Andy García, Rosario Dawson, John Leguizamo, and, behind the camera, directors Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Brett Ratner (also producers and cinematographers) and Luis Valdez. In standup comedy, Paul Rodríguez, Greg Giraldo, Cheech Marin, George Lopez, Freddie Prinze, Jade Esteban Estrada, Carlos Mencia, John Mendoza, and others are prominent. Some of the Hispanic or Latino actors who achieved notable success in U.S. television include Desi Arnaz, Lynda Carter, Jimmy Smits, Selena Gomez, Carlos Pena, Jr., Eva Longoria, Sofía Vergara, Benjamin Bratt, Ricardo Montalbán, America Ferrera, Erik Estrada, Cote de Pablo, Freddie Prinze, Lauren Vélez, and Charlie Sheen. Kenny Ortega is an Emmy Award-winning producer, director, and choreographer who has choreographed many major television events such as Super Bowl XXX, the 72nd Academy Awards, and Michael Jacksons memorial service. Hispanics and Latinos are underrepresented in U.S. television, radio, and film. This is combatted by organizations such as the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA), founded in 1975; and National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), founded in 1986.[75] Together with numerous Latino civil rights organizations, the NHMC led a "brownout" of the national television networks in 1999, after discovering that there were no Latinos in any of their new prime time shows that year.[76] This resulted in the signing of historic diversity agreements with ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC that have since increased the hiring of Hispanic and Latino talent and other staff in all of the networks. Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) funds programs of educational and cultural significance to Hispanic Americans. These programs are distributed to various public television stations throughout the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans

• published: 21 Mar 2015
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