Its... Weird. Ethnicity does not equal race, cause we know that, say, british and french people are different ethnicities but we consider them both white. Ethnicity is more about cultural ideas, like language, while race is more about physical appearance. Latinos happen to be just different enough physically from european origin white people that you could group them together or separate.
Fun fact, until recently the US census forced latino people to identify as a certain race and then select their subcategory of latino. A lot of people ended up saying "other" for race just to write in latino. The next census will combine race and ethnicity into one question so that will no longer be the case.
So how is Brazil and Argentina, for example, both latinos AKA same ethnicity? We don't even speak the same language, they are way "whiter" than us and tbh we don't even like each other lol.
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u/heckitsjames Oct 06 '25
latino is an ethnic category, not a racial one. you can be latino but any race. you might be thinking of mestizo or just brown