Spanish American
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Spanish Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates in the southwest European nation of Spain. Colloquially, the term is also incorrectly applied to people whose ancestry stems from the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America [1]. This latter use is incorrect because much of the population of Spanish speaking American countries has minimal Spanish ancestry. Such use of the term "Spanish American" is employed as a synonym to Hispanic.
Spaniards are just one of over 20 Hispanic national groups — Spain being the only Hispanic country not located in the Americas, and in fact, the European country where Hispanicity has its origins. While other U.S. citizens or residents with national origins in any of the Hispanic countries of Latin America usually speak Spanish, they may or may not be related to Spaniards in culture or through blood ties. As such, and to avoid confusion, for the purposes of U.S. census data collection, the term "Spanish American" is not officially used. Instead, specific most recent national origins are requested. In addition to stating Spanish/Hispanic/Latino, the respondants may then reply Spaniard to indicate that the most recent national origin of that person of Spanish ancestry was directly from Spain.
[edit] Number of Spanish Americans
In the 2000 Census, 112,999 Americans specifically reported their ancestry as Spaniard, which was a significant decrease from the 1990 Census, where those who reported "Spaniard" numbered 519,136. The Census Bureau attributes the decrease to the trend among increasing numbers of Hispanics of all national groups, including Spaniards, of identifying themselves with general labels such as "Hispanic" rather than a specific national origin.
Additionally, in the 2000 Census some 765,879 Americans reported "Spanish" as their ancestry, although these may include persons whose recent national origin might not have been directly from Spain, and whose Spanish ancestry was via a Hispanic country of the Americas. Also, people who specifically responded "Spanish American" were not tabulated with those who responded "Spanish" or "Spaniard", and were instead tabulated as "Other Hispanic response" along with people who wrote responses such as Latin American, people of mixed Hispanic ethnicities (only collected in Census 2000), and people who checked the Other Hispanic box but did not provide a write-in entry. Spanish Americans from the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea are sometimes included in the statistics. [2]
If one were to further include all those who did not identify either as "Spaniard", "Spanish" or "Spanish American" although they were of Spanish or partial Spanish ancestry via a Hispanic country of the Americas which was reported as such, the number would more than likely surpass 30 million people, of all races, including many criollos (for U.S. Census purposes, "White Hispanics"), mestizos (for U.S. Census purposes, White/Amerindian "multi-racial Hispanic"), zambos (for U.S. Census purposes, Amerindian/Black "multi-racial Hispanic"), mulattoes (for U.S. Census purposes, White/Black "multi-racial Hispanic"), Indios (for U.S Census purposes, Amerindian/Hispanic"), Negros (for U.S. Census purposes, Black/Hispanic"), and Asian Latinos.
For further information on other Americans who may be of Spanish ancestry via a Hispanic country of Latin America and are not accounted for in this article, please see the articles Mexican American, Puerto Rican American, Cuban American, Dominican American, etc. There are large Spanish American communities in Miami, Florida and Newark, New Jersey, and New York.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
- White American
- White Latin American
- Hispanic
- White Hispanic
- Spanish British
- Spanish Brazilian
- Spanish Canadian
- Spanish-Filipino
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