Latin Americans (Spanish: latinoamericano, Portuguese: latino-americano) are the citizens of the Latin American countries and dependencies. Latin American countries are multi-ethnic, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. As a result, some Latin Americans don't take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with both their nationality and their ancestral origins. Aside from the indigenous Amerindian (aka Native American) population, all Latin Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.
The specific ethnic and/or racial composition varies from country to country: many have a predominance of European-Amerindian, or Mestizo, population; in others, Amerindians are a majority; some are mostly inhabited by people of European ancestry; and others are primarily Mulatto. Various Black, Asian, and Zambo (mixed Black and Amerindian) minorities are also identified in most countries. White Latin Americans are the largest single group. Together with the people of part-European ancestry they combine for approximately 80% of the population, or even more.
Latin Americans and their descendants can be found almost elsewhere in the world, particularly in densely populated urban areas. The most important migratory destiny for Latin Americans are the United States, Western Europe, Canada and Australia.
Read more about Latin Americans: Definition, Notable Latin Americans, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words latin and/or americans:
“But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they’re not like the wrong Americans, who are not really Americans.”
—Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)