Is Hispanic a race?
Executive summary
Official U.S. government practice treats “Hispanic” as an ethnicity, not a race, meaning people who are Hispanic can be of any race (for example, White, Black, Asian, Indigenous, or multiracial) according to the U.S. Census and OMB definitions [1] [2]. Yet social reality and self-identification are messier: many Hispanics view the label as racial, ethnic, or both, and recent federal changes to race/ethnicity questions reflect debate about whether the category should function more like a race on forms [3] [4] [5].
1. Official definitions: why the Census calls Hispanic an ethnicity
Federal standards created by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and implemented by the Census Bureau define “Hispanic or Latino” as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race, and therefore treat it as an ethnicity separate from the race question [1] [2]. The Census historically asks about Hispanic origin separately from race and explicitly instructs that a person of any race may be Hispanic, a design intended to produce statistics for program planning and civil-rights enforcement [6] [2].
2. Lived identity: many Hispanics see ethnicity, race, or a blend
Surveys and academic work show that Hispanic people do not uniformly map their identity onto the Census categories: substantial shares describe being Hispanic as part of their racial as well as ethnic background, and many select “some other race” or write in answers like “Mexican” when forced to choose among standard racial boxes [3] [4]. Social scientists note that race in the U.S. is socially constructed and often tied to phenotype and lived experiences of discrimination; for many Hispanic people these racialized experiences (for example, Afro-Latinos facing anti-Black bias) matter independently of Hispanic ethnicity [7].
3. Data problems and policy stakes behind the label
The separation of race and Hispanic origin has produced anomalies—large numbers of Hispanics choosing “some other race” and complications for tracking disparities—which is why federal agencies periodically reconsider how to ask the questions [4] [8]. Policy and legal uses of the categories—ranging from enforcing anti-discrimination laws to allocating resources—create an institutional incentive to keep Hispanic origin as a distinct category, but also to refine measurement so that Afro-Latino and multiracial Hispanics are accurately counted [9] [5].
4. Recent changes: blurring the line between race and ethnicity
In 2024–2025 the OMB and federal agencies moved toward a combined race/ethnicity question and even listed “Hispanic or Latino” among race/ethnicity checkboxes to better reflect how people identify and to reduce “some other race” responses, a shift that some advocacy groups support and others—particularly Afro-Latinx organizations—criticize for potentially undercounting multiracial or Black Hispanics [5] [10]. The Census Bureau and researchers concede trade-offs: a combined format may lower some misclassification but could also obscure intra‑Hispanic racial diversity unless accompanied by detailed write-ins and multiple checkboxes [8] [5].
5. Bottom line: what “Is Hispanic a race?” means in practice
Answering the question requires two levels: officially and technically, Hispanic is categorized as an ethnicity under U.S. federal standards, so it is not a race [1] [2]. On the level of social identity, many Hispanics experience and interpret their identity in racial terms—or as an intersection of race and ethnicity—so treating the label solely as an administrative ethnicity misses how people live and are racialized in society [4] [7]. Federal debates and changes in questionnaire design show that the institutional boundary between race and Hispanic origin is contested and evolving [5] [8].