Hispanic or Latino? This question comes up all the time, and not just during Hispanic Heritage Month, which we insist on calling Latino Heritage Month.
Is there a trend? We asked the Google NGram Viewer to search their big index of published books to see how many times the word “Latino” and the word “Hispanic” were used over time.
According to the NGram, scanning books from 1800 to 2000, it looks like Latino still maintains the lead and Hispanic is falling further behind.
The spike in the Hispanic category may be linked to changes in the way the U.S. Census tabulated racial/ethnic categories starting in 1980.
How about you? Are you Latino? Hispanic? Mexican? Pocho? Chicano? Cuban? Boricua? Dominican? Salvadoran?
Explore this clickable live version of the NGram chart: