But in this country (US) I wouldn’t call them “Latin-O’s”, no. Because that term has come to indicate (again , at least in the US), people from central or south America, regardless of the individual person’s race. I would kind of look at it as, “Latino” is sort of a spin-off of the Latin European culture(s) which settled in and later immigrated heavily to south America. Also they speak in south America primarily Spanish (or in the case of Brazil , Portuguese) — both of which are Latin / Romance European languages. There are also many Italians incidentally, living in south America as well (particularly Argentina for instance).

And there are even other ethnicities in south America as well, people like German descendants who today would be Latinos because they are Spanish-speaking people born in south (or Latin) America. Basically, the “Latin” in Latin America just distinguishes it from north America (English-speaking, Protestant majority as opposed to Latin/Romance-speaking, Catholic majority).

It is kind of annoying though when old-timers, in America especially, refer to Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, south Americans, etc, as “Spanish”. That would be like calling all north Americans “English” ….. obviously they’re far from it, and in fact the countries in both north and south America fought wars of independence to be free of either the English or the Spaniards. So we should respect that fact and call the Americans , Americans (or whatever hyphenation they may want) — and not “Anglos” — and we should call the south Americans as either “Hispanics” or “Latinos”, not “Spanish”.

Latino/Latina just means you speak a language that developed from Latin (Romance languages). Generally there are two types of Latinos, the Latin Europeans and the Latin Americans. Latin Europeans are the nations that were provinces of the Roman Empire and speak a Romance language today, and they include the Spanish, French, Italians and Portuguese.

Latin Americans are the peoples who live in the Western Hemisphere (North & South America) and were colonised by the Latin Europeans. Latin Americans are the more common Latinos in the United States, and so they’re the ones that are most often reffered to as Latino, even though it really includes Europeans too. Latin Americans are also much more racially mixed than Latin Europeans, who are all white, and so they get seen as "different"

Hispanics are just people who come from a Spanish-Speaking country, or have origins in Spanish speaking countries.

I know its kinda confusing but look at it this way. If you had a Brazilian, an Italian, A Frenchman and a Mexican in a room, all of them would be Latin, but only the Brasilian and the Mexican will be Latin American, and only the Mexican is Hispanic

The term *Latino* comes from Lazio which is a region in Italy: Lazio. Latins were a populations of the centre of Italy so the ancient Rome was a Latin town.
Basically Latinos can be anything: mestizos, mulattos, blacks, whites, Asians, natives.
Spain is a latin country, so is Italy, Portugal, France and Romania and all of South and Central America.

The term *hispanic* is used by the USA to group all people of spanish speaking countries into one group.
Hispanic is an ethnicity,not a race.
http://womeninbusiness.about.com/od/businessetiquette/a/pc-hispanic.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXzpqvxYSjc&feature=related
Watch this video, it might help u understand. =]

So basically, to sum it all up… Hispanics are anybody (regardless of race), who speak Spanish. Latinos/Latinas are people born in Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas (e.g. Mexico, Guatemala, Peru), or certain parts of the Caribbean (e.g. Dominican Republic, Cuba).

Latin american: a Latino from America (the continent)

Hispanic: a person who’s from a coutry where Spanish is spoken.

Mexican: person from mexico
Colombian: person from Colombia
Venezuelan:person from Venezuela
Spanish: person from Spain

hope that helps