In the US there's two forces at work, the racist side calling all Spanish speakers Mexican (or various slurs) and the various communities attempting to get larg

In the US there's two forces at work, the racist side calling all Spanish speakers Mexican (or various slurs) and the various communities attempting to get larger power by uniting on their commonality. The polite racist (government) side chose Hispanic and the grass roots represented by La Raza and others promulgated Latin American/Latino. Meanwhile I've come across younger non-activist second-generation people referring to themselves as Spanish. It pays a lot to actually participate in the community to know what to do. I find that people don't like being labelled in any community, but that they may use terms of art to describe their membership in different groups.