Pigments of Our Imagination: The Racialization of the Hispanic-Latino Category

The terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” were originally created for administrative purposes by the US government, but have since come to define a population of 50.5 million people who trace their origins to 20 different countries. In this paper, Rubén Rumbaut examines the origin and administrative use of the Hispanic-Latino category, and the effect it has had on the identities of people placed into it.KJ