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Mexican Americans (Spanish: mexicano-estadounidenses, mexico-americanos, or estadounidenses de origen mexicano) are Americans of Mexican heritage. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans.
Jun 28, 2024 · Hispanic Americans, people living in the United States who are descendants of Spanish-speaking peoples. Since most Hispanics trace their ancestry to Latin America, they are also called Latinos. Hispanics make up the largest ethnic minority in the United States, forming one-sixth of the country’s population.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mexican American history, or the history of American residents of Mexican descent, largely begins after the annexation of Northern Mexico in 1848, when the nearly 80,000 Mexican citizens of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico became U.S. citizens.
The ancestors of Mexican Americans are many—railroad workers from Jalisco, Afro-Mexican founders of Los Angeles, Hispanos from Northern New Mexico, part-German Tejanos, indigenous Californians, and Spanish settlers from the Canary Islands, to name just a few.
Today’s Mexican Americans trace their history to a development that began more than four centuries ago, when Spain conquered Mexico and made it a colony. Before that the territory was inhabited exclusively by American Indians.
For centuries, Latino culture has influenced all areas of American life, including food, sports, business, politics, science, education, and the arts. Music and dance styles such as salsa and reggaeton have become popular nationwide thanks to artists like Celia Cruz and Bad Bunny.
Sep 14, 2020 · From early Spanish colonialism to civil and worker rights laws to famous firsts to Supreme Court decisions on immigration, see a timeline of notable events in U.S Hispanic and Latino history.
