You are wrong, abso-fucking-lutely wrong. The US government calls anyone from countries south of the Rio Grande Latinos/Hispanics. If both sets of grandparents came from Europe, settled in Argentina, Chile or Paraguay, spoke Italian/German/Gaelic at home and then you emigrated to the United States, the US would classify you as Latino/Hispanic because the only criteria from falling into that class is being born in a country south of the border where the official language is Spanish. Even if you're a descendant of the Japanese that went to Peru and established a community of Japanese that exclusively married only other Japanese immigrants, the US would still call you a Latino because you came from Peru.
There was a huge wave of European immigration to South America, especially from Germany, Italy and Ireland and in Chile and Argentina it mirrors our own. It is so pronounced that the first time I got to show off my bad German is when I went to South America.
In short Latino/Hispanic is merely a census designation that came about when Hispanic politicians in the US began clamoring for government gibs in the 80s and 70s and doesn't reflect reality.
This is why Biden got into hot water saying the Latino population was much more diverse than the black population. Hispanics are not a monolith. Hispanic/Latino is an ethnic designation, not a racial one, no matter how hard race baiters and low iq Nazi larpers try to make it one.
