Despite their common linguistic heritage, Hispanic Americans are a heterogeneous and rapidly growing population that includes no less than twenty-three distinct national identities and combines recent legal and undocumented immigrants with groups whose ancestors predate the formation of the United States as we know it today. The label Hispanic is derived from Hispania, the Latin word for Iberia. In 1973 the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare adopted the term "Hispanic" at the recommendation of the Task Force on Racial/Ethnic Categories to designate U.S. residents who trace their origins to a Spanish-speaking country. Following suit, the U.S. Census Bureau adopted this label as a statistical shorthand for the Hispanic national-origin groups (del Pinal and Singer 1997; Haverluk 1997). Originating in the western United States, the term "Latino" has been adopted as an alternative by groups that view "Hispanic" as a conservative pan-ethnic label imposed...