For any student interested in Latino history and culture in the United States, one fact becomes evident: Latinos are a culturally diverse group whose composition has changed over time. Like most identity labels, ‘Latino’ has political, economic, and social meanings nuanced and shaped by relationships to power. Some Latinos are descendants of Iberian conquistadores who once constituted an elite in the southwestern US or the region we now call Latin America. Others are descendants of conquered natives or Africans forced to adopt the dominant Iberian cultural values and language. Many more are the linguistic and cultural products of centuries of multiple stages of hybridization that not only included African, native, Portuguese, and Spanish influences, but also contributions from a host of immigrant and religious groups from around the globe. Not surprisingly, Latino literature and culture in the US reflect this diversity.

Latino populations are comprised of immigrant populations from all over Latin America who have made the US their home, but they also include the descendants of those immigrants. Some immigrants from Spain and their descendants also consider themselves Latinos. However, the oldest roots of the contemporary Latino populations were present in the US prior to the arrival of English-speaking settlers, when the southwestern part of the US constituted a part of the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain with its center of power in Mexico City.

According to the 2000 US census reports, Mexicans or people claiming Mexican ancestry comprised almost 60 per cent of the Latino population, some 20.6 million. Puerto Ricans made up 9.6 per cent while Cubans accounted for 3.5 per cent. Almost 30 per cent claimed heritage or ancestry from one or more Latin American countries, or Spain. As Cherríe Moraga reminds us, US Latinos represent the whole spectrum of color and class and political position, including those who firmly believe they can integrate into the mainstream of North American life. Indeed, throughout US history many have integrated into mainstream life, depending on how one defines mainstream.