If you held a party for twenty representative Hispanic Americans, twelve of them would have their roots in Mexico.
Two would hail from Puerto Rico, and one would tell you about his or her family in Cuba. The other five would represent a mix of about seventeen other countries, mostly in Central and South America.
To put it another way, more than 60 percent (13.5 million) of the 22.4 million Hispanic Americans counted in 1990 were of Mexican descent. About 12 percent (2.7 million) were Puerto Rican and 4 percent (one million) were Cuban.
The rest of the Latino population descends from other Spanish-speaking countries.
In order, the three U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest numbers of Hispanic Americans are Los Angeles, New York, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale.
