Brazilians said they are Latino but they are not, according to the census

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Many Brazilians say they are Latino, but the exact number has long been a mystery because surveys rarely explore this question. An error in how the U.S. Census Bureau processed data from a recent national survey provided a rare window into how Brazilians living in the United States view their identity.

In 2020, at least 416,000 Brazilians described themselves as Hispanic or Latino on the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey (ACS) and were counted that way, representing more than two-thirds of Brazilians in the U.S. In 2019, by contrast, only 14,000 Brazilians were counted as Hispanic, and 16,000 in 2021. The large number counted as Hispanic in 2020 was due to an error in the bureau’s processing of the ACS data.
Officially, Brazilians are not considered to be Hispanic or Latino because the federal government’s definition of the term – last revised in 1997 – applies only to those of “Spanish culture or origin” such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American or other origins, regardless of race. In practice, this means that in most cases people who report their Hispanic or Latino ethnicity as Brazilian in Census Bureau surveys are later recategorized – or “back coded” – as not Hispanic or Latino. The same is true for people from other groups as well, such as those with origins in Belize, the Philippines and Portugal.

During the data editing process for the 2020 ACS, the Census Bureau inadvertently left Brazilians and some other groups out of its back-coding procedures. That error resulted in large increases in the number of people counted as Hispanic or Latino within these groups.

In particular, the large number of Brazilians who self-identified as Hispanic or Latino highlights how their view of their own identity does not necessarily align with official government definitions. It also underscores that being Hispanic or Latino means different things to different people. Some draw distinctions between the definition of Hispanic, which for some excludes Brazilians, and the definition of Latino, which for some includes Brazilians but excludes people from Spain. All this makes measuring Hispanic or Latino identity in surveys a complex and delicate undertaking.