Who Are Latinos?

In the article "Who Are La Razas", La Razas were identified as people who identify themselves as "The Race". The NCLR defines "the race" as being comprised of Latinos or Hispanics. Latina refers to females. Latinos do not consider themselves Hispanics or descendents of Spain. Latinos and Hispanics use forms of the Spanish language. The La Razas are making such a ruckus in the United States of America it caused me to wonder exactly who Latinos are.

The Latin language was spoken by the people of Latium a region of ancient Italy. Because the people of Latium were living in the area before history was recorded not much is known about their origins. Conquered by the Romans in 338 BC, Latin became the formal language of Romans. "Vulgar Latin" was used among the soldiers and merchants of Rome. Languages derived from Vulgar Latin were later called "Romance Languages". These include languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian. Who are Latinos? Are they a race of people descended from Latium's or from the Roman Empire?

Latin America is considered to be "Latin" because the majority of the people speak one of the Romance Languages. Latin America is roughly comprised of 21,069,501 square kilometers as compared to 24,490,000 sq. km.square of other American lands. The American Continents were named after the Italian explorer, Americus Vespucci. Armies from Spain conquered much of the lands of South and Central America. English and French settlers took over the Northern parts of the Continent. Thus "Latinos" could be said to be descendents of the Spanish Conquistadores. This confuses me because the La Raza's precept is that the United States stole their land. The land at the time of Spain's invasion belonged to many people who were not Latinos.