The Census Bureau has long struggled with questions of identifying people groups which are defined by a mixture of race and ethnicity. In the 1980 census, separate questions were asked about race and ethnic origin, with the ethnic origin being limited to the concept of Hispanic origin. The separation of ethnicity from race resulted in considerable confusion and left the impression that the Hispanic population is monolithic. The truth of the matter is that there are very distinct Hispanic cultures, and these distinctions can and do matter in the realm of marketing.
The distribution of race by Hispanic origin is often used by marketers, as the general impression is that Hispanic origin is more indicative of consumer behavior than is race. Nationally, the distribution is:
What is interesting is that those who identify as Hispanic are much more likely to select ‘Other’ or ‘Multiple’ as their racial classification than those who identify as non-Hispanic, perhaps suggesting that the ethnicity identification is more significant to them than the racial identification.
Even then, we generally suggest that analysts look beyond just the Hispanic origin and delve into the details, since there are significant cultural and geographic distribution differences between the Hispanic origin sub-groups. The origins provided by the Census Bureau, along with the percentage of people claiming such ancestries (multiple responses are permitted) are:
The distribution of the largest groups is shown below, using the same scale (% of total population):
To show a more comprehensive map, we used the concept of a ‘location quotient’ on a subset of categories. In most areas of the country, the largest group would be Mexican, which masks some important regional concentrations of other groups that analysts should understand. In this case, we classified each hexagon according to its largest LQ, and the results show some interesting regionalization of the Hispanic population – many areas of the eastern states have clearly defined ranges for the largest Hispanic groups – Cuban (south Florida), Puerto Rican (central Florida and parts of the northeast), Salvadoran (Washington-Baltimore), and Guatemalan (Kentucky and Tennessee). To the extent that these groups behave differently as consumers, the insights gained by looking beyond the Hispanic/Non-Hispanic classification can be invaluable, especially when combined with the language spoken at home (Spanish alone, Spanish and English).
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