The New York Times editorialized about Sen. Cruz and Rubio not being true Hispanics, clearly untrue of course. What NYT really means is that they aren't the heavily Indian mestizos of Latin America for whom the protected class of Hispanic was established.
There have been purely European individuals in Central and South America beginning in the sixteenth century, and they have often been the few wealthy, the ricos. Yes, their language was Spanish but a downtrodden minority they were not.
When our government chose to establish a "protected class" for Latin immigrants, the issue of how to describe its members was finessed by calling them "Hispanics." The extremely unattractive alternative was to try to describe who is and isn't a mestizo, how much or little Indian ancestry would qualify for protection.
Unwillingness to grasp the nettle of defining exactly who is discriminated against and needs protection leads to odd situations. I know a university faculty member, hired to meet a sub rosa Hispanic quota, whose parents were from Spain and who therefore had a Spanish name.
The lady had zero Indian ancestry, and no one in the family ever lived in Latin America. But she was truly Hispanic and claimed as such to (falsely) demonstrate the university's "diversity." She was no more diverse than the other DrC whose father also immigrated from Europe (but not Spain).
