In 2023, California had the highest Hispanic population in the United States, with over 15.76 million people claiming Hispanic heritage. Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois rounded out the top five states for Hispanic residents in that year. History of Hispanic people Hispanic people are those whose heritage stems from a former Spanish colony. The Spanish Empire colonized most of Central and Latin America in the 15th century, which began when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492. The Spanish Empire expanded its territory throughout Central America and South America, but the colonization of the United States did not include the Northeastern part of the United States. Despite the number of Hispanic people living in the United States having increased, the median income of Hispanic households has fluctuated slightly since 1990. Hispanic population in the United States Hispanic people are the second-largest ethnic group in the United States, making Spanish the second most common language spoken in the country. In 2021, about one-fifth of Hispanic households in the United States made between 50,000 to 74,999 U.S. dollars. The unemployment rate of Hispanic Americans has fluctuated significantly since 1990, but has been on the decline since 2010, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, due to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In 2022, around 48.59 percent of New Mexico's population was of Hispanic origin, compared to the national percentage of 19.45. California, Texas, and Arizona also registered shares over 30 percent. The distribution of the U.S. population by ethnicity can be accessed here.

The number of people of Hispanic origin living in the United States has increased around 80 percent from 2000 to 2023. During this last year, about 65.22 million people of Hispanic origin were living in the United States. California and Texas ranked as the states with the highest number of Hispanic origin people as of 2023.

In 2023, about 12.14 million people in Texas were of Hispanic or Latino origin, surpassing the number of white residents in the state. Additionally, in that year, there were about 3.65 million Black people living in Texas.

In 2022, around 39 percent of legal abortions reported in the state of Texas were among Hispanics, while Black women accounted for 30 percent and white women 26 percent. Abortion has long been a controversial topic in the United States, with the issue once again becoming a major topic in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing individual states to completely ban abortion if they so choose. Abortion in Texas In 2022, there were around 17,500 legal abortions reported in Texas, the eleventh highest number among all U.S. states. This was a large drop from the year prior, when Texas had the third-highest number of abortions in the United States. Concerning the rate of abortion per 100,000 population, Texas was ranked 42nd, with just 2.8 abortions per 100,000 population. In comparison, in Florida that year there were 20.5 abortions per 100,000 population, the fourth-highest rate among the states. Texas was one of a number of states with a so-called “trigger law”, which, in response to the Supreme Court decision in 2022, automatically banned abortions in all cases except to save the life of the mother. Under the new law, performing an abortion is a felony, punishable by up to life in prison. Public opinion Opinions in the United States on abortion are often divided between those who are “pro-choice” and those who are “pro-life”. Polls have shown that the share of those who identify with each side has fluctuated over the years, but a survey from 2023 found that around 52 percent of adults considered themselves pro-choice, while 44 percent were pro-life. Younger people more often believe abortion should be legal under any circumstance than older people, but only a minority across the age groups believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. In fact, despite several states, such as Texas, completely banning abortion, a survey from 2023 found that 55 percent of U.S. adults believed abortion should be permitted either whenever a woman decides to or under given circumstances.

Lynching in the United States is estimated to have claimed over 4.7 thousand lives between 1882 and 1968, and just under 3.5 thousand of these victims were black. Today, lynching is more commonly associated with racial oppression, particularly in the south, however, in early years, victims were more commonly white (specifically Mexican), and lynchings were more frequent in western territories and along the southern border. It was only after Reconstruction's end where the lynching of black people became more prevalent, and was arguably the most violent tool of oppression used by white supremacists. Nationwide, the share of the population who was black fluctuated between 10 and 13 percent in the years shown here, however the share of lynching victims who were black was almost 73 percent. North-south divide Of the 4.7 thousand victims of lynching between 1882 and 1968, over 3.5 thousand of these were killed in former-Confederate states. Of the fourteen states where the highest number of lynching victims were killed, eleven were former-Confederate states, and all saw the deaths of at least one hundred people due to lynching. Mississippi was the state where most people were lynched in these years, with an estimated 581 victims, 93 percent of whom were black. Georgia saw the second most lynchings, with 531 in total, and the share of black victims was also 93 percent. Compared to the nationwide average of 73 percent, the share of black victims in former-Confederate states was 86 percent. Texas was the only former-Confederate state where this share (71 percent) was below the national average, due to the large number of Mexicans who were lynched there. Outside of the south Of the non-Confederate state with the highest number of lynching victims, most either bordered the former-Confederate states, or were to the west. Generally speaking, the share of white victims in these states was often higher than in the south, meaning that the majority took place in the earlier years represented here; something often attributed to the lack of an established judiciary system in rural regions, and the demand for a speedy resolution. However, there are many reports of black people being lynched in the former border states in the early-20th century, as they made their way northward during the Great Migration. Between 1882 and 1968, lynchings were rare in the Northeast, although Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island were the only states** without any recorded lynchings in these years.