The word Hispanic and Hispaniola are derived from the Latin name for Spain, Hispania, the iola refers it being an island, and is now called Santo Domingo in Spanish and Saint-Domingue in French. Spanish is derived from Latin, so Latino/Hispanic is used for all Americans with Spanish ancestry, Latino can include Portuguese, Italian and French ancestry. Mulatto is used to refer to African/European mixture, Mestizo refers to Native American and European mixture with occasional African blood, in Canada the French Metis is used for European/Indian mixtures. Creoles are native born of European descent, though there may be some mixture of African and American blood, but can generally pass for "white". The ruling class of most Latin American countries is generally referred to as creole, even in the Dominican Republic, where African blood is dominant in the creoles. The creoles of Haiti are also predominantly African. Texans of latin blood who predate Texan independence, are Tejanos, though the term is often applied to second or later generation Hispanics in Texas. Argentinans and Uruguayans are predominately of European ancestry as the native population was decimated by war and disease in much the same way as in the United States, Canada, and much of the Carribean/West Indies. Many Argentinans are of Italian descent, with large numbers of French, German, and British immigrants adding to the ancestry. Brazilians are predominately of Portuguese descent mixed with African and American blood, along with one of the largest Asian populations in Latin America. Paraguay and Bolivia are predominately Native American in ancestry, but adopted Spanish culture, religion, and institutes. Ladinos is used for Jews from Spain/Portugal and the Ladino language is Old Spanish written in the Hebrew Alphabet. They are alos known as Sephardic Jews, used for all Jews of Mediterranean ancestry.
The Spanish portion of Santo Domingo/Hispaniola is the Dominican Republic and Hait is the former French colony. Haiti was the second nation to win its independence from a European power, inspired by the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The revolt was troubling to the young United States, which feared the revolt could inspire a slave revolt. Many creoles left Hait and went to Louisiana joining the Cajuns, French Canadians from Acadia(modern Nova Scotia) who had relocated after the British won control of Canada from the French.
Latino and Hispanic are more or less interchangeable and describe a population as varied as any throughout the word. Race is generally not a major factor in Latin America, due to the high level of racial intermixing. Discrination is generally due to being from a lower social class, which often are the ones with the highest amounts of Indian and African ancestry. A fusion of Latin, African and American culture with Roman Catholicism are the common threads beyond language and fromer Spanish and Portuguese rule. | 
