Why is it that the US Government or people from Latin America tries so hard to clarify that Latino/Hispanics are not a race or even an ethnicity?

[Anonymous]

yet they don't do the same for Arabs/Middle Eastern people and South Asians?

I know that technically Latinos are not a race but neither are Arabs/Middle Eastern people, North Africans or even South Asians (Indians, etc.) but no one ever tries so hard to clarify that. Instead, it's the complete opposite for Arabs and North Africans in the US. The US government is now trying to make up another "race" category yet AGAIN but this time for Arabs/Middle Eastern people and North Africans. Believe it or not, Arabs and North Africans have a much more diverse range of appearances than people think, just like many Latinos. I've seen Arabs that either have blonde hair and blue eyes or has an appearance that is identical to Southern Europeans (Greeks, Portuguese, Sicilians and Southern Spaniards) so I honestly don't know what that would tell people.

Technically, there are only 3 human races in human anthropology (Caucasoid, Mongol0id and Negr0id) and it just so happens that even South Asians and Arabs are a part of the Caucasoid race (which people refer to it as the "white race") by skull structure. However, they aren't treated "ethnically" as white Europeans because they're culturally different from your stereotypical "white" European.

The same could also be said for Latinos (not treated as "true whites" in the US) since their culture is basically a mixture of Amerindian, Spaniard and some African influences. However, the only very few things that Latinos (Latin Americans) and Spaniards have in common is the languages that they speak, vast majority of Latin Americans having Spaniard ancestry (obviously not a 100%) and that they're both predominantly Catholic. That's where the similarities between Latin Americans and Spaniards end.

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While there are plenty of "pure" white (especially down in South America) and "pure" black Latinos (especially in the Caribbean), they usually only make up a small population in most Latin American countries while the vast majority of Latin Americans are racially mixed (especially with Amerindian and Spaniard and some Black African) ...

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... so no matter how desperate many Latinos try so hard to deny their non-white ancestry and act like wannabe-White Europeans, they should deal with the fact that they're not "purely" white because not even Spaniards from Spain would consider them "white", no matter how pale-skinned with a few Caucasoid features some Mestizos or mixed race Latin Americans are.

[BlueCoyote]

You're wrong, there aren't "three races" in human anthropology. Biologically (genetically speaking), there are only minute differences between all humans on this planet. This is why the term race doesn't even make sense. Now, if you want to be really precise about It, there are roughly 300-400 so-called "haplo-groups" among humans. Each one is somewhat different from the others, genetically speaking. However, there are two caveats to this:
1. The haplo groups don't coincide with our social understanding of race. So a Nigerian might be in a different group than a Ghanese person, although they're both black. The way race is meant in the western world and especially in the US is a social construct. In fact, it's a particularly American social construct (race is understood somewhat different in European societies).
2. Although genetic groups exist, this is very much meaningless because the genetic differences WITHIN the groups are usually larger than the genetic differences among the groups. Thing of two basketball teams. The average height of team A might be 6'3 while the average height of team B might be 6'4. However, if you look at the players WITHIN team A, you'll find anything from 5'8'' to 6'8''. The same goes for genetics.

Latinos are also no ethnicity because the term "ethnicity" specifically means a group that is distinguished by social aspects such as culture, customs, traditions, religion, food, language etc. Latinos however comes from a vast number of different cultures. A Mexican person has nothing in common with a Brazilian and a Cuban has nothing in common with a Chilean. They all have very unique cultures. In fact, many of these countries incorporate MORE THAN ONE ethnicity. For example Brazil alone has hundreds of different ethnicities if you take all the aborigines in account.
Thinking of Latinos as "one" ethnicity would be like saying "Japanese and Cambodian are essentially the same". They're very different from one another.

[Asker]

I suppose you do have many good points here. I'll admit, the Western world, especially the US, is obsessed with race and just love to cause more ethnic identity confusion with people.