page_title: Hispanic and Latino Americans
section_title: Soccer
hierarchical_section_title: Hispanic and Latino Americans / Notable contributions / Sports / Soccer
caption_attribution_description: English: Team Captain Carlos Bocanegra takes questions from reporters at the U.S. National Soccer Team's open practice session with South African students and U.S. Mission to South Africa families at the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 6, 2010. The U.S. National Soccer Team is preparing for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. [State Department Photo/Public Domain]
context_page_description: In the United States, Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans who are descendants of people from Spain and Latin America. More generally, these demographics include all Americans who identify as Hispanic and/or Latino. As of 2018, the Census Bureau estimated that there were almost 60 million Hispanics living in the United States.
  "Origin" can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify as Spanish or Hispanic may be of any race. As one of the only two specifically designated categories of ethnicity in the United States, Hispanics form a pan-ethnicity incorporating a diversity of inter-related cultural and linguistic heritages. Most Hispanic Americans are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, or Colombian origin. The predominant origin of regional Hispanic populations varies widely in different locations across the country.
  Hispanic Americans are the second fastest-growing ethnic group by percentage growth in the United States after Asian Americans.
context_section_description: Hispanics are present in all major American sports and leagues, but have particularly influenced the growth in popularity of soccer in the United States. Soccer is the most popular sport across Latin America and Spain, and Hispanics brought the heritage of soccer playing to the United States. Major League Soccer teams such as Chivas USA, LA Galaxy, and the Houston Dynamo, for example, have a fanbase composed primarily of Mexican Americans.Association football players in the Major League Soccer (MLS) includes several like Tab Ramos, Claudio Reyna, Omar Gonzalez, Marcelo Balboa and Carlos Bocanegra.
caption: Bocanegra with the United States national soccer team in 2010
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D60", "Image Software": "Ver.1.01", "Image DateTime": "2010:06:05 16:59:26", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2240", "Image XPComment": "[0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image OffsetSchema": "4168", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:06:05 16:59:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:06:05 16:59:26", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF SubSecTime": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "90", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3872", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "82", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "2010"}