Hispanic vs. Latino vs. Spanish

After our class dicussion today I decided to do a little research to find out the differences between the terms Hispanic and Latino. Hispanic refers to people from the territories colonized by Spain that speak Spainsh and practice Spanish culture. Latino on the other hand can identify someone from a culture with Latin roots. That could be Italians, Portuguese, French and so on. Latino identifies a person from Latin America the speaks a Romance language, not just Spanish. On an entirely different note I found it interesting in class that everyone was referring to Spaniards as Hispanic. From what I understood, Hispanic people were categorized as any Spanish speaking person that was not from Spain. I am Spanish and was always told that I am not Hispanic and that it is a common misconception when people call Spaniards Hispanic. When everyone was discussing Spaniards as being Hispanic though, I began to second guess what I had been told my whole life. So I decided to look up information on that as well. However I did not find a clear straight forward answer anywhere. It seems that the question of Spanish people as Hispanics is not very clear. Most Spaniards do not identify themselves as Hispanic and the United States government for the most part does not identify Spaniards as Hispanics either. However the government states that a Spaniard can choose how they self identify and can consider themselves to be Hispanic if they choose because it is a culture not a race. This is only the information I could find and have been told, I could be entirely wrong though. If anyone else can find any better clarifications, please let me know because all I am finding in my research is mixed answers.
-Ryan Fleming blog#9