Many Americans think “Hispanic” is a separate racial category—but what if I told you the U.S. has never truly accepted Spaniards, or their descendants, as fully white? Let’s talk about Iberian identity, American whiteness, and racial hierarchy. Whiteness in America has always had a hierarchy. At the top? Northwestern Europeans: Anglo-Saxons, Nordics, Germans. Everyone else—Italians, Slavs, Irish—had to earn their way in. Spaniards? Barely got through the door.