Why do many americans think hispanics/latinos are a race?

Obviously not all do but many in US think that, for them latino= brown(mestizo)who comes from Mexico. Latino is Not a race a latino can be mestizo , white, native,pardo(white+black ).

It just depends on the location for example in Mexico majority are mestizo with whites being roughly 10-20% while in Argentina whites are 90% of the country in Bolivia majority are natives. In countries like Colombia for example they are very mixed; whites make up 37% of the pop mestizos 49% and the rest of the pop is black. In Venezuela is the same thing whites are 43% of the population while the rest is mestizo. In Brazil (not hispanic but still latino) the population is dived in half 50% are white , the rest are pardo and black heck Brazil has the second biggest white population on earth after USA.