Well, I actually know a few people irl that have an opinion that rather intrigued me. Now, disclaimer, I’m a white boy, and can’t claim to understand the full complexity of the labels and identities involved here. I’m just repeating what I heard during a long conversation about this subject. And, not everyone there at the time agreed.

That being said, the opinion that was discussed was that latino/a is a cultural descriptor rather than an ethnicity. In other words, you’re Latino if you are from that culture, and embrace it. Otherwise, you’d be “Hispanic”, or of a specific nationality/ethnicity as applies.

The counter argument to that was that it only mattered if you live outside of Latin America. Which, the group said included everything from Mexico down through south America, plus some islands, and excluding Brazil. Which was party a joke, but not fully a joke. That group leaned towards the Latino culture being partially defined by language as much as anything else, which meant that indigenous peoples wouldn’t be Latino by default, no matter where they lived.

Again, this is just something I ended up listening to and asking a few questions about, it isn’t my own opinions.

But, if that group can be taken as a basis for a useful idea, then you would be able to reject the label of Latino because it only applies if you embrace the culture associated with Spanish speaking peoples in the Americas as a whole (as opposed to regional or national cultural identities).

As far as ancestry goes, it’s pretty common to refer to it as a form of self labeling, if it’s important to the person. While I have next to zero experience with Ireland or Scotland, a big chunk of my ancestors were Scots-Irish immigrants to the area hate in the US I’m from. And there are cultural facets that still exist from that. I also have some Polish ancestry that I have no connection to in my life, so there’s no cultural influence there. So, when I’m talking about such things, I don’t identify as Polish-American at all, because it’s such a minor part of my upbringing and self. But the Scots-Irish side of things runs very strong in both sides of my family (along with german influences, which makes for some interesting potluck dinners lol), so that’s what I would likely mention first if asked about what ethnic or cultural groups are part of my identity.

Which is similar enough to what the group of friends I was talking about said. If you aren’t part of a culture, you don’t have to self label as part of that culture just because you share some similarities. The caveat being that it assumes Latino is a culture rather than an ethnicity/race.

Again, other than the part about my own ancestry, this is all what other people said, it isn’t me trying to foist my opinion on someone else.