Just to clarify, some countries like Jamaica or Haiti are sometimes on the list of Latin American countries, but sometimes not.
In a historical sense, they are, because Jamaica used to be a Spanish colony before it became a British one.
And Haiti started when the island of Hispaniola was split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It had been a Spanish colony in its inception since it was claimed in 1492 by Columbus, but became a French colony later on.
In this historical sense, they are considered Latin American countries, but today they aren’t always. Today I doubt they would consider themselves to be latin@ countries, and certainly not Hispanic, but the words are correct at certain points in history.
Haiti is commonly said to be the first Latin American country to gain independence in 1804.
Muddying the issue further is that I haven’t found any official list of Latin American countries. Some say there are 20. Some say 26. Some include Haiti and Jamaica, others don’t. This leads me to believe that either no one has made something definitive, or the powers that be aren’t in agreement.
Also keep in mind that the terms “Hispanic”, “Latin America”, and “Latin@” were not terms that the people living there really chose for themselves, so a good part of their actual application is whether the people themselves identify as such on a personal or national level.