Angela
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In all European countries there is racism, here in Spain Vox, has obtained 52 deputies in Congress and has even won in one region (precisely where there are more Moors and South American migrants). But it is true that in Europe racial classifications have never been used in the census. I think Americans do it because they are afraid especially of Hispanics. You have to keep in mind that the United States is the second country in the world with the most Spanish speakers after Mexico and ahead of Colombia and Spain. Hispanic according to the census is not a race but an ethnicity (within that category you can be white, black, asian or mestizo). In this way, the USA differentiate non-Hispanic whites from Hispanic whites and thus try to control the cultural and demographic influence of that minority in the country.
But this classification makes Mexicans, Colombians, Guatemalans, etc. living in the United States feel culturally and racially united so that even though they integrate they will always try to maintain their language, religion and customs. Many think that they are recovering and repopulating states that were always Spanish (Texas, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, California, etc.) and when they have enough demographic and economic strength, they will undoubtedly end up imposing their policies against “white” officialism.
Americans should understand that the oldest city in the United States is St. Augustine (Florida, founded by the Spanish Governor of the State) and that the oldest State capital is Santa Fe (New Mexico). The official history of the Founding Fathers and the colonization of the West only serves a part of the population that identifies with those values. The American Indians and their Mexican cousins etc. will try to impose theirs at least in those states where they get a majority.
In a few decades, whites will end up as minorities in all western countries because we are not able to control illegal immigration, and interracial confrontations will become more frequent.
You're right about everything except the classification of "Hispanic whites". "White" Hispanics largely of Cuban origin demanded the classification. I sometimes think there is more racism within the Hispanic community than without it. The Cubans who fled Castro had no idea they had a minority of Black and Amerindian ancestry, and a lot of them weren't very happy about it. The same is true of the descendants of the settlers of New Mexico etc. A U.S. Senator from there took a dna test on a public tv program and when asked what she expected it to show she said: Spanish. She was stunned to see she was almost 30% Amerindian. This is someone whose community demanded that "white" Hispanic population label.
It's not been the government demanding these labels, not since the 1960s at the latest; it's the minorities. Sometimes it's to show their identity as "white", something that Middle Easterners went to court to achieve in the early 20th century, for example, and sometimes it's so that they can qualify for all the governmental programs aimed at minorities which were passed after the 1960s in a blizzard of beneficial legislation . One of our Presidential candidates, for example, claimed American Indian status to get preferential acceptance into college and to get a job as a Professor (to meet quotas for minority representation).
One reason blacks and "non-white" Hispanics want those identity labels is because they can use the census figures to demand reconfiguration of voting districts and thereby guarantee minority members in legislatures. It's also, as I said, to get into college independent of good SAT scores, to get jobs for which there is a quota, to get favorable loans for business start ups and buying a house etc.
These things are much more complicated than they might seem to outsiders.