My wife is from Colombia and she doesn't refer to her self as Hispanic either. It's used in the US for census purposes to refer to anyone of Central or South American descent that's a spanish speaker. My wife also notices a lot of differences with Spanish speakers from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other South American countries. It's true that a lot or the Spanish spoken especially in Puerto Rico and Cuba can be really difficult to understand,I have heard Dominicans having the worse.
Anyways in terms of whites in central and South America, even those who look white actually are mestizo to a degree, you can't simply take the appearance of someone and assume they are of European extract. Mexicans and Central Americans generally show the strongest degree of Indio or indigenous ancestry because of the caste system. Venezuela and colombia are heavily mixed depending on there region, there was a lot of historical immigration to those countries at some point, I can tell you that the paisas in colombia from Medellin can look completely white with blonde hair and blue eyes but yet genetics show them to historically be related to indigenous people, probably due to a long history of mixing with whites but there is still mixture. The only South American countries with an exceptional lack of mestizo ancestry or even Spanish ancestry would probably be Argentina and Uruguay. Argentina having a large Italian population in general, some people state chile is also predominantly white but most Chileans believe it or not are still mestizo for the most part. What is considered white in central and south America is different than what is white in the United States.
Puerto Ricans are a mixed people, I've been there several times and even have family members that have lived there for a long time, I've met either some very wonderful people from there, however I've also met some of the worst ghetto trash from the island as well, it just depends. I think most of the issues plaguing the Spanish speakers or Hispanics (for reference purposes in the US) is the cholo culture and the la raza moments.
When I lived in Chicago, most of the Mexicans there were children of illegal aliens or were 1st to 2nd generation, they spoke Spanish but were part of gangs and hated white people. They didn't want assimilation in America, they wanted the whites out and wanted everyone to speak Spanish, I remember you couldn't order from a subway or mcdonalds without knowing Spanish in many of the suburbs of chicago. Generally these are the people who promote this indigenous concept and are a huge threat to the United States, then again when someone breaks the law to come here and has their children here, is there any surprise the children will also be hostile? I have no sympathy for illegal aliens and people who break the law considering how many people have paid a lot of money and have worked hard to go through proper channels for legal immigration.