The #OscarsSoWhite quasi-campaign to shame the Academy Awards for the lack of diversity in its top nominations has issues.

It, effectively, disses 62 percent of the U.S. population, which is not really the best way to argue for inclusion. Worse, it leaves out a specific call for better representation of all minorities in the movie industry. The result? The matter mostly gets covered in the media as a black-and-white issue.

Days after the nominations were announced, Lucia I. Suarez Sang wrote on Fox News Latino’s website: “Missing from the voices of outrage is Hollywood’s Latino talent — nobody in the Hispanic community has raised the issue that Latinos were also notably omitted from the acting categories, and have been for many years. Many awards handicappers expected a nomination for Benicio Del Toro for ‘Sicario.’”

It’s true that there aren’t many people speaking up for Latino actors, but unfortunately the issue isn’t super cut and dried.

Alejandro G. Inarritu is in contention for the best directing award with “The Revenant” — a film for which two Mexicans and one U.S.-born Latino are nominated for sound mixing, sound editing and cinematography. And Pixar’s “Inside Out,” co-produced by Jonas Rivera, is nominated for best animated feature film.

But there’s the tricky fact that Inarritu is not Hispanic. He’s Mexican.

The terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” are constructs that are found only in the U.S., referring to, really, U.S.-born people who have parents or grandparents from Latin America.

For instance, my mother, who has lived in the U.S. for over 40 years, is not Hispanic, she’s Mexican (and believe me, Mexicans take Mexican identity very seriously). Anywhere she goes in the world, she is Mexican — just like anywhere I go in the world, with the notable exception of the United States, I’m an American, not a “Latina.”

So, aside from two U.S.-born Hispanics — Rivera and Frank A. Montano, the sound mixer on “The Revenant” — all the Latin American diversity at this year’s Oscars (including Paco Delgado for “The Danish Girl” and a handful of filmmakers from Chile, Brazil and Colombia in the animated and foreign language film categories) is just that: Latin American.

Yes, this matters.

Of course it’s wonderful to have Latino surnames represented at the big show, but it masks the fact that homegrown, U.S.-born Hispanics hardly have a shot in Hollywood because either they’re considered too ethnic or not Hispanic enough (if they’re deemed to not have a notable accent or dark features) or don’t have enough experience.

And how are they going to gain experience when it’s easier for Hollywood producers to just hire established stars from Latin America?

“Hollywood looks at Spanish-language networks and they feel that’s who we are,” said Bel Hernandez Castillo, CEO of Latin Heat Media, which covers the business of Latinos in Hollywood.” They think: ‘Why do you care about us? You have your own networks.’ But the majority of us who live in the U.S. aren’t watching those networks. I speak Spanish and watched Univision growing up, but at a certain point it wasn’t attracting me anymore. The English language is my world, but in the whole little circle of interconnected mainstream Hollywood, they look at a U.S.-born Latino and it’s ‘No, your Spanish is terrible and you want how much? Why would I hire you when I can get talent from Latin America so much cheaper?’”

Rafael Rivera, a chronicler of Hispanic Hollywood and a film producer, told me much the same: “U.S. producers take advantage of the foreign market because the talent comes with built-in audiences. Gael Garcia Bernal, I love him, but they know the guy’s popular internationally so he gets the call instead of all these other Latinos in our own back yard.”

Jillian Baez, an assistant professor of media culture at The City University of New York, noted the persistent and widespread societal belief that Hispanics are foreigners.

“Latinos are often conflated with Latin Americans, and I don’t think casting directors necessarily make these distinctions when hiring for audiences who do make these distinctions,” she said in an interview. “This won’t change until we can look at who’s behind the camera and see Latinos writing, directing, producing and working in positions of creative power.”

In the meantime, Chicago native, and Mexican-American, Michael Pena played a small, but delightful, part in “The Martian,” which is up for Best Picture. We should not overlook his important role and speak up for wanting more -- and better -- ones for U.S.-born Hispanics. After all, relative to our population, we go to the movies more often than anyone else.

Esther Cepeda’s email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter, @estherjcepeda.