Mestizos in Mexico
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| est. 60–107 million (50–90% of population) Varies depending on the criteria used | |
| Languages | |
| Mexican Spanish and minority languages | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism, Protestantism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Indigenous Mexicans, White Mexicans, Afro-Mexicans, Asian Mexicans, Arab Mexicans |
Mexican Mestizos are an ethnic group in Mexico which can be defined either by cultural criteria (the language spoken) or a more strict biological criteria. Because of this, estimates of the number of Mestizos in Mexico can vary.
The application of the term Mestizo (lit. mixed) has changed over time. The word was originally used in the colonial era to refer to individuals who were of half-Spanish and half-indigenous American ancestry. It was one of the many extant castes used to classify individuals. Once Mexico achieved its independence, the casta system was abandoned and mestizo was used to refer to all the people who were mixed race. After the Mexican Revolution, the term became cultural and was used to refer to the segment of the Mexican population who did not speak indigenous languages. The term mestizo thus became a cultural identity that grouped racially mixed people (including African and Asian ancestry) and unmixed individuals with a mestizo culture. This change of definition was the product of an ideology known as “mestizaje” which was promoted by the early post-Revolution government, seeking to create a unified Mexican identity with no racial distinctions. The advent of DNA sequencing since then has allowed for the study of Mexico's mestizo population.
Today, people of various different phenotypes make up the Mestizo population in Mexico. However, since the term carries a variety of socio-cultural, economic, racial, and genetic meanings, estimates of the Mexican Mestizo population vary widely. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, which uses a biology-based approach, between one half and two thirds of the Mexican population is Mestizo. A culture-based estimate gives the percentage of Mestizos as high as 90%. Paradoxically, the word Mestizo has long been dropped from popular Mexican vocabulary, with the word even having pejorative connotations, which further complicates attempts to quantify Mestizos via self-identification.
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