Mestizos in the United States
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (6.2% of total United States population) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United States
|
|
| Languages | |
| Mexican Spanish, American English | |
| Religion | |
| Catholicism, Christian | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| White Hispanic, Ladino, Latin American Indian, Genízaro |
Mestizo Americans are Latino Americans whose racial and/or ethnic identity is Mestizo, i.e. a mixed ancestry of white European and indigenous Latin American (usually Iberian-Indigenous mixed ancestry).
This group does not include Métis Americans (usually with Anglo-Indigenous mixed ancestry) or Métis Canadians (usually with Franco-Indigenous mixed ancestry) residing in the US, nor does it include Nuevomexicanos, nor Multiracial Americans, whose ethnic identity is US Native Americans or Latin American Indian.
While Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Inuit, Native Hawaiians and Métis are legally indigenous to the US, Mestizo Americans are not considered indigenous peoples to the United States, because most of them and their American Indian ancestors were born south of the United States border. Although they are indigenous to the American continent and have cultural, racial, ethnic and genetic relation with the Métis and other Native American tribes (like the indigenous cross-border Tohono O'odham Nation, the Kumeyaay people, the Kickapoos, the Chiricahuas, the Yaquis and the Cocopah), their presence in the US requires the proper authorization by the government, because it is the result of immigration into the country. However their commonality is that they are all descendants of the indigenous American Indians and White Europeans. In fact the words Metis and Mestizos have the same meaning which is someone of American Indian and White European descent. Many Mestizos identify with their American Indian ancestry while others tend to self-identify with their European ancestry, others still celebrate both.
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