Talk:Mestizo

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[edit] Format this page like this?

Eurasian (mixed ancestry) is a page, similar to this, about peoples of a mixed race (in that case European and Asian). This page would look much better if it was formatted similar. Casey14 00:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mestizo Racism in Latin America

The whole section on "Mestizo racism in Latin America" is a rant and borders on, if not become, racist. It does not belong in an encyclopedic article. I think it should be deleted. Silverchemist 19:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mestizo, as a term, is a negative POV statement

The colonial period has really injured the mentality of all the people involved. So much racism and exploitation has made people adopt pretty stupid perspective on identity. Nobody on Earth is PURE, so EVERYBODY is a Mestizo! Unless your an Eskimo or a Laplander, you are probably not pure.

Why did Europeans always want to adopt the posture of purity in colonial period? Was it a way to break the link of the natives to humanity and make it easier to execute something evil? The truth is Europeans don't really do this anymore, but the poor people they once tormented still suffer the mental torments via words like "Mestizo".

A typical Latin American mestizo is dark skinned like a "native" American (AMERICAN), dark haired like an American, and dark eyed like an American. So, the presence of some rogue Spanish/Portuguese/French adventurer in an otherwise unbroken chain of purity is UNMEANINGFUL to our identity. Let us drop the moniker, forget the link, and be more centric to our true identity in America. America is home and has been home for 20 millennia. If a French person had one Polish ancestor 500 years ago, would they called themselves a Franco-Pole Mestizo or just French?

It is better for Latin Americans to simply forget Spain. Spain sucks. Spain is garbage. Looking up to Spain is ridiculus. Do Americans from the USA look up to Spain? Spain is degenerate. Spain is where Europe's porn is made. Spain has nothing to offer. In the USA, one could start college, obtain a masters, obtain a PhD, conduct a Post Doctorate, make millions of dollars, and live a long life and there would be no need or importance to reading something written by Spaniards, studying Spanish, or much less speaking to Spaniard. Let Latin American declare true independence and drop colonial monikers and call ourselves Aztecs, Lencas, Olmecs, Caribs, Mayas, Araucanians, and Incas.

Bottom line, Latin Americans need to be more like Americans from the USA. Never let someone else define you and never look up to something that sucks. This is why the USA rocks. Follow the leader, the leader is showing us the way.

Why don't you grow up? Haven't you noticed that most people in the US are descended from Europeans, especially Northern Europeans, and they speak a European language, English? What a delightful self-contradiction that you use the word 'Latin American' - what could be less authentic than that? Even if Latin Americans don't like Spain, the fact is that what they read, watch or listen to in Spanish doesn't come from Spain at all, just as as most of what North Americans read, watch or listen to in English doesn't come from England!Quiensabe 05:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The unsigned comment is pure racism anyway, and denial as well. Mestizos exist. It's simply a factual matter, not a POV. The comments about Spain are pure racism.
Mestizos who assume an indigenous identity to the exclusion of their actual ancestry and cultural conditioning are playacting, and also imposing themselves on indigenous communities. There is nothing progressive about this. It's delusional, disruptive, and yeah, juvenile. Tmangray 01:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
We also note your self-contradiction: you start by saying everyone is mixed, no such thing as pure, then go on to speak of an "unbroken chain of purity". Tmangray 18:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


I agree THERE are Mestizos in Latin America, as well as Criollos, and Zambos(Although the term is not used much at all).

I agree that the above statement was degrading towards spain, but he has a point. Have you ever noticed, that to be considered Native American in the U.S, you must be from a tribe? Meanwhile to be African American, you don't have to be from an African tribe. I find it sad that the majority of brown latinos coming to the U.S. are forced to consider themselves to be mixed. Even if both of their parents are brown, they are still mixed just because they have Spanish ancestors from 500 years ago. They are forced to not have a race. While whites can be white, blacks can be black, Native Americans of the US can be Native American, but latinos, predominately Mexicans, are simply mestizo. Their are plenty of blacks who have a lot of European blood (many have nearly half) speak English, a European language. But they are still black. The same is for Native Americans from the US and American Whites. But when a Mexican or other latino is of some European blood and speaks spanish, than they are automatically "mestizo". Why is this? Why is it only in latin America this happens? It seems that in Latin America, everyone loses their originally identity. Part of the reason, is that in the US some people think hispanic is a race when of course it isn't. The fact of the matter is that these so called "mestizos" are not even mestizo. A mestizo is someone with one Native American parent and one European parent. The fact is that is that these "mestizos" are still Native Americans just like African Americans are black Native Americans in the US are Native Americans and Filipinos are Asian. All of the people I have mentioned have European blood due to admixture with Europeans, yet are still granted the original identity of their ancestors. That being said, why should a Latin American be denied his right to be an Inca, a Mexica, Mayan or Taino, just because his/her people were raped and enslaved and forced to speak Spanish? They shouldn't. 69.143.182.220 (talk) 21:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

99% of mestizos today are not themselves the product of rape. Most mestizos include the ancestry of several indigenous groups as well as Spanish, so even if they were to choose to live a traditional life, which one should they choose?
And choice implies something subjective. One's ancestry is objective, a biological fact not subject to choice. One can pretend to be a traditional "indian", but it is only a pretense, and likely to be at odds with authentic culture. Yes, a mestizo is a native American, but they are also European, and also something else. THAT is a fact.
The observation that Americans automatically regard all Latinos by the term "mestizo" does not ring true. The term is hardly used at all in the US, outside of anthropology courses. The census has never included such a category. Instead, the catch-all term "Hispanic" is used, without regard to "race". Tmangray (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I do hope that you realize the vast majority of Native Americans of tribal Nations in the United States have European blood. Do you mean to say that they too are playacting and denying their ancestry and culture? Or are they exempt somehow? Please explain.24.126.115.119 (talk) 03:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Racism section

The section on racism needs to be rewritten. I don't know anything about the subject, but the last three sentences of the third paragraph are argumentative and betray bias. Redkern 23:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No Mestiço ascendancy in East Timor

This section about East Timor is complete and utter garbage, which is why I removed it (again!)

"Much like the mestiso minority in the Philippines, the East Timorese mestiço minority typically comprises most of the small privileged upper and upper-middle classes, surrounded by a mass of impoverished unmixed natives."

Wrong. There are many Timorese with no European ancestry, who make up the small middle class, along with ethnic Chinese.

"From Indonesia's invasion of the country on December 7th, 1975 - just a week after East Timor's unilateral declaration of independence from Portugal on November 28 - Timorese movements for independence from Indonesia were also largely headed by Portuguese-speaking mestiço activists."

Wrong. Less than five per cent of Fretilin leaders or cadres had any European background - see José Ramos Horta's book Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor, Red Sea Press 1987, page 130.

[edit] America Ferrera is mestiza

Look at her facial features, specially her eyeshape and wide cheekbones, it is more closer to an amerindian than a spaniard

[edit] A Seperate article for Mixed Bloods

Okay, first and foremost, I am a Mestizo, and I am White and Indian. I don't say I'm not White. Anyways, as one of the few people in the United States that considers themselves Bi Racial(and not "Some Other" race. I really think there she be a page for Mixed Bloods. I am American, and I would like to read about the Mixed bloods in this country. I understand that we have had a significant contribution to North American society. I think it would be only fair. 71.226.149.3 22:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mixed blood

In the United States the term Mixed bloods is not used to describe Mestizo's and should not be used as such in this article. Like the person who wrote before me says a Mestizo is a bi-racial person of a White and American Indian racial combination. Never is the mixed bloods term used in the media, in newpapers, schools, census bureau or in any official documents to describe a person of Caucasion and American Indian descent. The person who wrote before me is correct in that Mixed blood belongs in a seperate article as mixed blood is to general a term for Mestizo which is, again a person of purely European and Native American blood. If not substantiated should be removed immediately, I will edit if someone does not respond within a weeks time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.247.26.36 (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

"Mestizos" are indigenous. The idea that they posses equal European and Native American blood is part of an ethnocide against the Indigenous people of the Americas and a plan to exterminate them. Otherwise we'd call the Native Americans in the U.S. mestizos as well and we'd call black people mulattos. It's sad that wikipedia is contributing to this genocide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.115.119 (talk) 18:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

As to the first comment here, the term mixed blood is in fact used more often than mestizo to refer to people of mixed European and indigenous American ancestry in the United States.
As to the next comment, what absolute nonsense, and irrational. Yes, mestizos are indigenous. They are also European. They are both, and they are also something unto themselves. Their ancestry is a simple, obvious fact. It's not a debateable point. It just is. So what's the nonsense about it being "ethnicide" or "genocide"? Those terms refer to mass murder, not the offspring of intermarriage. What rationale could you possibly have that isn't purely racist? Tmangray (talk) 15:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who Is and Who Isn't

I see several disputes about specific people who may or may not be mestizos. I believe that this may be futile unless you have access to their respective pedigrees. Also, because so many people are mestizos in, for example, Mexico (the genetic studies are pretty conclusive about this), even among the generally lighter elite who typically emphasize their "Spanishness". Also, because the degree of mixture varies widely. Also, because appearances (phenotype) are very deceptive. In the same family, it is not uncommon to have one sibling who may appear indigenous and another who may appear Spanish, yet they are children of the same parents. Sometimes a phenotype from one part of the world may resemble another somewhere else (for instance, perhaps Maradona's Italian ancestry.) Sometimes, phenotypes crop up in later generations. Unless there's a really good reason to include someone on a list of mestizos, perhaps it would be better to omit them. Tmangray 19:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need for Article on Mestizaje

We are considering the articles on race, hybridity, miscegenation, and we think that the "mestizo" article is lacking and needs revision.

In searching "mestizaje" the Wikipedia brings you directly to "mestizo," and perhaps this is not the best way to understand the differences between what should be two seperate entries. Mestizo, for one, is a very static concept; whereas mestizaje implies ambiguity and an historical process, dynamic relationships. Mestizaje, of late, has been brought up in light of globalization, and how we might think of the global community in racial and ethnic terms. This is not encompassed by a term--mestizo--that relies on a statistical reference to the people of a particular nation. Indeed, mestizaje could be seen as a challenge to static categories of race, rooted in notions of racial purity.

Certainly, there are groups that worry about using "mestizaje" to replace the standard goal of multiculturalism, but the entry for "race of the future" is clearly ambiguous in its conception, given that the picture on the cover of the Time Magazine could be defined as both a "mix" of races and the new face of a "multicultural society"--which implies a spectrum of colors.

Perhaps mestizaje allows us new ways of thinking about national, community and individual identity, shaking the foundations thereof, because it references not the solitary idea of the individual but the coming together of people.

Thoughts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kruiser (talk • contribs).

Generally speaking, the term mestizo is based on the concept of race, while mestizaje connotes more of the cultural side. One might say that mestizaje is mestizo culture, or the process of cultural mixture between the ancestral racial groups (whether biologically-defined, which is problematical, or socially-defined). The category "mestizo" has definite historical meaning in various countries, and merits this article, regardless of other related issues. A section on mestizaje would probably be a good idea within this article. A separate article---maybe---but if it's going to be about globalization, etc., I think that might be more appropriately handled as part of existing articles on race, race mixture, and so on since mestizaje is more of a Latin American term. Of course, maybe it will become part of the global vocabulary, but I'm not sure that it is yet. Tmangray 19:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Just chiming in, I arrived here looking for 'mestizaje', which I would like to learn more about. -- Sammermpc 18:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What Happened to the Section on African Admixture?

I don't know why the mention of African admixture in the mestizo populations of Latin America is no longer included in this article. Most historians and geneticists agree that African ancestry is part of the mix of most, if not all, mestizo populations of Latin America-- to varying degrees, maybe, but it certainly is something worth mentioning, especially since probably only a minority of mestizos today fit the classic colonial description of a mestizo (having one Spanish parent and one Amerindian parent). Also, other ethnicities have contributed to the ancestry of the mestizo populations of Latin America, including Chinese, French, German, and Lebanese (among others). The prior request for an article on "mestizaje" has the correct idea, but the African "third root" of mestizo Latin America should be included again in this article.69.235.152.61 (talk) 17:07, 10 February 2008 (UTC)James Lopez

  • Hi there unknown user. People of Afican ancestry have their own significant articles, such as Mulatto and Zambo. These respective groups belong in that category. Other ethnic groups you have discussed such as Chinese, French, German and Lebanese descents does not form a significant figure of the population of Hispanic America / Latin America etc. These respective ethnic groups only form a minority. Please provide references or citations such as "Facts" to support your statement and issues. Please feel free to add informations in the article if you provide the facts to support your statement. This is because we are creating and keeping all articles based on a "Encylopedia"; and free from Nuetral Point Of Views. Thank you! --Ramirez 8:18 pm February 10, 2008 (UTC)
    • Hello there. Here are a couple of links to articles regarding African admixture in the mestizo populations of Mexico (and Puerto Rico) in particular:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1449501

http://www.isteve.com/2002_Where_Did_Mexicos_Blacks_Go.htm

I understand and acknowledge what you say about mulato and zambo being more appropriate, but I certainly think it is worth noting that many mestizo populations have also absorbed African influences into the mix. This also indicates, in my opinion, that the original Latin American meaning of "mestizo" is often no longer strictly applicable, and the word has become more of a generic term to refer to anyone of mixed ancestry. 69.235.152.61 (talk) 22:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)James Lopez

I agree that in common usage, the term mestizo today trends toward its literal meaning of "mixed" without necessary limitation to strictly Spanish-indigenous ancestry, although it can be so limited, depending on context. Tmangray (talk) 04:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mexican Census

I see someone states in their edit summary that the category "mestizo" is still used in the Mexican census. The last time I researched the subject, which may have been before the last census, I found that Mexico had dropped racial categories after its census in the 1920s. Tmangray (talk) 04:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

i dont know about that because i looked it up in the cia world factbook and it states that 60% is mestizo , 30% amerindian 9% white and 1% other though for some reason i feel its really 30% mestizo and 60% amerindian but in any event the cia has got to be geting these numbers from somewhere maybe mexican government does put race on census--Wikiscribe (talk) 05:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

When I looked into that, I found the CIA and others base those numbers on other things, including some extrapolation based on the last racial census in the 20s or 30s. Notice how rounded the figures are. And even back in the 1920s, the distinction drawn between Indian and Mestizo was made using cultural factors, such as principal language spoken, or type of village. The general ratio of the CIA estimates sounds roughly true, based on my own experience and also based on the few genetic studies done thus far. Culturally, though, the nation is thoroughly mestizo, regardless of actual "racial" ancestries. Tmangray (talk) 05:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

i agree many mexicans identfy as mestizo more for cultural reasons than actual ancestry reasons thats why i mentioned in reality the number if based strictly on ancestry the native american number would be higher than the mestizo number in mexico--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I found an interesting article online which refers to the 1921 census. I've posted it to the "external links" section. Tmangray (talk) 07:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] mestizos, diabetes, percentages

The abstract of the article clearly states: "The high frequency of Native American-derived genes in the contemporary Hispanic population predict a higher frequency of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM)". This is well-known in epidemiologic circles. The 60-something percent of "white" ancestry you cite is mostly by admixture, and characteristic of the northern region of Mexico. Nonetheless, the Native American component of the admixture is the reason why there is a higher proportion of diabetes mellitus. The essential fact here is that these individuals are mixed. This is not really news, is it? Tmangray (talk) 00:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

"High frequency of" does not mean "mostly". Even if it's true that the white ancestry is mostly by admixture, the source does not state this at all. It simply states that 61% of Mexicans are of European ancestry. The source does not support the changes. The previous version acknowledged that their actual biologic ancestry varies from this, but by changing that to is largely mixed, you're changing the meaning a little and without a source that supports that. "For Mexican Americans, 31% of the contemporary gene pool is estimated to be Native American derived, whereas 61 and 8% are Spanish and African derived, respectively. In Puerto Rico, the percentage of contributions of Spanish, Native American, and African admixture to the population are 45, 18, and 37%, respectively. For Cuba, the parallel estimates are 62, 18, and 20%" That quote doesn't say anything about the Spanish gene part being "admixture". Kman543210 (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)