Mestizos in Mexico

Mestizo Mexicans are Mexican people of mixed descent. Their ancestry is primarily the result of admixture between the indigenous people of Mexico and Europeans, and also, to a lesser extent, Africans and Asians.^[1]

Research conducted by the country's Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica (INMEGEN) has found that Mexico's Mestizo population is not uniform in its genetic composition, with there being significant regional variation.^[1] For example, mestizos of primarily European ancestry predominate in Sonora while mestizos from the central region (Guanajuato and Zacatecas) have a more even split between indigenous and European.^[1] The highest African contribution in the twelve participating states (picked to be representative of the major regions of Mexico) was found in Guerrero and Veracruz, while the highest Asian contribution was found in Guerrero and Sonora.^[1]

Under the colonial cast system, a mestizo was the offspring of an español(a) (Spaniard) and indio/a (Amerindian), while other mixed individuals were considered mulattos, zambos, etc. The caste system and the race-based categorization were abandoned post Independence and mestizo eventually passed on to be a cultural attribute rather than racial one. Today, mestizos of various phenotypes make up the majority in Mexico. According to the CIA World Factbook, they account for 60% of the country's population.^[2]

History

A statue of Gonzalo Guerrero, who adopted the Maya way of life and fathered the first mestizo children of Mexico, but not of the Americas, since the first mestizos were born in the Caribbean, by Spanish men and indigenous Caribbean women.

Miscegenation and culture-mixing have been occurring in Mexico for neary five centuries, and has resulted in a unique mestizo, and more broadly, Mexican identity. Mexican Mestizos owe their African and Asian admixture primarily to African slavery in New Spain (which saw the importation of some 250,000 black slaves) and the thousands of Filipinos and Chinos (Asian slaves of diverse origin, not just Chinese) that arrived on the Nao de China.^[1] A smaller African contribution may have also come from the Spaniards; in Spain some 20–23% of gentetic material is considered 'non-European',^[1] most of which is shared with North Africa and the Near East. More recent Asian immigration (specifically Chinese) may help explain the comparatively high Asian contribution in Northwest Mexico (i.e., Sonora). The INMEGEN report also notes that on average, the largest genetic component of Mestizo Mexicans is indigenous, while African and Asian genetic markers are diminishing with each generation and will continue to do so without new migration.^[1] For example, there was an estimated one million Afromestizos (Mestizos of significant African descent) at the end of the colonial period,^[1] while today there are about 450,000 Mexicans of significant African descent.^[3]

The large majority of Mexicans can be classified as "mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they identify fully neither with any indigenous culture nor with a particular non-Indigenous heritage, but rather identify as having cultural traits and heritage incorporating both indigenous and European elements. By the deliberate efforts of post-revolutionary governments the "Mestizo identity" was constructed as the base of the modern Mexican national identity, through a process of cultural synthesis referred to as mestizaje ([mes.tiˈsa.xe]). Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity on the concept of mestizaje (the process of race mixture).^[4][5]

Cultural policies in early post-revolutionary Mexico were paternalistic towards the indigenous people, with efforts designed to "help" indigenous peoples achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society, eventually assimilating indigenous peoples completely to mainstream Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "Indian problem" by transforming indigenous communities into mestizo communities.^[6]

The term "Mestizo" is not in wide use in Mexican society today and has been dropped as a category in population censuses; it is, however, still used in social and cultural studies when referring to the non-indigenous part of the Mexican population. The word has somewhat pejorative connotations and most of the Mexican citizens who would be defined as mestizos in the sociological literature would probably self-identify primarily as Mexicans. In the Yucatán peninsula the word mestizo is even used about Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the caste war of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos.^[7] In Chiapas, the term Ladino is used instead of mestizo.^[8]

Sometimes, particularly outside of Mexico, the word "mestizo" is used with the meaning of Mexican persons with mixed Indigenous and European blood. This usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure indigenous genetic heritage would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his indigenous culture or by not speaking an indigenous language,^[7] and a person with a very low percentage of indigenous genetic heritage would be considered fully indigenous either by speaking an indigenous language or by identifying with a particular indigenous cultural heritage.^[9]

Genetic studies

The Mexican mestizo population is the most diverse of all the mestizo groups of Latin America, with its mestizos being either largely European or Amerindian rather than having a uniform mixture.^[10]

A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the majority of the current Mexican population (~93%) is mixed race to some degree, the study found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of the average Mexican-Mestizo was predominately European (64.9%), followed by Native American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and Native American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37–50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0–8.8%).^[11] The states that participated in this study were Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Yucatán.^[12]

A study by the National Institute of Genomic Medicine, Mexico reported that Mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 31.05% Native American, and 10.03% African. Sonora shows the highest European contribution (70.63%) and Guerrero the lowest (51.98%) which also has the highest Native American contribution (37.17%). African contribution ranges from 2.8% in Sonora to 11.13% in Veracruz. 80% of the Mexican population was classed as mestizo (defined as "being racially mixed in some degree").^[13]In May 2009, Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine issued a report on a genomic study of 300 mestizos from the states of Guerrero, Sonora, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato. The study found that the Mestizo population of these Mexican states were on average 55% of indigenous ancestry followed by 41.8% of European, 1.8% of African, and 1.2% of East Asian ancestry.^[14]

The study also noted that whereas Mestizo individuals from the southern state of Guerrero showed on average 66% of indigenous ancestry, those from the northern state of Sonora displayed about 61.6% European ancestry. The study found that there was an increase in indigenous ancestry as one traveled towards to the Southern states in Mexico, while the indigenous ancestry declined as one traveled to the Northern states in the country, such as Sonora.^[14]

See also

• Bronze race
• Castas
• Coloured
• La Raza Cósmica
• Pardo

References and footnotes

External links

• Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica

Ancestry and ethnicity in Mexico Mexico Mexican Indigenous (List) Mestizo From Africa Kenyan From the Americas American (Mormon) Argentine Brazilian Canadian Chilean Colombian Cuban Guatemalan Salvadoran Uruguayan Venezuelan From Asia Chinese Filipino Indian Japanese Mexico City Korean From Europe British (Cornish) Czech French German Greek Irish Italian Polish Portuguese Russian Scandinavian Spanish (Basque) From the Middle East Arab (Lebanese) Armenian Turkish From Elsewhere Jewish Mennonite Romani Portal