Mexican Americans: Difference between revisions

==Race and ethnicity==

{{main|Mexicans}}

Ethnically, Mexican Americans are a diverse population made up primarily of [[White Mexicans|European]] ancestry and [[Indigenous peoples in Mexico|Indigenous]] ancestry, along with [[Afro-Mexicans|African]]. Also on a smaller scale East Asian, Middle Eastern descent (mainly Lebanese). The majority of the Mexican population identifies as mestizo. In colonial times, Mestizo was meant to be a person of mixed heritage, particularly European and Native American. Nonetheless, the meaning of the word has changed through time, currently being used to refer to the segment of the Mexican population who is of at least partial Indigenous ancestry, but does not speak [[Languages of Mexico|Indigenous languages]].<ref name="EL MESTIZAJE Y LAS CULTURAS REGIONALES">{{cite web |last1=Navarrete |first1=Federico |title=El Mestizaje Y Las Culturas Regionales |url=http://www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/Portal/Izquierdo/BANCO/Mxmulticultural/Elmestizajeylasculturas-elmestizaje.html |publisher=Programa Universitario México Nacion |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130823015618/http://www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/Portal/Izquierdo/BANCO/Mxmulticultural/Elmestizajeylasculturas-elmestizaje.html |archive-date=August 23, 2013 |language=es |date=2004 |url-status=dead|quote= en el censo de 1930 el gobierno mexicano dejó de clasificar a la población del país en tres categorías raciales, blanco, mestizo e indígena, y adoptó una nueva clasificación étnica que distinguía a los hablantes de lenguas indígenas del resto de la población, es decir de los hablantes de español}}</ref> Thus in Mexico, the term "Mestizo", while still mostly applying to people who are of mixed European and Indigenous descent, to various degrees, the term has become more of a cultural label rather than a racial one. It is vaguely defined and includes people who do not have Indigenous ancestry, people who do not have European ancestry as well as people of mixed descent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lizcano Fernandez |first1=Francisco |title=Composición étnica de las tres áreas culturales del continente americano al comienzo del siglo XXI |journal=Convergencia |volume=12 |issue=38 |date=August 2005 |hdl=20.500.11799/38330 }}</ref>

Such transformation of the word is not a coincidence but the result of a concept known as "mestizaje", which was promoted by the post-revolutionary Mexican government in an effort to create a united Mexican ethno-cultural identity with no racial distinctions.<ref>Knight, Alan. 1990. "Racism, Revolution and ''indigenismo'': Mexico 1910–1940". Chapter 4 in ''The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940''. Richard Graham (ed.) pp. 78–85</ref> It is because of this that sometimes the Mestizo population in Mexico is estimated to be as high as 93% of the Mexican population.<ref name="Silva-Zolezzi et al 2009">{{cite journal |last1=Silva-Zolezzi |first1=Irma |last2=Hidalgo-Miranda |first2=Alfredo |last3=Estrada-Gil |first3=Jesus |last4=Fernandez-Lopez |first4=Juan Carlos |last5=Uribe-Figueroa |first5=Laura |last6=Contreras |first6=Alejandra |last7=Balam-Ortiz |first7=Eros |last8=del Bosque-Plata |first8=Laura |last9=Velazquez-Fernandez |first9=David |last10=Lara |first10=Cesar |last11=Goya |first11=Rodrigo |last12=Hernandez-Lemus |first12=Enrique |last13=Davila |first13=Carlos |last14=Barrientos |first14=Eduardo |last15=March |first15=Santiago |last16=Jimenez-Sanchez |first16=Gerardo |title=Analysis of genomic diversity in Mexican Mestizo populations to develop genomic medicine in Mexico |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |date=26 May 2009 |volume=106 |issue=21 |pages=8611–8616 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0903045106 |pmid=19433783 |pmc=2680428 |bibcode=2009PNAS..106.8611S |doi-access=free }}</ref>