Raúl Salinas de Gortari (born August 24, 1946 ) is a Mexican civil engineer and businessman. He is the elder brother of Carlos Salinas de Gortari , the 53rd president of Mexico .
169-558: Carlos Salinas de Gortari ( Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkaɾlos saˈlinas ðe ɣoɾˈtaɾi] ; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and former politician who served as the 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earlier in his career he worked in the Secretariat of Programming and Budget, eventually becoming Secretary. He secured
338-747: A Mexican high engineering company founded in 1938, since August 2019 he is an Advisor to the Group Presidency. From 1970 to 1978 he was professor of Investigation And Learning Methods, Project Evaluation and Planning at the Faculty of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico . From 1992 to 1993 was visiting Investigator in the Mexico - United States Study Center of the University of California . He
507-551: A biological one and to society's eyes a Mestizo with a high percentage of European ancestry is considered "white" and a Mestizo with a high percentage of Indigenous ancestry is considered "Indian," a person who identifies with a given ethnic group should be allowed to, even if biologically doesn't completely belong to that group. Genetic ancestry of Mexicans according to various sources Genetic studies in Mexico can be divided on three groups: studies made on self-identified Mestizos, studies made on Indigenous peoples and studies made on
676-492: A ceremony in Mexico City . They moved to Boston, where Salinas was completing his master's and doctorate at Harvard University. The couple discovered that Occelli was pregnant with their first child during Salinas' first semester at Harvard. Their oldest daughter, Cecilia Salinas Occelli, was born on 22 January 1974. Occelli and Salinas had two more children: Emiliano , who was born on 19 February 1976, and Juan Cristobal, who
845-513: A clear dividing line between white and mixed race Mexicans has made the concept of race relatively fluid, with descent being more of a determining factor than biological traits. Generally speaking ethnic relations can be arranged on an axis between the two extremes of European and Amerindian cultural heritage, this is a remnant of the Spanish caste system which categorized individuals according to their perceived level of biological mixture between
1014-682: A complex set of transactions between 1992 and 1994, all with the help of Citibank and its affiliates. Other funds were returned to third parties, including Mexican billionaire Carlos Peralta Quintero , who had given the funds to Raúl Salinas to set up an investment company. The Salinas family would not receive back any of the frozen funds. However, in July 2013 a court exonerated Salinas of "unjust enrichment" and ordered that 224 million pesos (approximately $ 18 million) and 41 properties be returned to him. The court said that it could not explain how Salinas accumulated such wealth, but said that "so long as it
1183-672: A free and fair election. In results published by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Zedillo got 48.7%, Cevallos 25.9%, and Cárdenas 16.6%. Following the election in September 1994, Secretary General of the PRI José Francisco Ruiz Massieu , Salinas' former brother-in-law, was assassinated in downtown Mexico City in broad daylight. The murder was not solved during Salinas's presidency, even when Mario Ruiz Massieu (Francisco's brother)
1352-502: A given country has its origin in the investigations produced by Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities, which found it to be more accurate than self-identification particularly in Latin America, where the different discourses that exist in regards to national identity have rendered previous attempts to estimate ethnic groups unreliable. Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest percentages of European population, with
1521-501: A greater European admixture. Admixture varies by region, wealth, and even study. However, it can be generally assessed that Mexicans (on average) are an even mixture of Native American and European with minor African contribution, with neither European or Native being more dominant in the genetic admixture. According to these studies, Native admixture is more dominant in the Central and Southern regions of Mexico whereas European admixture
1690-615: A hero despite his having opposed every government in power; U.S.-Mexico relations , avoiding negative treatment of the history; and the Catholic Church in Mexico , treating it dispassionately. The government was compelled to withdraw them in January 1993. According to one assessment, "While the 1992 textbook controversy disclosed new support for the regime from the right, it also revealed an erosion of support and discipline within officialdom." The centerpiece of Salinas's presidency
1859-507: A high international profile, but was considered unlikely to actually attract voters. The changed circumstances of the Mexican political system, as demonstrated by Salinas's own election to the presidency, meant that being designated the PRI did not guarantee election. Aspe was not a charismatic prospect as a candidate who could energize and charm voters. With the potential that Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
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#17327867863992028-454: A lesser extent was corrupted, along with politicians, and some journalists. Such corruption undermined the possibility of rule of law and it prevented Mexicans from having trust in the state. A rising level of violence by drug traffickers against the state, witnesses, journalists, and bystanders. The Mexican government did capture and jail some high-level drug mafia leaders, including Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in 1989, whose arrest made visible
2197-467: A mean European ancestry of 42% and an African ancestry of 22%. The Mestizaje ideology, which has blurred the lines of race at an institutional level has also had a significant influence in genetic studies done in Mexico: As the criterion used in studies to determine if a Mexican is Mestizo or indigenous often lies in cultural traits such as the language spoken instead of racial self-identification or
2366-454: A more significant role on determining the genetic makeup of the average Indigenous person than cultural traits do, an example of this is the indigenous population of Tlapa in the state of Guerrero that despite for the most part speaking Spanish and having the same cultural customs non-indigenous Mexicans have, shows an indigenous ancestry of 95%. In contrast, one study shows Nahua-speaking Indigenous peoples from Coyolillo, Veracruz , having
2535-616: A multicultural country opposed to a monolithic Mestizo country would bring benefits to the Mexican society as a whole. White Mexicans are Mexican citizens who trace all or most of their ancestry to Europe. Europeans begun arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire ; while during the colonial period most European immigration was Spanish, in the 19th and 20th centuries European and European-derived populations from North and South America did immigrate to
2704-399: A non-compete alliance. Salinas also forged other alliances within the circles of power and did not directly compete with De la Madrid for public attention. Silva Herzog made missteps in his ministry, which Salinas capitalized on, forcing his resignation. According to historian Enrique Krauze , "Not in their worst nightmares could the lords of the PRI have imagined what would happen to them on
2873-487: A peaceful transition of Mexico in the elections. There is evidence that Salinas and Colosio began to disagree, not unusual after the electoral transfer, but this occurred prior to it. His campaign languished with lack of funding, and Colosio had problems getting media coverage, given the high-profile events in Chiapas. Salinas prevented Colosio from going to Chiapas, with the explanation that his presence there would complicate
3042-428: A phenotype-based selection there are studies on which populations who are considered to be Indigenous per virtue of the language spoken show a higher degree of European genetic admixture than the one populations considered to be Mestizo report in other studies. The opposite also happens, as there instances on which populations considered to be Mestizo show genetic frequencies very similar to continental European peoples in
3211-481: A pledge from Camacho that he had no designs on the presidency, which he renounced the day before Colosio's assassination in Tijuana on 23 March 1994. After a few days of weighing his options, Salinas chose Colosio's campaign manager, Ernesto Zedillo, former Minister of Education, as the new PRI candidate for the presidency. Zedillo had been Secretary of Education, a relatively unimportant ministry; he had resigned to run
3380-498: A process of cultural synthesis referred to as mestizaje [mestiˈsaxe] . Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity based on the aforementioned cultural policies, which were designed with the main goal of "helping" indigenous peoples to achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society by transforming indigenous communities into Mestizo ones, eventually assimilating them into
3549-450: A result of a pre-election-day economic downturn, the Bank of Mexico decided to buy Mexican Treasury Securities in order to maintain the monetary base, and thus prevent the interest rates from rising. This, in turn, caused an even more dramatic decline in the dollar reserves. These decisions aggravated the already delicate situation, to a point at which a crisis became inevitable and devaluation
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#17327867863993718-559: A separate entity, In 1992, Salinas and his Secretary of Education, Ernesto Zedillo introduced new compulsory history texts in Mexican schools, part of the Mexican Free-Textbook Program. Authored by Enrique Florescano and Héctor Aguilar Camín , the new textbooks set off a storm of controversy. Shifts in emphasis concerned the Porfiriato and the role of foreign investment, Emiliano Zapata , lauding him as
3887-532: A small powerful elite, as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin. Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both methodology and percentages given. Extra-official sources such as the CIA World Factbook which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations calculate Mexico's white population as only 9%,
4056-415: A son, Patricio Gerónimo Gerardo who was born two years later in 1998, while their youngest son, Mateo, was born in 2006. In early 2021, he obtained Spanish nationality through the procedure that grants it to descendants of Sephardic Jews . Salinas was tapped by President Miguel de la Madrid to serve as Minister of Planning and Budget in 1982, a position that De la Madrid himself had previously held. It
4225-510: 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. In certain areas of Mexico the word Mestizo has a different meaning: in the Yucatán peninsula it has been used to refer to the Maya -speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during
4394-521: A whole is product of the admixture of all races) which shaped Mexican identity and culture through the 20th century and remain prominent nowadays, with extraofficial international publications such as The World Factbook using them as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition up to this day. Nonetheless in recent times the census' results have been subjected to scrutiny by historians, academics and social activists alike, who assert that such drastic alterations on demographic trends with respect to
4563-753: A whole whilst retaining some cultural traits and in turn exerted cultural and industrial influences on Mexican society. Especially after the First World War intense processes of transculturation can be observed, particularly in Mexico City, Jalisco , Nuevo León , Puebla and, notably, with the Maya in Chiapas . These include social, cultural and identity aspects. An Arab Mexican is a Mexican citizen of Arab origin who can be of various ancestral origins. The vast majority of 450,000 Mexicans who have at least partial Arab descent trace their ancestry to what
4732-432: Is a large variation in phenotypes among Mexicans, European looks are still strongly preferred in Mexican society, with lighter skin receiving more positive attention, as it is associated with higher social class, power, money, and modernity. In contrast, Indigenous ancestry is often associated with having an inferior social class, as well as lower levels of education. These distinctions are strongest in Mexico City , where
4901-690: Is a member of the College of Civil Engineers of Mexico, where he was Director of Planning Studies at the XVI Directing Council and General Director of Profession Analysis. Since 1982 he is a permanent member of the Mexican Academy of Engineering. Raul Salinas has published: In 2016 he published his book "Empoderamiento Ciudadano a través de la Tecnología" which was presented at the Guadalajara Book Fair He
5070-535: Is a state which ... maintains transparency and updates its relation with political parties, entrepreneurial groups, and the church." His declaration was more an articulation of the direction of change, but not list of specifics. The implementation of reforms entailed amending the 1917 constitution, but before that overcoming opposition on the Left but also in the Catholic Church itself. After considerable debate,
5239-403: Is also controversy as to whether to count those crypto-Jews who have converted (back) to Judaism. Sixty-two percent of the population over fifteen is married, three percent divorced and four percent widowed. However, younger Jewish women are more likely to be employed outside the home (only 18% of women are housewives) and fertility rates are dropping from 3.5 children of women over 65 to 2.7 for
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5408-613: Is believed that Salinas originally met Gerard in 1983 at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México , where he was teaching at the time, though that story remains unconfirmed. Gerard later worked as a technical secretary for the Economic Cabinet of the Salinas administration. The couple had three children. Gerard gave birth to their eldest daughter, Ana Emilia Margarita, in January 1996. followed by
5577-529: Is growing, but at a slower rate than the rest of the population so that the percentage of indigenous peoples is nonetheless falling. The majority of the indigenous population is concentrated in the central-southern and south-eastern states, with the majority of the indigenous population living in rural areas. Some indigenous communities have a degree of autonomy under the legislation of "usos y costumbres" (usages and customs), which allows them to regulate some internal issues under customary law . According to
5746-480: Is more dominant in the Western and Northern regions of Mexico. Mestizos and Amerindians tend to have slightly more dominant Amerindian admixture whereas Mexicans considered White tend to have dominant European admixture. Those DNA studies on Mexicans show a significant genetic variation depending on the region analyzed, with the central region of Mexico showing a balance between indigenous and European components, and
5915-536: Is not shown that the assets acquired by public employee Raul Salinas de Gortari are proceeds derived from an abuse of his position," that he cannot be convicted of "unjust enrichment." In the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico (2018), "the Brother" a character based on de Gortari is portrayed by actor Mauricio Isaac . Season 2 episode 6 depicts two young boys playing war and shooting a maid and episodes 7 and 8 depict
6084-437: Is not strange to see street vendors calling a potential costumer Güero or güerito , sometimes even when the person is not light-skinned. In this instance it is used to initiate a kind of familiarity, but in cases where social/racial tensions are relatively high, it can have the opposite effect. However contemporary sociologists and historians agree that, given that the concept of "race" has a psychological foundation rather than
6253-622: Is now Lebanon and Syria . Immigration of Arabs in Mexico has influenced Mexican culture, in particular food, where they have introduced kibbeh , tabbouleh , and even created recipes such as tacos árabes . By 1765, dates , which originated from the Middle East, were introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards. The fusion between Arab and Mexican food has highly influenced the Yucatecan cuisine. Arab immigration to Mexico started in
6422-545: Is the Comité Central Israelita in Mexico City but its contact is limited to Orthodox and Conservative congregations with no contact with Jews that may be affiliated with the Reform movement or those who consider themselves secular. The Mexican government census lists religion but its categories are confusing, confusing those of some Protestant sects which practice Judaic rituals with Jewish groups. There
6591-793: Is the story of Catarina de San Juan (Mirra), an Indian girl captured by the Portuguese and sold into slavery in Manila. She arrived in New Spain and eventually she gave rise to the China Poblana . The reverse was also true, thousands of Mexicans of varying races also ended up as immigrants to the Philippines back when there was a Philippine population of only 1.5 Million Filipinos. Later groups of Asians, predominantly Chinese, became Mexico's fastest-growing immigrant group from
6760-616: The 1968 Summer Olympics , but there is no evidence of his participation. He was an active member of the PRI youth movement and a political club, the Revolutionary Policy and Professional Association, whose members continued to be his close friends when he was president. Salinas was a skilled dressage horseman, and was a member of the Mexico national team at the Pan-American Games in Cali, Colombia , in 1971. Salinas
6929-583: The Chiapas conflict was at the Ministry of the Interior ( Gobernación ), appointing Jorge Carpizo , who had been head of the government National Human Rights Commission and previously was rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico . When the PRI candidate in the 1994 elections, Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in March 1994, new restrictions barring cabinet ministers who had not resigned in
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7098-506: The Congress of the Union . As the declared winner of a highly contested election, he had the task of restoring his own legitimacy and that of his party when he took office. The election had shown that much of the public desired reform, but Salinas appointed PRI hard-liners ("dinosaurs") to his cabinet, including Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios to the Ministry of the Interior; Manuel Bartlett to
7267-491: The Revolutionary Institutional and National Action parties) to destroy without opening the electoral documentation. Other people believed that Salinas, in fact, won the ballot, albeit probably not with an absolute majority as the official figures suggested, although that is not required under Mexican election law. During a television interview in September 2005, Miguel de la Madrid acknowledged that
7436-456: The Université de Paris . Raúl Salinas was the eldest son and one of five children of economist and government official Raúl Salinas Lozano and Margarita de Gortari de Salinas. Salinas's father served as President Adolfo López Mateos 's minister of industry and commerce, but was passed over as the PRI's presidential candidate in favor of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz . On 18 December 1951, when he
7605-525: The Washington Consensus , mass privatizations of state-run companies and the reprivatization of the banks, Mexico's entry into NAFTA , negotiations with the right-wing opposition party PAN to recognize their victories in state and local elections in exchange for supporting Salinas' policies, normalization of relations with the Catholic clergy , and the adoption of a new currency . From
7774-574: The caste war of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as Mestizos whereas in the state of Chiapas the word "Ladino" is used instead of "mestizo". Since the word Mestizo has had different definitions through Mexico's history, estimates of the Mexican Mestizo population vary widely. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , which uses a biology-based approach, about three-fifths of
7943-536: The 1793 census are not possible and cite, among other statistics, the relatively low frequency of marriages between people of different continental ancestries in colonial and early independent Mexico. It is claimed that the "mestizaje" process sponsored by the state was more "cultural than biological" which resulted on the numbers of the Mestizo Mexican group being inflated at the expense of the identity of other races. Controversies aside, this census constituted
8112-490: The 1880s to the 1920s, exploding from about 1,500 in 1895 to more than 20,000 in 1910, but also met with strong anti-Chinese sentiment , especially in Sonora and Sinaloa, which led to deportations and illegal expulsions of many of them and their descendants. Historically, population studies and censuses have never been up to the standards that a population as diverse and numerous such as Mexico's require. The first racial census
8281-608: The 1890s, when they came to the Americas from Hungary , Poland and Russia and mainly settled in the United States and Brazil, but also in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. There are Romani communities in the cities of Mexico City, Veracruz, Puebla, Guadalajara and Monterrey. There is also a large Romani community in San Luís Potosí. Although Asian Mexicans make up less than 1% of
8450-456: The 1921 census, with the most extreme case being that of the state of Durango, where the aforementioned census asserts that only 0.01% of the state's population (33 persons) self-identified as "white" while modern scientific research shows that the population of Durango has similar genetic frequencies to those found on European peoples (with the state's Indigenous population showing almost no foreign admixture either). Various authors theorize that
8619-510: The 1988 election the Mexican bishops did not make public statements about the election results. Behind the scenes the apostolic delegate to Mexico, the Vatican's representative, Mexican bishops, and government officials had a series of secret meetings that hammered out the outlines of a new Church-State relationship. In his inaugural address, Salinas de Gortari announced a program to "modernize" Mexico via structural transformation. "The modern state
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#17327867863998788-489: The 1988 election, he told his father, "It took us more than 20 years, but we made it." A tragedy occurred early in Carlos Salinas's life. On 18 December 1951, when he was three years old, he was playing with his older brother Raúl , then five, and an eight-year-old friend when they found a loaded rifle, and one of them shot and killed the Salinas family's twelve-year-old maid, Manuela. It was never determined which of
8957-407: The 1994 presidential election approached, Salinas had the crucial decision to designate the candidate for the PRI; that person had always gone on to win the presidential election. "The shipwreck of the 1988 succession should have sufficed to teach Salinas to prevent another disaster from befalling the system he had inherited." At the time Salinas made the choice, popularity and credibility was high over
9126-737: The 1994 shooting of Ruiz Massieu, a political rival and leading official in Mexico's long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. In November 1995, Raúl Salinas's wife, Paulina Castañón , and his brother-in-law, Antonio Castañón , were arrested in Geneva , Switzerland after attempting to withdraw US$ 84 million from an account owned by Raúl under an alias. A report by the US General Accounting Office indicated that Raúl Salinas transferred over $ 90 million out of Mexico and into private bank accounts in London and Switzerland, through
9295-517: The 19th and early 20th centuries. Roughly 100,000 Arabs settled in Mexico during this time period. They came mostly from Lebanon , Syria, Palestine , and Iraq and settled in significant numbers in Nayarit , Puebla , Mexico City , and the Northern part of the country, mainly in the states of Baja California , Tamaulipas , Nuevo Leon , Sinaloa , Chihuahua, Coahuila , and Durango , as well as
9464-507: The CDI, the states with the greatest percentage of indigenous population are Yucatán , with 62.7%, Quintana Roo with 33.8% and Campeche with 32% of the population being indigenous, most of them Maya ; Oaxaca with 58% of the population, the most numerous groups being the Mixtec and Zapotec peoples ; Chiapas has 32.7%, the majority being Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya; Hidalgo with 30.1%,
9633-523: The Caribbean and elsewhere in the Americas. The majority of Mexico's Afro-descendants are Afromestizos , i.e. "mixed-race". According to the intercensal survey carried out in 2015, 1.2% of the population self-identified as Afro-Mexican with 64.9% (896,829) of them also identifying as indigenous and 9.3% being speakers of indigenous languages . In the 2020 census survey carried out by the Mexican government, Afro-Mexicans were reported to make up 2.04% of
9802-636: The Catholic Church and other religious organizations; agrarian reform, ending redistribution of land under Article 27; and policy changes on "indigenous peoples, human rights, economic activities of the state, [and] criminal due process." Immediately upon his inauguration, he arrested prominent union leaders, many of whom were his opponents in the PRI, among other measures to demonstrate his determination to set his own course. His government privatized state-run companies, including Teléfonos de México, sold to PRI-insider Carlos Slim , as well as re-privatizing banks that President José López Portillo had nationalized at
9971-709: The Center of the Moon") might then refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco . The system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the Moon . Still another hypothesis suggests that it is derived from Mēctli, the goddess of maguey . The majority of Mexicans have varying degrees of Spanish and Mesoamerican ancestry and have been classified as "Mestizos". In
10140-694: The First and Second World Wars. The Plautdietsch language is also spoken by the Mexican Mennonites , descendants of German and Dutch immigrants in the states of Chihuahua , Durango , Zacatecas and Aguascalientes . Other German towns lie in the states of Nuevo León , Jalisco , Sinaloa , Yucatán , Chiapas , Quintana Roo , and other parts of Puebla, where the German culture and language have been preserved to different extents. The German Mexican community has largely integrated into Mexican society as
10309-435: The Interior ( Secretaría de Gobernación ), through its Federal Electoral Commission, was the institution in charge of the electoral process, and installed a modern computing system to count the votes. On election day July 6, 1988, the system "crashed", and when it was finally restored, Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. Even though the elections are extremely controversial, and some maintain that Salinas won legally,
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#173278678639910478-507: The Mestizo Mexican society. As the Mestizo identity promoted by the government is more of a cultural identity, it has achieved a strong influence in the country and has caused many people who may not qualify as "Mestizos" in its original sense to be counted as such in Mexico's demographic investigations and censuses, with many people who may be considered " White " being historically classified as Mestizos. A similar situation occurs regarding
10647-828: The Mexican government do count as Indigenous all persons who speak an indigenous language and persons who neither speak indigenous languages nor live in indigenous communities but self-identify as Indigenous. According to this criterion, the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples ( Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas , or CDI in Spanish) and the INEGI (Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography), stated that there are 15.7 million indigenous people in Mexico of many different ethnic groups, which constitute 14.9% of
10816-615: The Mexican legislature voted for fundamental revisions in Church-State policy. In the wake of the highly controversial 1988 election results, the government initiated a series of electoral reforms. A major change was the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) in October 1990, taking elections out of the hands of the Ministry of the Interior to create an independent entity. The 1994 elections were
10985-615: The Mexican population is Mestizo. A culture-based criteria estimates 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, further complicating attempts to quantify Mestizos via self-identification, recent research based on self-identification indeed has observed that many Mexicans do not actually identify as mestizos and would not agree to be labeled as such with "static" racial labels such as White, Indian, Black etc. being more commonly used. While for most of its history
11154-636: The Mexican sphere of influence which remained under the Spanish Crown for 300 years. It has been suggested that the name of the country is derived from Mextli or Mēxihtli, a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Mexicas, Huitzilopochtli , in which case Mēxihco means "Place where Huitzilopochtli lives". Another hypothesis suggests that Mēxihco derives from the Nahuatl words for "Moon" ( Mētztli ) and navel ( xīctli ). This meaning ("Place at
11323-475: The Ministry of Education; and Carlos Hank González to Agriculture. The cabinet was cohesive in support of Salinas's neoliberal policies. Many ministers were technocrats with graduate academic degrees, a profile similar to Salinas's. Although there was opposition to many of Salinas's policies, it came from outside the cabinet. Over the course of his presidency, he moved or replaced a number of cabinet ministers . A key replacement in January 1994 immediately after
11492-431: The PAN was Manuel Clouthier . Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas , son of President Lázaro Cárdenas , registered as an opposing candidate from a left-wing coalition called Frente Democrático Nacional . He rapidly became a popular figure, and became the first opposing candidate to fill the Zócalo with sympathizers and to seriously threaten the PRI, which had won all presidential elections since its inception in 1929. The Ministry of
11661-406: The PRI had lost. Politically, the program sought to undermine the appeal of leftists, especially Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas . In Chiapas, PRONASOL channeled increased funds in 1993 and 1994, but it did not prevent the Zapatista uprising , which showed that the program had only a limited impact. The Catholic Church and the Mexican government has had a historically fraught relationship, with restrictions on
11830-403: The PRI lost the 1988 elections. However, he immediately clarified his comment by saying that the PRI had "at least lost a significant number of voters". Asked for comment on De la Madrid's statements, Senator Manuel Bartlett , who was the president of the Federal Electoral Commission (Comisión Federal Electoral) during the De la Madrid administration, declared Salinas won the election albeit with
11999-440: The PRI presidential candidate, could have bolted from the party. With this important appointment, he was in the public limelight again. A spectacular political event in 1994 was the assassination of Salinas's handpicked PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in March 1994, upending the already complex electoral situation with elections scheduled for August of that year. The Zapatista uprising had ruined Salinas's plans for
12168-428: The Spanish colonists or being at war with them. It is also for these reasons that the number of Indigenous Mexicans presents the greater variation range between publications, as in cases their numbers in a given location were estimated rather than counted, leading to possible overestimations in some provinces and possible underestimations in others. ~ Europeans are included within the Mestizo category. Regardless of
12337-487: The United States. President De la Madrid considered drug trafficking a national security issue and devoted government funding to it. Salinas expanded this funding, but neither president stemmed the growth of trafficking and its impact on Mexico. Drug trafficking is highly lucrative for those involved with it, and Mexico's weak law enforcement and judicial system could not prevent the wide-scale involvement of Mexico's poorly-paid police from being corrupted. The Mexican military to
12506-457: The administration said came largely from privatization of state-owned companies, into impoverished areas to improve roads, the electrical grid, schools, and clinics in order to raise levels of education and health and link remote areas, with lack of oversight in its spending. The program was similar to those in other countries to manage the disruption and political costs of macroeconomic adjustment. Salinas's Harvard doctoral dissertation had examined
12675-453: The already-low central bank reserves (which eventually hit a record low of $ 9 billion). The economically orthodox thing to do, in order to maintain the fixed exchange rate (at 3.3 pesos per dollar, within a variation band), would have been to sharply increase interest rates by allowing the monetary base to shrink, as dollars were being withdrawn from the reserves. Given the fact that it was an election year, whose outcome might have changed as
12844-795: The arrival of Filipinos to Mexico during the colonial period. For two and a half centuries, between 1565 and 1815, many Filipinos and Mexicans sailed back and forth between Mexico and the Philippines as crews, prisoners, adventurers and soldiers in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon assisting Spain in its trade between Asia and the Americas. Also, on these voyages, thousands of Asian individuals (mostly males) were brought to Mexico as slaves and were called "Chino", which means Chinese, although in reality they were of diverse origins, including Koreans, Japanese, Malays, Filipinos, Javanese, Cambodians, Timorese, and people from Bengal, India, Ceylon, Makassar, Tidore, Terenate, and China. A notable example
13013-403: The assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio (Salinas's hand-picked successor and PRI candidate for the 1994 presidential election ) and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu (Salinas's brother-in-law and PRI Secretary-General). This surge of political violence led to economic uncertainty. Facing pressures to devalue the peso, Salinas refused, opting for a strategy he believed would help his candidacy to be
13182-440: The assistance of Gilberto Bolaños Cacho, maternal uncle of legendary Mexican comedian Chespirito , who is also nephew to Gustavo Díaz Ordaz , who became president of Mexico in 1964. He has not commented publicly on this tragic early childhood incident. Salinas attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico as an undergraduate, studying economics. He was an undergraduate when the student movement in Mexico organized against
13351-433: The beginning of his administration, Salinas de Gortari was criticized by the Mexican left, who considered him an illegitimate president whose neoliberal policies led to higher unemployment and were perceived as giving away the wealth of the nation to foreign ownership, whereas he was praised by the right wing and the international community, who considered him a leading figure of globalization and credited him with modernizing
13520-444: The campaign of Colosio. Zedillo had never held elective office, sharing that trait with De la Madrid and Salinas, and was not otherwise experienced politically. He was perceived as a weak candidate. There is speculation that Salinas wished to perpetuate his power as Plutarco Elías Calles had in the wake of the 1928 assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón , controlling successor presidents. After considering whether to postpone
13689-787: The case for employment and salaries. In 1992, Mexico hosted the Chapultepec Peace Accords , a venue where the parties in the civil war in El Salvador signed an accord ending the long conflict. Mexico reestablished diplomatic relations with the Vatican . Moreover, Mexico became member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The First Ibero-American Summit
13858-540: The case of Mestizos from the state of Durango or to European derived Americans in the case of Mestizos from the state of Jalisco . In 1991, an autosomal study was performed in Mexicans from the states of Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí, with a sample pool of 207. It found the average admixture to be 78.46% Spanish and 21.54% "Mexican Indian" (Indigenous). The data also shows younger generations having higher Native American admixture compared to older ones. In
14027-426: The census data and used it as reference for their works such as Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt . Each author gives different estimations for each racial group in the country although they do not vary much, with Europeans ranging from 18% to 22% of New Spain's population, Mestizos ranging from 21% to 25%, Amerindians ranging from 51% to 61% and Africans being between 6,000 and 10,000, The estimations given for
14196-418: The census of 1895 included a comprehensive racial classification, however according to the historic archives of Mexico's National Institute of Statistics that was not the case). While the 1921 census was the last time the Mexican government conducted a census that included a comprehensive racial classification, in recent time it has conducted nationwide surveys to quantify most of the ethnic groups who inhabit
14365-499: The church's role in national life. In the 1980s, the church saw electoral participation reform and fighting electoral fraud as an issue. Sometime during the presidential campaign, the PRI had indicated to the Church that a Salinas victory would be beneficial to the Church. It has been considered a quid pro quo agreement. A delegation of the leadership of the episcopal hierarchy attended the inauguration of Salinas on December 1, 1988. After
14534-787: The city of Tampico and Guadalajara . During the Israel–Lebanon war in 1948 and during the Six-Day War, thousands of Lebanese left Lebanon and went to Mexico. They first arrived in Veracruz. The majority of Arab-Mexicans are Christians who belong to the Maronite , Roman Catholic , Eastern Orthodox , and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches . A scant number are Muslims as well as indigenous Muslims which are most common in southern states like Chiapas or Oaxaca. And Jews of Middle Eastern origins. The first wave of Roma arrived in Mexico in
14703-471: The concept of Mestizo and mestizaje has been lauded by Mexico's intellectual circles, in recent times it has been target of criticism, with its detractors claiming that it delegitimizes the importance of race in Mexico under the idea of racism "not existing here [in Mexico], as everybody is Mestizo". In general, the authors conclude that Mexico introducing a real racial classification and accepting itself as
14872-581: The country as well as the social dynamics and inequalities between them. Also known as the "Revillagigedo census" due to its creation being ordered by the Count of the same name, this census was Mexico's (then known as the Viceroyalty of New Spain ) first ever nationwide population census. Most of its original datasets have reportedly been lost, thus most of what is now known about it comes from essays and field investigations made by academics who had access to
15041-463: The country's population. A Jewish, specifically Sephardic , population has existed in Mexico since the start of the Spanish invasion and occupation of Mexico. The current Jewish population in Mexico mostly consists of those who have descended from immigrants from the 19th and early 20th centuries with nationwide totals estimated between 80,000 and 90,000, about 75% of whom are in Mexico City. The exact numbers are not known. One main source for figures
15210-426: The country, returning in 1999. Salinas is often referred to as the most unpopular former president of Mexico. A 2005 nationwide poll conducted by Parametría found that 73% of the respondents had a negative image of him, while only 9% stated that they had a positive image of the former president. He has been regarded as the most influential and controversial Mexican politician since the 1990s. Carlos Salinas de Gortari
15379-460: The country, with states located in south and south-eastern Mexico having both, the highest percentages of population that self-identifies as Indigenous and the highest percentages of Amerindian genetic ancestry. However this is not the case when it comes to European Mexicans, as there are instances on which states that have been shown to have a considerably high European ancestry per scientific research are reported to have very small white populations in
15548-671: The country. According to 20th- and 21st-century academics, large scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native indigenous peoples would produce a Mestizo group which would become the overwhelming majority of Mexico's population by the time of independence . However, according to church registers from the colonial times , the majority of Spanish men married with Spanish women. Said registers also put in question other narratives held by contemporary academics, such as European immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of
15717-525: The country. Salinas was also backed by the United States government in his bid for Director-General of the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO). After years of economic recovery during his presidency, a series of mismanagement and corruption scandals during his last year in office crumbled his public image domestically and internationally. These events included the Zapatista uprising and
15886-419: The course of his presidency, but a series of events in the final year of his presidency changed that. The "unveiling" of the PRI candidate for the presidency was on 28 November 1993, with Salinas choosing Luis Donaldo Colosio . Those considered for the position were Manuel Camacho and Colosio, with earlier contenders, such as Jesús Silva Herzog and Pedro Aspe being eliminated. Aspe, a graduate of MIT had
16055-672: The crisis of December 1994. In keeping with the PRI election-year practices, Salinas launched a spending spree to finance popular projects, which translated into a historically high deficit. This budget deficit was coupled with a current account deficit, fueled by excessive consumer spending as allowed by the overvalued peso. In order to finance this deficit, the Salinas administration issued tesobonos , an attractive debt instrument that insured payment in dollars instead of pesos. Increasing current account deficit fostered by government spending, caused alarm among Mexican and foreign T-bill ( tesobono ) investors, who sold them rapidly, thereby depleting
16224-471: The distinctions between Indigenous peoples and Mestizos: while the term Mestizo in English has the meaning of a person with mixed indigenous and European ancestry, 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, and a person with none or
16393-474: The economy, and society. The modernization of Mexico is, moreover, an absolute imperative. This is the only way we will be able to affirm our sovereignty in a world undergoing profound transformation." During his six-year term in office ( sexenio ) major changes were made to the Constitution of 1917 that affected political reform; church-state relations, ending many aspects of anticlericalism restricting
16562-474: The effects. Whether the effects were aggravated further or not, the result was that the peso crashed under a floating regime from four pesos to the dollar (with the previous increase of 15%) to 7.2 to the dollar in the space of a week. Mexicans Mexicans ( Spanish : Mexicanos ) are the citizens and nationals of the United Mexican States . The Mexican people have varied origins with
16731-554: The end of his term. The funds from these sales of state assets helped pay off Mexico's internal debt. However, there were also bailouts for banks and the Mexican toll roads that became scandals. Salinas continued with the neoliberal economic policy of his predecessor Miguel de la Madrid and converted Mexico into a regulatory state. During his presidential term, he aggressively privatized hundreds of state-run companies, including telecommunications, steel, and mining. The banking system (that had been nationalized by José López Portillo )
16900-419: The expression se cayó el sistema ("the system crashed") became a colloquial euphemism for electoral fraud. As one observer put it, "For the ordinary citizen, it was not the computer network but the Mexican political system that had crashed." The process involved two suspicious shutdowns of the computer system used to keep track of the number of votes. Suspicions later grew as Congress voted (with support from
17069-809: The extent of law enforcement collusion. Salinas negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the United States and Canada. Salinas also renegotiated Mexico's foreign debt. In 1990, Salinas had traveled to Europe to attract non-North American capital investment, but dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc opened them to foreign investment; Mexico was less attractive to them and Salinas turned to North America. Critics say that NAFTA has had mixed results for Mexico: while there has been huge increase in commerce and foreign investment, this has not been at all
17238-422: The fact that it happened and that international attention was drawn to this poor region of Mexico just as NAFTA was implemented meant that Salinas' careful plans for a peaceful political transition with his legacy intact were obliterated. Salinas appointed Manuel Camacho, Minister of Foreign Affairs, as the government's peace mediator. For Salinas, this had political benefits, since Camacho, having been passed over as
17407-568: The first to have international observers, and were considered, at that time, the fairest elections in the century, although not free of controversy. For the first time, the PRI lost its two-thirds majority in Congress, which is necessary to conduct constitutional reforms. In 1990, the National Human Rights Commission ( Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos ) was created. Initially a government agency, it became
17576-421: The frequencies of blond hair and light eyes in Mexicans are 18% and 28% respectively. Surveys that use as reference skin color such as those made by Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination and Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography report percentages that range from 27% to 47%. The use of skin color palettes as the primary criteria to estimate the ethnoracial groups that inhabit
17745-417: The general Mexican population. Studies that focus on Mexicans of predominantly European descent or Afro-Mexicans have not been made. Mexicans who self-identify as Mestizos are primarily of European and Native American ancestry. The third largest component is African , in coastal areas this is partly a legacy of the slavery in New Spain (200,000 black slaves). However, the authors of this study state that
17914-431: The general ancestry of Mexicans. However, Native American X chromosomal ancestry exceeded 50%, and other studies found that approximately 90% of Mexicans carried a Native American maternal haplogroup. The authors suggest that this is consistent with the ethnogenesis of Latinos , through intermarriages that mostly involved European men and Native American women. Extant research suggests that geographic location plays
18083-530: The general election scheduled for 21 August 1994, Salinas chose Zedillo to run as the PRI candidate for the presidency and the elections took place as scheduled. Voters came out in large numbers to choose between three main candidates, Zedillo for the PRI, Cárdenas for the Party of Democratic Revolution, and Diego Fernández de Cevallos for the PAN. Zedillo won a clear victory, in what was considered by foreign observers as
18252-475: The government to be able to service its foreign debt, and overall, promote economic recovery. In Mexico, the reversal was controversial, opposed by organized labor, many academics, and nongovernmental organizations. An issue of importance both domestic and foreign policy is drug trafficking. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Mexico was a transit country for cocaine produced in Colombia and destined for consumers in
18421-416: The government was unable to hold this line, and decided to let the exchange rate float. While experts agree that devaluation was necessary, some critics of Zedillo's 22-day-old administration argue that, although economically coherent, the way the crisis was handled was a political mistake. By having announced its plans for devaluation, they argue that many foreigners withdrew their investments, thus aggravating
18590-478: The inaugural president of the WTO. As a consequence, less than a month after Salinas left office, his successor Ernesto Zedillo was forced to devalue the peso and Mexico entered into one of the worst economic crises of its history . Shortly after, his brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari was arrested for ordering the assassination of Ruiz Massieu and was subsequently indicted on charges of drug trafficking. Salinas then left
18759-409: The inhabitants of the colonized settlements. Other example would be the censuses made by the United States , that did not include Indigenous peoples living among the general population until 1860, and indigenous peoples as a whole until 1900. Made right after the consummation of the Mexican revolution, the social context on which this census was made makes it particularly unique, as the government of
18928-539: The largest Mexican population in the world after Mexico at 37,186,361 in 2019. The modern nation of Mexico achieved independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, after a decade-long war for independence starting in 1810; this began the process of forging a national identity that fused the cultural traits of Indigenous pre-Columbian origin with those of Spanish and African ancestry. This led to what has been termed "a peculiar form of multi-ethnic nationalism" which
19097-448: The largest genetic component of Mexicans who self-identify as being Mestizos is indigenous, although the difference in incidence between the indigenous and European composites is relatively small, both representing well over 40% of the genetic composition of Mestizos. In two studies of Mexicans from Mexico City and the United States, researchers noted that Mexicans had mostly European ancestry, with Native American ancestry making up 44% of
19266-552: The last day of his term; thus the peso devalued far less than it had in the two previous terms. (The peso was later devalued from 4 per dollar to 7.2 in a single week due to the "December Mistake.") Salinas established the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), a social welfare program , as a way to directly aid poor Mexicans, but also create a network of support for Salinas. It was his first official act as president. The program channeled public funds, which
19435-475: The last time the Mexican Government conducted a comprehensive racial census with the breakdown by states being the following (foreigners and people who answered "other" not included): When the 1921 census' results are compared with the results of Mexico's recent censuses as well as with modern genetic research, high consistence is found in regards to the distribution of Indigenous Mexicans across
19604-571: The latter gradually increasing as one travels northwards and westwards, where European ancestry becomes the majority of the genetic contribution up until cities located at the Mexico–United States border , where studies suggest there is a significant resurgence of indigenous and African admixture. In southern Mexico there is prevalent indigenous Meso-American, but also European admixture, and a small but higher than average African genetic contributions. According to numerous studies, on average,
19773-783: The majority being Otomi ; Puebla with 25.2%, and Guerrero with 22.6%, mostly Nahua people and the states of San Luis Potosí and Veracruz both home to a population of 19% indigenous people, mostly from the Totonac , Nahua and Teenek (Huastec) groups. Afro-Mexicans are an ethnic group that predominate in certain areas of Mexico such as the Costa Chica of Oaxaca and the Costa Chica of Guerrero , Veracruz (e.g. Yanga ) and in some towns in northern Mexico, mainly in Múzquiz Municipality , Coahuila. The existence of individuals of African descent in Mexico has its origins in
19942-425: The majority of African ancestry in Mexicans is of North and Sub-Saharan African origin and was brought by the Spaniards themselves as a diluted part of their genetic ancestry. According to the average of various studies, Mexicans are on average 50% European, 45% Amerindian, and 5% African. However this varies greatly by methodology and study, some point toward a greater Amerindian admixture whereas others point toward
20111-417: The majority of the people not having native admixture or being of predominantly European ancestry. In the north and west of Mexico the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller and unlike those found in central and southern Mexico they were mostly nomadic, therefore remaining isolated from colonial population centers, with hostilities between them and Mexican colonists often taking place. This eventually led
20280-434: The mid-to-late 19th century, spurred by government policies of Porfirio Díaz . Although a good number of them took advantage of the liberal policies then valid in Mexico and went into merchant, industrial and educational ventures, others arrived with no or limited capital, as employees or farmers. Most settled in Mexico City, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Puebla . Significant numbers of German immigrants also arrived during and after
20449-428: The modern meaning of the term this means that they identify fully neither with any indigenous culture nor with a Spanish cultural heritage, but rather identify with the uniquely Mexican identity which incorporates elements from both Spanish and indigenous traditions. By the deliberate efforts of post-revolutionary governments the "Mestizo identity" was constructed as the base of the modern Mexican national identity, through
20618-569: The most powerful of the country's elite are located. Despite Mexico's government not using racial terms related to European or white people officially for almost a century (resuming using such terms after 2010), the concepts of "white people" (known as güeros or blancos in Mexican Spanish ) and of "being white" didn't disappear and are still present in everyday Mexican culture: different idioms of race are used in Mexico's society that serve as mediating terms between racial groups. It
20787-403: The most powerful positions to deal with the economic crisis. In the cabinet, Salinas's main rival was Jesús Silva Herzog , Minister of Finance. In the internecine politics that would decide who would succeed De la Madrid as president, Salinas sought to destroy the reputation of Silva Herzog. Another key figure in the cabinet was Manuel Bartlett , Minister of the Interior, with whom Salinas forged
20956-591: The most spoken language being Spanish , but many also speak languages from 68 different Indigenous linguistic groups and other languages brought to Mexico by expatriates or recent immigration. In 2020, 19.4% of Mexico's population identified as Indigenous . There are currently about 12 million Mexican nationals residing outside Mexico, with about 11.7 million living in the United States. The larger Mexican diaspora can also include individuals that trace ancestry to Mexico and self-identify as Mexican but are not necessarily Mexican by citizenship . The United States has
21125-537: The northeast region of the country to become the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period albeit recent migration waves have been changing its demographic trends. The 2003 General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples recognizes 62 indigenous languages as "national languages" which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken. The recognition of indigenous languages and
21294-457: The original demonym becomes Mexica . The area that is now modern-day Mexico has cradled many predecessor civilizations, going back as far as the Olmec which influenced the latter civilizations of Teotihuacan (200 BC to 700 AD) and the much debated Toltec people who flourished around the 10th and 12th centuries AD, and ending with the last great indigenous civilization before the Nahuatl language
21463-410: The original intent of eliminating divisions and creating a unified identity that would allow Mexico to modernize and integrate with the international community, this policy has not been able to achieve its goal. It is speculated that this is due to the identity's own internal contradictions, as it includes in the same theoretical race people who, in daily interactions, do not consider each other to be of
21632-591: The overall population now. There is a low level of intermarriage with the general Mexican population, with only 3.1% of marriages being mixed. Although the Jewish community is less than one percent of Mexico's total population, Mexico is one of the few countries whose Jewish population is expected to grow. German Mexicans ( German : Deutschmexikaner or Deutsch-Mexikanisch , Spanish: germano-mexicano or alemán-mexicano ) are Mexicans of German descent or origin. Most ethnic Germans arrived in Mexico during
21801-401: The party's nomination for the 1988 general election and was elected amid widespread accusations of electoral fraud. An economist , Salinas de Gortari was the first Mexican president since 1946 who was not a law graduate . His presidency was characterized by the entrenchment of the neoliberal , free trade economic policies initiated by his predecessor Miguel de la Madrid in observance of
21970-695: The percentage of said ethnic group at 23%, with a similar methodology the American Sociological Association obtained a percentage of 18.8%, having its higher frequency on the North region (22.3%–23.9%) followed by the Center region (18.4%–21.3%) and the South region (11.9%). Another study made by the University College London in collaboration with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History found that
22139-483: The percentage of the Mexican population defined as "indigenous" varies according to the definition applied. It can be defined narrowly according to linguistic criteria including only persons that speak an indigenous language. Based on this criterion, approximately 5.4% of the population is Indigenous. Nonetheless, activists for the rights of indigenous peoples have referred to the usage of this criterion for census purposes as "statistical genocide". Other surveys made by
22308-602: The population in the country. According to the latest intercensal survey carried out by the Mexican government in 2015, Indigenous people make up 21.5% of Mexico's population. In this occasion, people who self-identified as "Indigenous" and people who self-identified as "partially Indigenous" were classified in the "Indigenous" category altogether. In the 2020 Mexican census 19.4% of the country's population self-identified as indigenous and 9.36% were reported to live in Indigenous households. The absolute indigenous population
22477-459: The possible imprecisions related to the counting of Indigenous peoples living outside the colonized areas, the effort that New Spain's authorities put on considering them as subjects is worth mentioning, as censuses made by other colonial or post-colonial countries did not consider Amerindians to be citizens/subjects, as example the censuses made by the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata would only count
22646-504: The protection of indigenous cultures is granted not only to the ethnic groups indigenous to modern-day Mexican territory, but also to other North American indigenous groups that migrated to Mexico from the United States , such as the Kikapú in the 19th century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s. The category of indigena (indigenous) in Mexico has been defined based on different criteria through history; this means that
22815-487: The reason for these inconsistencies may lie in the Mestizo identity promoted by the Mexican government, which reportedly led to people who are not biologically Mestizos to be classified as such. Since the end of the Mexican Revolution , the official identity promoted by the government for non-indigenous Mexicans has been the Mestizo one (a mix of European and indigenous culture and heritage). Established with
22984-461: The relationship between social programs and political support for the government. Given the Salinas's questionable legitimacy as the winner of the 1988 election, PRONASOL was seen as a way for Salinas to deliver immediate benefits to the poor and avert their turning to other political parties or worse. It did not prioritize funding for Mexico's poorest states, but rather to states with middle-income populations where elections were most contested and where
23153-633: The report, the oldest generation had an averaged total of 91.14% Spanish ancestry. Ra%C3%BAl Salinas de Gortari Raúl Salinas de Gortari graduated from the Faculty of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico , as a civil engineer. He has a master's degree in Transportation Planning from the École Nationale Des Ponts Et Chaussees in Paris, and another one in Evaluation of Industrial Development Projects from
23322-498: The results of the 1921 census however, have been contested by various historians and are deemed inaccurate nowadays. Other sources suggest higher percentages: Encyclopædia Britannica estimates them at around 30% of the population; field surveys that use the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as white such as one by the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico calculated
23491-424: The same race and have little in common biologically, with some of them being entirely Indigenous, others entirely European, and including also Africans and Asians. Today, there is no definitive census that quantifies Mexico's white population, with estimates from the Mexican government raging from 27% to 47%, with this figure being based on phenotypical traits instead of self-identification of ancestry. The lack of
23660-442: The situation. There was the impression that Salinas would reverse his decision for Colosio, substituting someone else, perhaps Manuel Camacho . Camacho was a politically savvy former Minister of Foreign Affairs , Head of Government of Mexico City , as well as Peace Commissioner in Chiapas. Salinas made a public statement on 17 January 1994, affirming his choice as candidate, but this was at the insistence of Colosio. Salinas extracted
23829-484: The six months previous to the election date from being candidates for the presidency meant that Salinas had a small pool of eligible choices. In his inaugural address in December 1988, he outlined an ambitious and important goal of "modernizing" Mexico." He contended that "The modernization of Mexico is essential if we are to meet the demands of the 85 million Mexicans of today.... In brief, we need to modernize politics,
23998-431: The sixth of July 1988. As they had done six years before, the electorate came out to vote, but not in support of the official candidate. They came to the voting booths to punish him." Salinas had become presidential candidate in a difficult time for the PRI which for the first time was faced by significant opposition from the left ( National Democratic Front ) and from the right ( National Action Party , PAN). The candidate of
24167-453: The slave trade that took place during colonial times and that did not end until 1829. Historically, the presence of this ethnic group within the country has been difficult to assess for a number of reasons: their small numbers, heavy intermarriage with other ethnic groups, and Mexico's tradition of defining itself as a Mestizo society or mixing of European and indigenous only. Nowadays this ethnic group also includes recent immigrants from Africa,
24336-478: The smallest margin of any PRI candidate before him. He attributed De la Madrid's remarks to his old age (71 years old as of 2005) and the remarks being taken out of context by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola . Ex-president Miguel de la Madrid admitted that the elections had been rigged. Salinas assumed the presidency on 1 December 1988 at the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro . There he took oath before
24505-529: The three boys pulled the trigger, and the incident was declared an accident; it was given newspaper coverage in Excélsior and La Prensa at the time. A judge blamed the Salinas parents for leaving a loaded weapon accessible to their small children. The Salinas family did not know the last name of their 12-year-old maid Manuela—only that she came from San Pedro Azcapotzaltongo—and it is unknown whether her family ever claimed her body. They were also exonerated with
24674-405: The time was in the process of rebuilding the country and was looking forward to unite all Mexicans under a single national identity. The 1921 census' final results in regards to race, which assert that 59.3% of the Mexican population self-identified as Mestizo, 29.1% as Indigenous and only 9.8% as White were then essential to cement the "mestizaje" ideology (that asserts that the Mexican population as
24843-504: The time. A judge blamed the Salinas parents for leaving a loaded weapon accessible to their small children. Raúl Salinas de Gortari held various positions of the National Company of Popular Subsistence (Conasupo). He served as General Manager of Sistema de Distribuidoras Conasupo, S.A. de C.V. (Diconsa) and Director of Budget Planning and Programming of Conasupo. He worked 10 years as a Deputy General Director of Grupo IUSA ,
25012-594: The total population of modern Mexico, they are nonetheless a notable minority. Due to the historical and contemporary perception in Mexican society of what constitutes Asian culture (associated with the Far East rather than the Near East ), Asian Mexicans typically refers to those of East Asian descent, and may also include those of South and Southeast Asian descent while Mexicans of West Asian descent are referred to as Arab Mexicans . Asian immigration began with
25181-566: The total population range from 3,799,561 to 6,122,354. It is concluded then, that across nearly three centuries of colonization, the population growth trends of Europeans and Mestizos were even, while the total percentage of the Indigenous population decreased at a rate of 13%–17% per century. The authors assert that rather than Europeans and mestizos having higher birthrates, the reason for the Indigenous population's numbers decreasing lies on them suffering of higher mortality rates, due living in remote locations rather than on cities and towns founded by
25350-444: The two groups. Additionally the presence of considerable portions of the population with African heritage further complicates the situation. In practice the classificatory system is no longer biologically based, but rather mixes socio-cultural traits with phenotypical traits, and classification is largely fluid, allowing individuals to move between categories and define their ethnic and racial identities situationally. Even though there
25519-521: Was a common tongue in the region of modern Central Mexico during the Aztec Empire, but after the arrival of Europeans and the Spanish Conquest , the conquest of the Aztec empire (13 March 1325 to 13 August 1521) the common language of the region became Spanish. The Spanish re-administered the land and expanded their own empire beyond the former boundaries of the Aztec, adding more territory to
25688-462: Was a key cabinet position since Mexico was in dire financial circumstances following the presidency of José López Portillo , who as a desperate measure had nationalized the banks in Mexico and expropriated dollar-denominated savings accounts. The country held no hard currency reserves, exhaustion of foreign credit, and soaring interest rates. the Ministries of Finance and Planning and Budget became
25857-832: Was a member of the Mexican Equestrian Team at the 1971 Pan American Games , held in Cali, Colombia. In 1972 he was National Jumping Champion of the Mexican Equestrian Federation, member of the International Equestrian Federation . He was a victim of espionage by the Dirección Federal de Seguridad , a Mexican intelligence agency, where his personal life was compromised. The Mexican government acknowledged this in 2020. In February 1995, Raúl Salinas
26026-399: Was arrested by order of former President Ernesto Zedillo , admitted in his own statements. He was charged with the murder of his former brother-in-law, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu , who had been married to his sister Adriana. In June 2005, Salinas had his conviction overturned by a judicial panel and he was released from prison. He had served more than 10 years of a 27.5-year sentence for
26195-471: Was born in 1978. Cecilia Occelli González served as First Lady of Mexico from 1988 to 1994 during the Salinas presidency. Soon after leaving office, Salinas traveled to New York City to take a break from Mexican politics. He returned to Mexico from the United States in 1995, where he immediately asked his wife for a divorce. The couple divorced later in 1995. Salinas married his second wife, Ana Paula Gerard Rivero, shortly after his divorce from Occelli. It
26364-425: Was born on 3 April 1948, the second son and one of five children of economist and government official Raúl Salinas Lozano and Margarita De Gortari De Salinas. Salinas's father served as President Adolfo López Mateos 's minister of industry and commerce, but was passed over as the PRI's presidential candidate in favor of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–70). When Carlos Salinas was chosen the PRI's presidential candidate for
26533-460: Was five years old, he was playing with his younger brother Carlos, then three, and an eight-year-old friend when they found a loaded rifle, and one of them shot and killed the Salinas family's twelve-year-old maid, Manuela. It was never determined which of the three boys pulled the trigger, and the incident was declared an accident; it was given newspaper coverage in Excelsior and La Prensa at
26702-783: Was held and the Chapultepec Peace Accords , a peace agreement for El Salvador, were signed. Salinas in 1991 visited United States to help convince the Illinois Governor, James R. Thompson to pardon four Mexican citizens from a quadruple murder known as the Milwaukee Ave Massacre, that took place in 1981 in Chicago, Illinois. With the help of Carlos Salinas de Gortari the four men, Joaquin Varela, Rogelio Arroyo, Ignacio Varela, and Isauro Sanchez, had their sentences commuted, later pardoned by Governor Jim Edgar . As
26871-442: Was his successful negotiation with the U.S. and Canada to create the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect on 1 January 1994. The agreement was a reversal of Mexico's longstanding policies of economic nationalism and anti-Americanism and was intended to create a single market. Mexican proponents of NAFTA saw it in a way to secure markets for its exports and attract foreign investment, and create jobs, help
27040-433: Was known that the peso was overvalued, but the extent of the Mexican economy's vulnerability was either not well known or downplayed by both the Salinas administration and the media. This vulnerability was further aggravated by several unexpected events and macroeconomic mistakes made in the last year of his administration. Several economists and historians have analyzed some of the events and policy mistakes that precipitated
27209-456: Was likely to run again for the presidency, the PRI needed to field someone who could garner votes. The uprising in Chiapas on 1 January 1994 coincided with the date that the NAFTA came into effect. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation ( Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional , EZLN) issued their first declaration from the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Salinas's immediate response
27378-416: Was made in 1793, being also Mexico's (then known as New Spain ) first ever nationwide population census. Of it, only part of the original datasets survive. Thus most of what is known of it comes from essays made by researchers who used the census' findings as reference for their own works. More than a century would pass until the Mexican government conducted a new racial census in 1921 (some sources assert that
27547-474: Was more invigorated and developed after the Mexican Revolution when the Constitution of 1917 officially established Mexico as an indivisible pluricultural nation founded on its indigenous roots. Mexicano (Mexican) is derived from the word Mexico itself. In the principal model to create demonyms in Spanish, the suffix -ano is added to the name of the place of origin. However, in Nahuatl language,
27716-617: Was one of the Mexicans of his generation who studied at elite foreign universities. He earned a master's degree in Public Administration from Harvard University in 1973 and went on to earn a PhD from Harvard Kennedy School in 1978. His doctoral dissertation was published as Political Participation, Public Investment and Support for the System: A Comparative Study of Rural Communities in Mexico . Salinas met his future first wife, Cecilia Yolanda Occelli González (born 1950), who
27885-410: Was only one of many necessary adjustments. Soon after taking office, Zedillo announced that his government would let the fixed exchange rate band increase 15 percent (up to 4 pesos per US$ ), by stopping the unorthodox measures employed by the previous administration to keep it at the previous fixed level (e.g., by selling dollars, assuming debt, and so on). This measure, however, was not enough, and
28054-417: Was privatized. His National Development Plan ( Plan Nacional de Desarrollo ) published in 1989 had 4 objectives: By the end of his term, inflation had been reduced to 7% in 1994, the lowest figure in 22 years. Shortly after leaving office, due to the so-called December Mistake , inflation rose again to 51%. During his term, the peso devalued from 2.65 MXP to 3.60 MXN per U.S. dollar by November 30, 1994,
28223-528: Was the attorney general and in charge of the investigation. The economic bubble gave Mexico a prosperity not seen in a generation. This period of rapid growth coupled with low inflation prompted some political thinkers and the media to state that Mexico was on the verge of becoming a "First World nation". In fact, it was the first of the "newly industrialized nations" to be admitted into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in May 1994. It
28392-508: Was to find for a peaceful solution: offering pardon to deposed arms, ordering a cease fire, appointing a peace negotiator, and sending the Mexican Congress a General Amnesty Law. Salinas' presidential successor took a harder line when he was inaugurated. Salinas' more peaceful solution to the uprising was legal and politically pragmatic, likely saving many lives in Mexico. The Zapatista rebellion spread regionally, not nationwide, but
28561-484: Was two years his junior, in 1958 when he was just ten years old whilst she was only eight. They began dating in 1965 when he was 17-years old and she was 15-years old. However, the relationship ended in 1968 when Salinas moved to the United States to study economics. In 1970, Salinas and Occelli reconnected in Williamsburg, Virginia , in the United States. They were engaged soon after and married on 15 April 1972, in
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