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77-663: At the time of the 2013 Honduras census, Yoro municipality had a population of 86,665. Of these, 86.52% were Mestizo , 10.65% Indigenous (10.05% Tolupan , 0.41% Lenca ), 1.98% White , 0.80% Black or Afro-Honduran and 0.05% others. 15°8′N 87°8′W  /  15.133°N 87.133°W  / 15.133; -87.133 This Honduras location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mestizo Mestizo ( / m ɛ ˈ s t iː z oʊ , m ɪ ˈ -/ mest- EE -zoh, mist- , Spanish: [mesˈtiθo] or [mesˈtiso] ; fem. mestiza , literally 'mixed person')

154-530: A mestiço to be classified as pardo or caboclo. In Brazil specifically, at least in modern times, all non-Indigenous people are considered to be a single ethnicity ( os brasileiros . Lines between ethnic groups are historically fluid); since the earliest years of the Brazilian colony, the mestiço group has been the most numerous among the free people. As explained above, the concept of mestiço should not be confused with mestizo as used in either

231-652: A Semite /Afro Asiatic. This term was first documented in English in 1582. Mestizo ( Spanish: [mesˈtiθo] or [mesˈtiso] ), mestiço ( Portuguese: [mɨʃˈtisu] or [mesˈtʃisu] ), métis ( French: [meti(s)] ), mestís ( Catalan: [məsˈtis] ), Mischling ( German: [ˈmɪʃlɪŋ] ), meticcio ( Italian: [meˈtittʃo] ), mestiezen ( Dutch: [mɛsˈtizə(n)] ), mestee ( Middle English: [məsˈtiː] ), and mixed are all cognates of

308-476: A castizo ; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."   O’Crouley states that

385-556: A blanket term that not only refers to mixed Mexicans but includes all Mexican citizens who do not speak Indigenous languages 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 ancestry would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his Indigenous culture or by not speaking an Indigenous language, and

462-455: A half and two-thirds of the population, while others use the culture-based definition, and estimate the percentage of mestizos as high as 90% of the Mexican population, several others mix-up both due lack of knowledge in regards to the modern definition and assert that mixed ethnicity Mexicans are as much as 93% of Mexico's population. Paradoxically to its wide definition, the word mestizo has long been dropped off popular Mexican vocabulary, with

539-413: A kind of "linguistic coexistence" from the beginning of the colonial period. Some monks and priests attempted to describe and classify indigenous languages with Spanish. Philip II of Spain decreed in 1570 that Nahuatl become the official language of the colonies of New Spain in order to facilitate communication between the natives of the colonies. In 1696 Charles II reversed that policy and banned

616-909: A language shift to try to reverse this language shift. Literature projects done with the Nahua people include "Keeping the fire alive: a decade of language revitalization in Mexico" showing the experiences of language revitalization in South Mexico. The following is a classification of the 65 indigenous languages grouped by family: Language families with members north of Mexico Language families with all known members in Mexico Language family with members south of Mexico Language isolates : *In danger of extinction. The deaf community uses Mexican Sign Language , Mayan Sign Language , and, particularly among Mexicans who attended school in

693-443: A loanword from French, refers to persons of mixed French or European and Indigenous ancestry, who were part of a particular ethnic group. French-speaking Canadians, when using the word métis , are referring to Canadian Métis ethnicity, and all persons of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry. Many were involved in the fur trade with Canadian First Nations peoples (especially Cree and Anishinaabeg ). Over generations, they developed

770-539: A million people in Mexico is the Nahuatl language ; the other Native American languages with a large population of native speakers (at least 400,000 speakers) include Yucatec Maya , Tzeltal Maya , Tzotzil Maya , Mixtec , and Zapotec . mostly insufficiently specified languages According to the Law of Linguistic Rights, Mexico recognizes sixty-two indigenous languages as co-official National languages. With Spanish being

847-520: A person with none or very low Indigenous ancestry would be considered Indigenous either by speaking an Indigenous language or by identifying with a particular Indigenous cultural heritage. In the Yucatán Peninsula , the word mestizo has a different meaning to the one used in the rest of Mexico, being used to refer to the Maya -speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during

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924-637: A person's life. Artwork created mainly in eighteenth-century Mexico, " casta paintings ," show groupings of racial types in hierarchical order, which has influenced the way that modern scholars have conceived of social difference in Spanish America. During the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, there were three chief categories of ethnicities: Spaniard ( español ), American Indian ( indio ), and African ( negro ). Throughout

1001-407: A report on a genomic study of 300 mestizos from those same states. 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. The study also noted that whereas mestizo individuals from the southern state of Guerrero showed on average 66% of Indigenous ancestry, those from

1078-603: A separate culture of hunters and trappers, and were concentrated in the Red River Valley and speak the Michif language . In the Spanish colonial period , the Spanish developed a complex set of racial terms and ways to describe difference. Although this has been conceived of as a "system," and often called the sistema de castas or sociedad de castas , archival research shows that racial labels were not fixed throughout

1155-682: A synonym for miscegenation , but with positive connotations. In the modern era, particularly in Latin America, mestizo has become more of a cultural term, with the term indio being reserved exclusively for people who have maintained a separate Indigenous ethnic and cultural identity, language , tribal affiliation, community engagement, etc. In late 19th- and early 20th-century Peru , for instance, mestizaje denoted those peoples with evidence of Euro-indigenous ethno-racial "descent" and access—usually monetary access, but not always—to secondary educational institutions. Similarly, well before

1232-604: A total of 35%, while Indigenous peoples comprise the remaining 5%. A genetic study by the same university showed that the average Chilean's genes in the Mestizo segment are 60% European and 40% Indigenous American. As Easter Island is a territory of Chile and the native settlers are Rapa Nui , descendants of intermarriages of European Chileans (mostly Spanish) and Rapa Nui are even considered by Chilean law as mestizos. Languages of Mexico The Constitution of Mexico does not declare an official language; however, Spanish

1309-417: Is a Spanish word that derives from Latino . Ladino is an exonym dating to the colonial era to refer to those Spanish-speakers who were not colonial elites ( Peninsulares and Criollos ), or Indigenous peoples. As of 2012 , most Costa Ricans are primarily of Spanish or mestizo ancestry with minorities of German, Italian, Jamaican, and Greek ancestry. European migrants used Costa Rica to get across

1386-711: Is a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry in the former Spanish Empire . In certain regions such as Latin America , it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors were Indigenous. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire . It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses , parish registers , Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used

1463-448: Is a significant Arab population (of about 100,000), mostly from Palestine (especially from the area of Bethlehem), but also from Lebanon. Salvadorans of Palestinian descent numbered around 70,000 individuals, while Salvadorans of Lebanese descent is around 27,000. There is also a small community of Jews who came to El Salvador from France, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. Many of these Arab groups naturally mixed and contributed into

1540-405: Is more commonly connected to language families in both urban and rural vernacular. During the colonial era of Mexico, the category Mestizo was used rather flexibly to register births in local parishes and its use did not follow any strict genealogical pattern. With Mexican independence, in academic circles created by the " mestizaje " or " Cosmic Race " ideology, scholars asserted that Mestizos are

1617-647: Is the de facto national language spoken by over 99% of the population making it the largest Spanish speaking country in the world. Due to the cultural influence of the United States , American English is widely understood, especially in border states and tourist regions, with a hybridization of Spanglish spoken. The government also recognizes 63 indigenous languages spoken in their communities out of respect, including Nahuatl , Mayan , Mixtec , etc. The Mexican government uses solely Spanish for official and legislative purposes, but it has yet to declare it

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1694-532: The Araucanian ... In Chile, from the time the Spanish soldiers with Pedro de Valdivia entered northern Chile, a process of 'mestizaje' began where Spaniards began to intermarry and reproduce with the local bellicose Mapuche population of Indigenous Chileans to produce an overwhelmingly mestizo population during the first generation in all of the cities they founded. In Southern Chile, the Mapuche, were one of

1771-493: The Caste War of Yucatán of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos. In Chiapas, the term Ladino is used instead of Mestizo. Due to the extensiveness of the modern definition of mestizo, various publications offer different estimations of this group, some try to use a biological, racial perspective and calculate the mestizo population in contemporary Mexico as being around

1848-595: The Latin word mixticius . The Portuguese cognate , mestiço , historically referred to any mixture of Portuguese and local populations in the Portuguese colonies . In colonial Brazil , most of the non-enslaved population was initially mestiço de indio , i.e. mixed Portuguese and Native Brazilian . There was no descent-based casta system, and children of upper-class Portuguese landlord males and enslaved females enjoyed privileges higher than those given to

1925-606: The indigenous peoples to "preserve and enrich their languages" and promotes "bilingual and intercultural education". In 2003, the Mexican Congress approved the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples ( Spanish : Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos ), which is a law that recognizes that Mexico's history makes its indigenous languages "national languages". Accordingly, they "have

2002-470: The 20th century successive governments denied native tongues the status of valid languages. Indigenous students were forbidden to speak their native languages in school and were often punished for doing so. In 2002, Mexico's constitution was amended to reinforce the nation's pluricultural nature by giving the State the obligation to protect and nurture the expressions of this diversity. On June 14, 1999,

2079-523: The 20th century, Euramerican "descent" did not necessarily denote Iberian American ancestry or solely Spanish American ancestry (distinct Portuguese administrative classification: mestiço ), especially in Andean regions re-infrastructured by Euramerican "modernities" and buffeted by mining labor practices. This conception changed by the 1920s, especially after the national advancement and cultural economics of indigenismo . To avoid confusion with

2156-578: The Council of Writers in Indigenous Languages presented Congress with a document entitled "Suggested legal initiatives towards linguistic rights of indigenous peoples and communities", with the goal of beginning to protect the linguistic rights of indigenous communities. La Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas was passed in March 2003, establishing a framework for

2233-571: The Inquisition. The first sizable group of self-identified Jews immigrated from Poland, beginning in 1929. From the 1930s to the early 1950s, journalistic and official antisemitic campaigns fueled harassment of Jews; however, by the 1950s and 1960s, the immigrants won greater acceptance. Most of the 3,500 Costa Rican Jews today are not highly observant, but they remain largely endogamous. Costa Rica has four small minority groups: Mulattos , Afro , Indigenous Costa Ricas , and Asians . About 8% of

2310-616: The Republic of Spaniards ( República de Españoles ) comprised the Spanish (Españoles) and all other non-Indian peoples. Indians were free vassals of the crown, whose commoners paid tribute while Indigenous elites were considered nobles and tribute exempt, as were Mestizos. Indians were nominally protected by the crown, with non-Indians (Mestizos, blacks, and mulattoes) forbidden to live in Indigenous communities. Mestizos and Indians in Mexico habitually held each other in mutual antipathy. This

2387-567: The Spanish-speaking world or the English-speaking one. It does not relate to being of Indigenous American ancestry, and is not used interchangeably with pardo , literally "brown people". (There are mestiços among all major groups of the country: Indigenous, Asian, pardo , and African, and they likely constitute the majority in the three latter groups.) In English-speaking Canada, Canadian Métis (capitalized), as

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2464-662: The United States, American Sign Language . Other local sign languages are used or emerging, including Albarradas Sign Language , Chatino Sign Language , Tzotzil Sign Language, and Tijuana Sign Language. The non-Spanish and non-indigenous languages spoken in Mexico include English (by English-speaking as well as by the residents of border states). One example of this group is of the American Mormon colony of Nueva Casas Grandes in Chihuahua , which settled in

2541-815: The average Mexican mestizo was predominantly European (64.9%), followed by Indigenous American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and Indigenous American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37–50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0–8.8%). The states that participated in this study were Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Yucatán. A study of 104 mestizos from Sonora, Yucatán, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Veracruz, and Guanajuato by Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine, reported that mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 31.05% Indigenous American, and 10.03% African. Sonora shows

2618-404: The child was raised in the Indigenous world of the mother if he did not. As early as 1533, Charles V mandated the high court ( Audiencia ) to take the children of Spanish men and Indigenous women from their mothers and educate them in the Spanish sphere. This mixed group born out of Christian wedlock increased in numbers, generally living in their mother's Indigenous communities. Mestizos were

2695-553: The colonial times, eventually came to mix and merged into the much larger and vaster Mestizo mixed European Spanish/Native Indigenous population creating Pardo or Afromestizos who cluster with Mestizo people, contributing into the modern day Mestizo population in El Salvador, thus, there remains no significant extremes of African physiognomy among Salvadorans like there is in the other countries of Central America. Today, many Salvadorans identify themselves as being culturally part of

2772-404: The conservation, nurturing and development of indigenous languages. Critics claim that the law's complexity makes enforcement difficult. Spanish is the de facto national language spoken by the vast majority of Mexicans, though it is not defined as an official language in legislation. The second article of the 1917 Constitution defines the country as multicultural, recognizes the right of

2849-609: The contemporary sense has been the closest to the historical usage from the Middle Ages. Because of important linguistic and historical differences, mestiço (mixed, mixed-ethnicity, miscegenation, etc.) is separated altogether from pardo (which refers to any kind of brown people) and caboclo (brown people originally of European–Indigenous American admixture, or assimilated Indigenous American). The term mestiços can also refer to fully African or East Asian in their full definition (thus not brown). One does not need to be

2926-542: The dominant language, Mexico has become a site for endangered languages . "Indigenous people’s disadvantaged socioeconomic status and the pressure of assimilation into mestizo society have been influential on indigenous language loss." The result of the conflict between indigenous languages and Spanish has been a language shift in Mexico from indigenous languages being spoken to more people using Spanish in every domain. Due to this situation there have been many language revitalization strategies implemented in order to create

3003-699: The first group in the colonial era to be designated as a separate category from the Spanish (Españoles) and enslaved African blacks ( Negros ) and were included in the designation of "vagabonds" ( vagabundos ) in 1543 in Mexico. Although Mestizos were often classified as castas , they had a higher standing than any mixed-race person since they did not have to pay tribute, the men could be ordained as priests, and they could be licensed to carry weapons, in contrast to negros , mulattoes, and other castas. Unlike Blacks and mulattoes, Mestizos had no African ancestors. Intermarriage between Españoles and Mestizos resulted in offspring designated Castizos ("three-quarters white"), and

3080-423: The following definition: "The Ladino population has been characterized as a heterogeneous population which expresses itself in the Spanish language as a maternal language, which possesses specific cultural traits of Hispanic origin mixed with Indigenous cultural elements, and dresses in a style commonly considered as western." Initially colonial Argentina and Uruguay had a predominantly mestizo population like

3157-527: The highest European contribution (70.63%) and Guerrero the lowest (51.98%) which also has the highest Indigenous 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"). In May 2009, the same institution (Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine) issued

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3234-590: The idea of "(racism) not existing here (in Mexico), as everybody is mestizo." Anthropologist Federico Navarrete concludes that reintroducing racial classification, and accepting itself as a multicultural country, as opposed to a monolithic mestizo country, would bring benefits to Mexican society as a whole. A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of

3311-634: The idea that this would help the indigenous peoples become a more integrated part of the new Mexican nation. Except for the Second Mexican Empire , led by the Habsburg Maximilian I , no Mexican government tried to prevent the loss of indigenous languages during the 19th century. The 1895 census records some 16% of the populace spoke various indigenous languages "habitually," while 0.17% did foreign languages. The rest, 83.71%, spoke primarily Spanish instead. For most of

3388-556: The important Indigenous male mortality during the conquest. The genetics thus suggests the Native men were sharply reduced in numbers due to the war and disease. Large numbers of Spaniard men settled in the region and married or forced themselves with the local women. The Natives were forced to adopt Spanish names, language, and religion, and in this way, the Lencas and Pipil women and children were Hispanicized. This has made El Salvador one of

3465-649: The isthmus of Central America as well to reach the U.S. West Coast ( California ) in the late 19th century and until the 1910s (before the Panama Canal opened). Other ethnic groups known to live in Costa Rica include Nicaraguan, Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvian, Brazilians, Portuguese, Palestinians , Caribbeans, Turks, Armenians, and Georgians. Many of the first Spanish colonists in Costa Rica may have been Jewish converts to Christianity who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to colonial backwaters to avoid

3542-510: The larger cities and towns. As far as second languages go, many educated Mexicans (and those with little education who have immigrated to the US and returned) have different degrees of fluency in English. Many Mexicans working in the tourist industry can speak some English. A study conducted by the Alliance française in 2019 revealed that Mexicans have begun to take a greater interest in studying

3619-1097: The late 19th century. Afro-Seminole Creole , an English-based creole, is traditionally spoken by the Mascogos of Coahuila . Korean is spoken mainly in Nuevo León . German (spoken mainly in Mexico City and Puebla ), Greek (spoken mainly in Mexico City, Guadalajara and especially in Sinaloa state), Arabic , Venetian (in Chipilo ), Italian , French , Occitan , Catalan , Basque , Galician , Asturian , Filipino , Polish , Hebrew , Korean, Ladino , Plautdietsch , Armenian , Japanese , Chinese and other languages are spoken by smaller numbers. Some of these languages (Venetian and Plautdietsch) are spoken in isolated communities or villages. The rest are spoken by immigrants or their descendants who tend to live in

3696-548: The lower classes, such as formal education. Such cases were not so common and the children of enslaved women tended not to be allowed to inherit property. This right of inheritance was generally given to children of free women, who tended to be legitimate offspring in cases of concubinage (this was a common practice in certain Indigenous American and African cultures). In the Portuguese-speaking world,

3773-527: The majority Salvadoran mestizo population, even if they are racially European (especially Mediterranean), as well as Indigenous people in El Salvador who do not speak Indigenous languages nor have an Indigenous culture, and tri-racial/pardo Salvadorans or Arab Salvadorans. The Ladino population in Guatemala is officially recognized as a distinct ethnic group, and the Ministry of Education of Guatemala uses

3850-536: The majority are tri-racial Pardo Salvadorans who largely cluster with the Mestizo population. They have been mixed into and were naturally bred out by the general Mestizo population, which is a combination of a Mestizo majority and the minority of Pardo people, both of whom are racially mixed populations. A total of only 10,000 enslaved Africans were brought to El Salvador over the span of 75 years, starting around 1548, about 25 years after El Salvador's colonization. The enslaved Africans that were brought to El Salvador during

3927-404: The marriage of a castizo/a to an Español/a resulted in the restoration of Español/a status to the offspring. Don Alonso O’Crouley observed in Mexico (1774), "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo ; a mestizo and a Spaniard,

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4004-482: The mestizo process or diseases brought by the Spaniards. Mestizo culture quickly became the most successful and dominant culture in El Salvador. The majority of Salvadorans in modern El Salvador identify themselves as 86.3% Mestizo roots. Historical evidence and census supports the explanation of "strong sexual asymmetry", as a result of a strong bias favoring children born to European man and Indigenous women, and to

4081-665: The modern Salvadoran Mestizo population. Pardo is the term that was used in colonial El Salvador to describe a person of tri-racial or Indigenous, European, and African descent. El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not have a significant African population due to many factors including El Salvador not having a Caribbean coast, and because of president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez , who passed racial laws to keep people of African descent and others out of El Salvador, though Salvadorans with African ancestry , called Pardos, were already present in El Salvador,

4158-521: The nation. In Central America , intermarriage by European men with Indigenous women, typically of Lenca , Cacaopera and Pipil backgrounds in what is now El Salvador happened almost immediately after the arrival of the Spaniards led by Pedro de Alvarado . Other Indigenous groups in the country such as Maya Poqomam people , Maya Ch'orti' people , Alaguilac , Xinca people , Mixe and Mangue language people became culturally extinct due to

4235-552: The national language mostly out of respect to the indigenous communities that still exist. Most indigenous languages are endangered, with some languages expected to become extinct within years or decades, and others simply having populations that grow slower than the national average. According to the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), while 9% of

4312-463: The nationalization of Quechuan languages and Aymaran languages as "official languages of the State...wherever they predominate" has increasingly severed these languages from mestizaje as an exonym (and, in certain cases, indio ), with indigenous languages tied to linguistic areas as well as topographical and geographical contexts. La sierra from the Altiplano to Huascarán , for instance,

4389-688: 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. The Ladino people are a mix of Mestizo or Hispanicized peoples in Latin America , principally in Central America . The demonym Ladino

4466-468: The offspring of a castizo/a [mixed Spanish - Mestizo] and an Español/a could be considered Español/a, or "returned" to that status. Racial labels in a set of eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings by Miguel Cabrera : In the early colonial period, the children of Spaniards and American Indians were raised either in the Hispanic world, if the father recognized the offspring as his natural child; or

4543-484: The only Indigenous tribes in the Americas that were in continuous conflict with the Spanish Empire and did not submit to a European power. But because Southern Chile was settled by German settlers in 1848, many mestizos include descendants of Mapuche and German settlers. A public health book from the University of Chile states that 60% of the population is of only European origin; mestizos are estimated to amount to

4620-584: The original usage of the term mestizo , mixed people started to be referred to collectively as castas . In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico , the concept of the Mestizo became central to the formation of a new independent identity that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly Indigenous. The word mestizo acquired another meaning in the 1930 census, being used by the government to refer to all Mexicans who did not speak Indigenous languages regardless of ancestry. In 20th- and 21st-century Peru,

4697-524: The population identifies as belonging to an indigenous group, around 5–6% speak an indigenous language. From the arrival of the first Franciscan missionaries, Spanish, Latin, and indigenous languages played parts in the evangelization of Mexico. Many 16th-century churchmen studied indigenous languages in order to instruct native peoples in Christian doctrine. The same men also found Castilian and Latin appropriate in certain contexts. All told, there existed

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4774-431: The population is of African descent or mulatto (mix of European and African) who are called Afro-Costa Ricans , English-speaking descendants of 19th century Afro- Jamaican immigrant workers. By the late 20th century, allusions in textbooks and political discourse to "whiteness," or to Spain as the "mother country" of all Costa Ricans, were diminishing, replaced with a recognition of the multiplicity of peoples that make up

4851-439: The rest of the Spanish colonies, but due to a flood of European migration in the 19th century and the repeated intermarriage with Europeans, the mestizo population became a so-called Castizo population. With more Europeans arriving in the early 20th century, the majority of these immigrants coming from Italy and Spain , the face of Argentina and Uruguay has overwhelmingly become European in culture and tradition. Because of this,

4928-477: The result of the mixing of all the races. After the Mexican Revolution the government, in its attempts to create an unified Mexican identity with no racial distinctions, adopted and actively promoted the "mestizaje" ideology. The Spanish word mestizo is from Latin mixticius , meaning mixed. Its usage was documented as early as 1275, to refer to the offspring of an Egyptian/ Afro Hamite and

5005-554: The same juncture, after almost a century as a genre. Because the term had taken on a myriad of meanings, the designation "Mestizo" was actively removed from census counts in Mexico and is no longer in official nor governmental use. Around 50–90% of Mexicans can be classified as "mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they identify fully neither with any European heritage nor with an Indigenous ethnic group, but rather identify as having cultural traits incorporating both European and Indigenous elements. In Mexico, mestizo has become

5082-402: The same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. "From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato." The Spanish colonial regime divided groups into two basic legal categories, the Republic of Indians ( República de Indios ) and

5159-411: The same validity [as Spanish] in their territory, location and context". At the same time, legislators made no specific provisions for the official or legal status of the Spanish language. This law means that indigenous peoples can use their native language in communicating with government officials and request official documents in that language. The Mexican state supports the preservation and promotion of

5236-466: The term Mestizo has fallen into disuse. Nevertheless, the cultural practice of the region is commonly centred on the figure of the Gaucho , which intrinsically mixes European and native traditions. Argentine Northwest still has a important mestizo population, especially in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta . The Chilean race, as everybody knows, is a Mestizo race made of Spanish conquistadors and

5313-492: The term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the caste system disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity. The noun mestizaje , derived from the adjective mestizo , is a term for racial mixing that did not come into usage until the 20th century; it was not a colonial-era term. In the modern era, mestizaje is used by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa as

5390-409: The territories of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, ways of differentiating individuals in a racial hierarchy, often called in the modern era the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas , developed where society was divided based on color, calidad (status), and other factors. The main divisions were as follows: In theory, and as depicted in some eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings,

5467-469: The use of any languages other than Spanish throughout New Spain. Beginning in the 18th century, decrees ordering the Hispanization of indigenous populations became more numerous and Spanish colonizers no longer learned the indigenous languages. After independence the government initiated an educational system with the primary aim of Hispanization of the native populations. This policy was based on

5544-672: The use of the national languages through the activities of the National Institute of Indigenous Languages . Mexico has about six million citizens who speak indigenous languages. That is the second-largest group in the Americas after Peru . However, a relatively small percentage of Mexico's population speaks an indigenous language compared to other countries in the Americas, such as Guatemala (42.8%), Peru (35%), and even Ecuador (9.4%), Panama (8.3%), Paraguay and Bolivia . The only indigenous language spoken by more than

5621-406: The word sometimes having pejorative connotations, which further complicates attempts to quantify mestizos via self-identification. While for most of its history the concept of mestizo and mestizaje has been lauded by Mexico's intellectual circles, in recent times the concept has been a target of criticism, with its detractors claiming that it delegitimizes the importance of ethnicity in Mexico under

5698-538: The worlds most highly mixed race nations. In 1932, ruthless dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez was responsible for La Matanza ("The Slaughter"), known as the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre in which the Indigenous people were murdered in an effort to wipe out the Indigenous people in El Salvador during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising. Indigenous peoples, mostly of Lenca, Cacaopera, and Pipil descent are still present in El Salvador in several communities, conserving their languages, customs, and traditions. There

5775-451: Was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture, and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many Indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as Mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish. Many Indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as Mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as Mestizos. In colonial Venezuela , pardo

5852-529: Was more commonly used instead of mestizo . Pardo means being mixed without specifying which mixture; it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Native American, and African. When the First Mexican Republic was established in 1824, legal racial categories ceased to exist. The production of casta paintings in New Spain ceased at

5929-544: Was particularly the case with commoner American Indians against Mestizos, some of whom infiltrated their communities and became part of the ruling elite. Spanish authorities turned a blind eye to the Mestizos' presence, since they collected commoners' tribute for the crown and came to hold offices. They were useful intermediaries for the colonial state between the Republic of Spaniards and the Republic of Indians. A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America

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