Okay, I was wondering how Mexicans are classified racially. I know that some mexicans are spanish while others are indian and others are mestizo. I also know that there are three main racial branches, Negroid, Caucasiod, and Mongoloid. But, what would a mexican be??? I know it could vary, but my friend(this is why i started wondering)doesnt look asian or indian at all. He really doesn’t look black, his hair is that of a white persons(he has a cowlick, hehe.) So, spanish mexicans would be caucasoid right?? And indian ones would be mongoloid, while mestizo would be both. But I can’t figure out what he is. I don’t think he can really either, but he doesn’t seem to interested. BTW, his last name is Mora if that helps with the classification.
Thanks!!
(I may have answered my own question, but i dont think i did!)
The whole idea of black people, white people, and asian people is essentially bullshit.
That said, most Mexicans are called “hispanic” and hispanics are considered by most to be technically caucasian even though they are usually viewed culturally as a seperate ‘race.’
Mexican is a nationality, and an ethniciy, not a race.
However, to answer your question: This is more complicated than it seems, so I’m simplifying a great deal. Most Mexicans are descended from Spanish conquistadors. All (or nearly all) of the Spaniards who came to the new world looking for gold were soldiers, which means they were male. Those who stayed in the New World married native women, and the offspring of these Spanish/Indian marriages became the Mexican people. There have been other racial and ethnic groups join the fray over the centuries, and some Native American groups remained somewhat intact, but a “typical” Mexican (if there is such a thing, we no longer think in terms of a “typical” American, so why do so with Mexicans?) is about evenly of Spanish and Native American descent.
BTW, many people consider Native Americans a fourth basic racial branch, having split from Asians long enough ago to be considered separate from them.
Having said all that, I agree with your friend. He’s Mexican. Why get concerned about it beyond that?
I assume you mean for statistical purposes. Most or all EEOC questionnaires I’ve seen exclude “Hispanic” from the “white” category… something like “Non-Hispanic Caucasian”. I’ve also seen one that has a category for “Spanish surname”… so when Mary-Beth McDonough marries Manuel Gutiérrez she has a better chance for meeting the quota than Mexican-born-and-bred Salomon Trachtenberg. I know one Cuban-American guy who enjoys major City of Chicago set-aside concessions based on his “heritage”, although he was proud to be English monolingual and American monocultural.
In the U.S. the term “Mexican” often refers to the cultural identity of persons whose families originated in Mexico. In Mexico, the term is generally used to refer to the nationality, or a cultural identity (which is actually quite different than the identity concept of Mexican-Americans). This includes Mexican individuals I know whose family origins are in Syria, China, Finland, Haiti and Poland. My daughter is Mexican by birth and by identity, even though she has decidedly “non-Mexican” features and a last name that’s nothing close to sounding “Spanish”.
Many Mexicans are full-blooded, um, Indians. The term “mestizo” isn’t generally used here to describe a mixed heritage. Color-oriented terms like “moreno” and “güero” are much more common.
I’m not concerned just INTERESTED. I realize that being Mexican means that one is from Mexico. I do agree with you though, if people ask me of my nationalities I normally tell them that I am American(United Statesman just doesnt sound good.) However, I was just wondering. He refers to himself as “the colored kid.” Just about everybody at my school is white. He’s just jokin around. He’s extremely athletic, and he will say its because he is colored. He’ll be jokin around and askin girls if they like his brown skin. Hehe, hes a really funny guy. I was just wonderin cause it interests me, and isn’t it good to be inquisitive?? I think it is better than being “the misguided and dangerous”,
Thanks!
[[BTW, his last name is Mora if that helps with the classification.]]
Then he’s a raspberry, which classifies him as a fruit.
Didn’t mean to offend you, and if I did, I apologize. I just find the obsession some people have (note that I am not necessaroly referring to you, kgriffey79)with finding the proper label for others amusing. I, myself, have a heritage unusually rich with ethnic and racial diversity (to paraphrase Calvin). When someone asks me what race I am, I tell them “human.” For purposes of demographics, I am “mulit-racial.”
But go back far enough, and you’ll find we’re all descended from a single tribe in the southern part of Africa, c. 100,000 years ago. “Race” is primarily a social construct.
I agree with frido that the whole race thing is basically nonsence.
I’m doubtful about six’s take on the situation – there were a lot of Indians in what’s now Mexico, and not that many conquistadors. I think most Mexicans have a lot more Native ancestry then European. Race may be nonsence, but it is not impossible to sort out what continent one’s ancestors came from; one’s reasonably recent ancestors, anyway.
One reason that this matters is that so many things in the US are based on census data. For years, we counted “Hispanic” as though it were a racial catagory. This led to a distorted perception of reality.
IMO, the census should never have included race. But since it did, the choices should have been Black, White, Asian, Pacific Islander, and New World Native, with people of mixed ancestry being encouraged to check as many boxes as seemed appropriate. A child of emigrants from Mexico would in almost all cases either check the New World Native box only, or New World Native and White. By treating “Hispanic” as some separte thing, neither Indian nor White, or as some sort of sub-catagory of White, we distort reality, and understate the percentage of citizens who have Native ancestry.
Oooh, an opportunity to expound on something that bugs the hell out of me! There is no such thing as a Mexican “race”, as has already been stated. Moreover, Mexico is a culturally and racially diverse place - Mexico City is the largest city on the planet, you can’t imagine that everyone there is the ethnically the same, can you?
I am a white, third-generation American. Three of my first cousins are Mexicans. They are Jewish. They are blond and redheaded, all three have blue eyes. They speak perfect English with slight Spanish accents, and can switch languages without missing a beat. I went to my youngest cousin’s bar mitzvah in February in Mexico City, and whenever I told someone I was going to Mexico to visit family, I was invariably treated to a rash of weird and potentially (if I was more sensitive, anyway) insulting questions. Like, “I didn’t know you were Mexican!” and “Do you have Mexican blood in you?” Amusingly, I was asked more than once, “What are they doing in Mexico?” My answer, “Well, they’re Mexican, where are they supposed to live?” was greeted with confusion. I mean, I’m white, and they’re my close relatives… You can imagine the confusion when I mentioned that I was going to a bar mitzvah. There are Jews in Mexico? Did they convert from Catholicism? (Ironically, my Irish-American Catholic aunt converted to Judaism to marry my Mexican uncle.)
Coincidentally, I have three other first cousins who are British. Not one single person has ever asked me if I am British as well. That I could have British relatives is seen as perfectly normal, but it’s completely shocking that I have Mexican relatives.
Ouch! Of course there were many more native peoples in Mexico than Spanish. Good catch, Hazel. Otherwise, my history, as regards the Spanish intermarrying with native peoples, is accurate. My point–that there is no more such a thing as a “typical” Mexican than there is a “typical” American–got lost in my poorly worded message. My bad.
For an interesting take on this race/ethnicity/nationality isssue, look here.
[hijack]
(Give me some leeway, Your Honor, and I’ll make the connection)
On the standardized tests used in my school, the racial categories (which are identified as “demographic”) listed are:
Asian
Black
Filipino
Hispanic
Native American
Pacific Islander
White (not Hispanic)
Coming off of the Asian and Pacific Islander categories is a second box listing about 20 different Asian mainland and Pacific Island countries, from which those choosing one of those two categories is to choose. What interested me about this is that Filipino is considered separate from Asain and Pacific Islander, rather than a sub-category (The Philippines are, the last time I looked, part of Asia). As my fiancee happens to be Filipino, I asked her if she considered herself Asian. Her exact response was, “Of course, doesn’t everyone?” This settled the issue for me. If she says she’s Asian, that’s what she is.
(Here’s the connection, Your Honor)
A person should be called what they prefer to be called. If your friend prefers to be considered Mexican, you should do him that courtesy.
[/hijack]
I go to a university in Texas, and a number of students are from Mexico. Since they represent middle to upper class Mexicans, many of them are very “white”- and they could easily pass for European or “Anglo” (I hate that word, but can’t think of anything better). Also in Mexico, especially the old colonial towns, Guadalajara especially, many Mexicans are Spanish.
I’m half Chilean, and many Chileans are European. I am a fluent Spanish speaker but I don’t have any Spanish blood that I know of, and just a drop of Mapuche Indian. I’m also part English and Croatian. Yet Mexicans accept me as “Hispanic” because of my cultural background - its Americans that wonder how a guy that looks like me can be “Hispanic”.
Websters, a handy tool:
1 a : a native or inhabitant of Mexico b : a person of Mexican descent c Southwest : a person of mixed Spanish and Indian descent
That being said, they really should consider “American” as a race.
Citizens of Mexico consider themselves to be ‘Americans’ also (as in citizens of North America).
Bob
Correct, although races are no truly different than ethnicities. In re race, one can search on my username and genetic to get a wealth of past discussions on this issue with citations to the scientific literature.
Well, that’s perhaps a bit off in terms of how you’re stating it. Native American genetic diversity is a sub-set of East Asian diversity. Considered seperate from rather implies a level of differentiation which is not supportable on this level – that is continental populations, and your wording implies an actual cohesion to the concept of racial branches in genetic terms which is in no way supported by the data.
Insofar as the Mexican population is largely quite mixed, it would be more than fruitless to try to come up with a utilitarian scheme to classify everyone’s phenotype.
To make mattes worse, I know a lot of Brazillians who don’t call themselves Hispanic. Sensing the root word from Spain.
Moreover in my area of Chicago, the Puerto Ricans hate Hispanic prefering Latino while the Mexicans like Hispanic.
Then there are the Tex-Mex…
And don’t forget the Californios, descendants of Spanish immigrants who settled in that state in the early-mid 19th century. My great-grandmother was one of them and according to my relatives they always considered themselves Spanish, not Mexican, even though California was part of Mexico at the time.
In our Hispanic Studies exam, there was one question where we had to distinguish “hispanoamericanos” from “iberoamericanos”… Brazil was part of the second, but not the first, as Portugal is in Iberia but is not Spanish.
One way to refer collectively to Brazilians, Portuguese and other Portuguese speaking cultures is “Lusophone”; maybe not a common word but a correct one.
Not all Mexicans should be called “Hispanic”, since not all of Mexico’s people are Spanish speakers and belong to a Hispanic culture.
See “The Right Not to be Hispanic”.
http://www.britannica.com/magazine?ebsco_id=34115
Do Hispanics come for Hispania? Nope:
Websters : of, relating to, or being a person of Latin American descent living in the U.S.; especially : one of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin.
Before them, preHispanic
Being Hispanic is more about ethnicity, culture, and where you were born, than about race.
BTW, I was taught, Hispanics meant people with Spanish ascendency. If you wanted to include Brazilians, you used Latinos. But then it becomes I think a matter more of languages, since both Portuguese and Spanish came from Latin.