Mexico Around 40–90% 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 a blanket term that not only refers to
mixed Mexicans but includes all Mexican citizens who do not speak
Indigenous languages , who adopted the Maya way of life and fathered the first mestizo children in Mexico and in the mainland Americas (the only mestizos before were those born in the Caribbean to Spanish men and Indigenous Caribbean women) 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, 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 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 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% Paradoxically to its wide definition, the word mestizo has long been dropped off popular Mexican vocabulary, with the word sometimes having pejorative connotations, 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.
Genetic studies (left) and
Quetalmahue, Chile (right). The position of each dot on the triangle plot indicates the proportion of European, indigenous American and African ancestry estimated for each individual in the population. A 2020 study published in
Human Immunology analyzed the genetic diversity of the Mexican population through the HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) system, a set of genes involved in immune response. The findings confirm that the genetic composition of mestizos varies significantly across different regions of Mexico, reflecting the admixture patterns observed in previous studies. Specifically: • Indigenous American ancestry is predominant in the southern region • European ancestry is higher in the northern and western regions • A low but significant African ancestry is present in certain areas The study also highlights that genetic variation among Mexican populations has medical implications, affecting susceptibility to autoimmune and infectious diseases. The biological diversity observed in contemporary Latin American populations reflects the region's complex demographic history, shaped by extensive geographic movements and social stratification among ancestral human groups. Previous studies have demonstrated that the geographic variation in admixture proportions reveals significant population structure, highlighting the lasting influence of historical demographic processes on the genomic diversity of Latin America. A 2012 study published by the
Journal of Human Genetics found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of 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. In May 2009, the same institution (Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine) issued an updated report on a genomic study of 300 mestizos from those same states, this time using Indigenous American samples to represent Indigenous admixture, rather than an East Asian proxy population. 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 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. in Latin America, principally in Central America. The
demonym Ladino 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.
Honduras In Honduras, Mestizos constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, making up approximately 80% of the country's inhabitants. The term "mestizo" in the Honduran context typically refers to people of mixed
Indigenous and
European (primarily Spanish) ancestry, although in practice, this identity also often includes those with significant degrees of African heritage due to centuries of population mixing. Due to centuries of racial mixing among Indigenous peoples, Spanish colonizers, and enslaved Africans brought during the colonial period, many Hondurans have multi-ethnic backgrounds. Although official discourse and census categories emphasize the mestizo identity, genetic studies and regional histories suggest that African ancestry is much more widespread than often acknowledged. Over time, a broad national identity centered around mestizaje (racial and cultural mixing) was promoted as a way to unify the country. As a result, many individuals with African or Indigenous roots adopted the mestizo label, sometimes as a means of accessing social or economic opportunities, or due to the stigmatization of Black and Indigenous identities, in fact up until recently Hondurans could only identify as (White, Mestizo, or Indigenous) further creating a more "unified nation". Today, mestizo identity in
Honduras is less about strict genetic lineage and more about cultural belonging and national identification. While African and Indigenous roots are often under recognized or blended into the mestizo category, they remain an integral part of the population's heritage. The average
Honduran mestizo is 21% West and Central African.
Costa Rica Mixed-Costa Rican Born – Singer] Mixed-Costa Rican –
Real Madrid Goalkeeper , 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 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. Costa Rica has four small minority groups:
Mulattos,
Afro,
Indigenous Costa Ricas, and
Asians. About 8% of 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 the nation.
El Salvador , a Salvadoran priest and doctor known as El Padre de la Patria Salvadoreña (The Father of the Salvadoran Fatherland), alongside his nephew
Manuel José Arce, future Salvadoran president of the
Federal Republic of Central America. In Central America, intermarriage between European men and Indigenous women, typically of
Lenca, 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 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 men and Indigenous women, and to 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 the world's 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 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 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, 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 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 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.
Guatemala The Ladino population in
Guatemala is officially recognized as a distinct ethnic group, and the Ministry of Education of Guatemala uses 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." ==Spanish-speaking South America==