Mestizo Mexicans The majority of Mexicans have some combination of
Spanish and
Mesoamerican ancestry. The term "
Mestizos" () is used for this identity, which incorporates elements from both Spanish and indigenous traditions. The post-revolutionary governments and reformers such as
José Vasconcelos and
Manuel Gamio made deliberate efforts to construct this as the base of a modern Mexican national identity. This process of cultural synthesis is referred to as . One goal of this was to
assimilate indigenous peoples into a single Mestizo Mexican society. Mexico does not have a strict definition of race, and Mestizo identity is influenced by culture and language. Since the word Mestizo has had different definitions through Mexico's history, precise estimates of the Mexican Mestizo population are impossible. According to the
Encyclopædia Britannica, about three-fifths of the Mexican population is Mestizo. A culture-based criteria estimates the percentage of Mestizos as high as 90%. 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 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". Detractors of the Mestizo ideology have described it as delegitimizing the role of race in Mexico and perpetuating the misconception that racism does not exist in the country.
White Mexicans Europeans began 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 other countries immigrated to the country in significant numbers. Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both methodology and definitions. The
World Factbook estimated Mexico's European population at less than 10% in 2012.
Indigenous Mexicans 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 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 (indigenous) in Mexico has been defined based on different criteria through history; this means that 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. which constitute 14.9% of 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 The absolute indigenous population 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 (usages and customs), which allows them to regulate some internal issues under
customary law. According to 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%, 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 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 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, 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. The exact numbers are not known. One main source for figures is the 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 is also controversy as to whether to count those
crypto-Jews who have converted (back) to Judaism.
German Mexicans German Mexicans ( or , Spanish: or ) are Mexicans of
German descent or origin. Most ethnic Germans arrived in Mexico during 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 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 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. Immigration of Arabs in Mexico has influenced Mexican culture, in particular food, where they have introduced
kibbeh,
tabbouleh, and have created recipes such as . 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 the 19th and early 20th centuries. The majority of Arab-Mexicans are Christians who belong to the
Maronite,
Roman Catholic,
Eastern Orthodox, and
Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.
Romani Mexicans The first wave of
Roma arrived in Mexico in 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.
Asian Mexicans "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 the arrival of
Filipinos to Mexico during the colonial period. Between 1565 and 1815, many Filipinos and Mexicans sailed back and forth between the two countries as crews, enslaved people, adventurers, and soldiers in
Manila galleons as part of Spain's trade network. Asian people who were
brought to Mexico as slaves were called "
Chino" (Chinese), although they were of diverse origins from many different parts of Asia. A notable example is
Catarina de San Juan (Mirra), a young woman from India who was enslaved and eventually brought to New Spain, where she was briefly revered as a saint. The reverse was also true,
thousands of Mexicans immigrated to the Philippines. Later groups of Asians, predominantly Chinese, became Mexico's fastest-growing immigrant group from the 1880s to the 1920s, growing from about 1,500 in 1895 to more than 20,000 in 1910.
Official censuses The
Viceroyalty of New Spain conducted the country's first census in 1793. Only part of the original dataset survives, thus most of what is known of it comes from references made by researchers for their own works. More than a century would pass until the Mexican government conducted a new racial census in 1921.
1793 census 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 nationwide population census. Most of its original datasets have been lost, thus most of what is now known about it has been reconstructed from citations made by academics who had access to the census data. Reconstructions of this data varies. Europeans ranged from 18% to 22% of New Spain's population, Mestizos ranged from 21% to 25%, Amerindians ranged from 51% to 61% and Africans being between 6,000 and 10,000. The estimations given for the total population range from 3,799,561 to 6,122,354.
1921 census Made right after the consummation of the Mexican revolution, the 1921 census was in part an attempt to unite all Mexicans under a single national identity. The 1921 census' results regarding race assert that 59.3% of the Mexican population self-identified as Mestizo, 29.1% as Indigenous and 9.8% as White. This was used to promote the "mestizaje" ideology.
Present day 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), According to a 2020 survey, 19.4% of Mexico's population self-identify as Indigenous, and 2.04% self-identify as Afro-Mexican. There is no definitive census that quantifies White Mexicans, and Mexico's government does not attempt to classify people
white people. White people are known as
güeros or
blancos in
Mexican Spanish. The lack of a clear dividing line between white and mixed race Mexicans makes race fluid and subjective, ==Genetic studies==