White Mexicans (Spanish: Mexicanos blancos) are individuals in Mexico who identify as white, often due to their physical appearance or their recognition of European ancestry.[8]The Mexican government conducts ethnic censuses that allow individuals to identify as "White,"[9] but the specific results of these censuses are not made public. Instead, the government releases data on the percentage of "light-skinned Mexicans" in the country, with nationwide surveys conducted by the Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and the National Council to Prevent Discrimination reporting results that range from 27%[10][11] to 47%.[3][12] The term "Light-skinned Mexican" is preferred by both the government and media to describe individuals in Mexico who possess European physical traits when discussing ethno-racial dynamics.[13] However, "White Mexican" is still used at times.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
Estimates of Mexico's "White" population vary significantly due to the different methodologies used. Unofficial sources such as the World Factbook or Latinobarómetro, suggest a white population of just 10%.[20][21] A 2005 study by a professor of the National Autonomous University of Mexico estimated said group at 15% using as base the results of the 1921 census which is admitted, may be innacurate.[22][23] Other historians have also questioned the accuracy of the 1921 census' results,[24] with independent research in 2008 and 2010 also suggesting that Mexicans may not identify in the way the 1921 census indicate.[25][26]Encyclopædia Britannica does not give an exact percentage, albeit estimate it at around 30% of the population.[2] Surveys considering phenotypical traits and field research yield higher percentages. For instance, one study using blond hair as a reference found that 23% of the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico population could be classified as white.[27] The American Sociological Association obtained a nationwide percentage of 18.8% using a similar method.[28] Another study conducted by the University College London in collaboration with National Institute of Anthropology and History found that 18% of Mexicans had blond hair, and 28% had light eyes.[29]
The presence of Europeans in Mexico dates back to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and during the colonial period, most European immigration was Spanish. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, significant waves of European and European-derived populations from North and South America immigrated to Mexico. This intermixing between European immigrants and Indigenous peoples resulted in the emergence of the Mestizo group, which became the majority of Mexico's population by the time of the Mexican Revolution.[8] Some scholars challenge this narrative, citing church and census records that indicate interracial unions in Mexico were rare among all groups.[30][31] These records also dispute other academic narratives, such as the idea that European immigrants were predominantly male or that "pure Spanish" individuals formed a small elite. In fact, Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in colonial cities[32][33] and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of full Spanish origin.[31]
In addition to White Mexicans and Indigenous populations, there is a group known as Mestizos who have varying degrees of European and Indigenous ancestry, with some having European genetic ancestry exceeding 90%.[34] While genetic evidence suggests that most European immigrants to Mexico were male, and that the modern population of Mexico was primarily formed through the mixing of Spanish males and Native American females,[35][36][37][38] how pronounced said gender asymmetry was varies considerably depending on the study. The Native American maternal contribution figures range from 90% to 59%,[39] while research on the X chromosome shows less variation, with the reported Native American female contribution oscillating between 50%[34] and 54%.[40] After the Mexican Revolution the Mexican government began defining ethnicity on cultural standards (mainly the language spoken) rather than racial ones.[41]
^ abcEthnic composition (2010): Approximately two fifths"Mexico: Ethnic groups". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
^ abc"21 de Marzo: Día Internacional de la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial" [March 21: International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination] (PDF) (in Spanish). Mexico: CONAPRED. 2017. p. 7. Archived(PDF) from the original on May 25, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017. In the page 7 of the press release, the council reported that 53.5% of Mexican women and 39.4% of Mexican men identified with the lightest skin colors used in the census questionary, CONAPRED, Mexico, March 21. Retrieved on April 28, 2017.
^Ennis, Sharon R.; Rios-Vargas, Merarys; ALbert, Nora G. (May 2011). 2010 Census(PDF) (Report). U.S. Census Bureau. p. 14 (Table 6). Archived from the original(PDF) on January 27, 2018. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
^Includes Poles: Wojciech Tyciński, Krzysztof Sawicki, Departament Współpracy z Polonią MSZ (Warsaw, 2009). "Raport o sytuacji Polonii i Polaków za granicą (The official report on the situation of Poles and Polonia abroad)" (PDF file, direct download 1.44 MB). Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland), pp. 1–466. Retrieved June 14, 2013 (Internet Archive).
^ abNavarrete, Federico. "El mestizaje y las culturas" [Mixed race and cultures]. México Multicultural (in Spanish). UNAM. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
^Federico Navarrete 2016, pp. 109–110: "To make matters worse, the few Germans, Italians and other Europeans who did reach our shores also did not mix in large numbers with the Mexican population, and even less so with the indigenous people, whom they were supposed to make disappear with the superior powers of Mexico: its race. In fact, they founded regional enclaves where they married preferentially among themselves, as the Creoles and the indigenous had traditionally done. The historian Moisés González Navarro studied the population censuses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which allow us to know more accurately the behavior of the population than in previous periods. Contrary to what the mestizaje legend would have us believe, he found that informal marriages and unions between white men and indigenous women, or any other combination, hardly existed.2"
^ abSan Miguel, G. (November 2000). "Ser mestizo en la nueva España a fines del siglo XVIII: Acatzingo, 1792" [To be 'mestizo' in New Spain at the end of the XVIII th century. Acatzingo, 1792]. Cuadernos de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy (in Spanish) (13): 325–342. Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved July 1, 2017.
^Bonilla, C.; Parra, E. J.; Pfaff, C. L.; Dios, S.; Marshall, J. A.; Hamman, R. F.; Ferrell, R. E.; Hoggart, C. L.; McKeigue, P. M.; Shriver, M. D. (March 2004). "Admixture in the Hispanics of the San Luis Valley, Colorado, and its implications for complex trait gene mapping". Annals of Human Genetics. 68 (Pt 2): 139–153. doi:10.1046/j.1529-8817.2003.00084.x. hdl:2027.42/65937. ISSN0003-4800. PMID15008793. S2CID13702953. Archived from the original on October 3, 2022. Retrieved October 3, 2022. "Both studies have revealed a pattern of directional mating in this population, an asymmetric interaction between Spanish males and Native American females, much like in other Hispanic populations of Latin America (Green et al. 2000; Carvajal-Carmona et al. 2000, 2003; Rodriguez-Delfin et al. 2001). During the conquest and colonization of America the immigration of women from the Iberian Peninsula was significantly lower than that of men, so European males frequently took native women as wives or partners (Morner, 1967). After the initial directional contact between European and Native American populations it seems likely that the admixed group became mostly endogamic, which would explain the high levels of Native American mtDNA (Merriwether et al. 1997)."
^Wheelwright, Jeff (January 16, 2012). The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 96. ISBN978-0-393-08342-2. "The Hispanos generally resemble other Hispanic and Mexican-American groups while having a somewhat higher proportion of European blood than the rest. Genetics research has also confirmed the harshly one-sided nature of the admixture. By paying special attention to the Y-chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), scientists proved that the genetic exchange in the early years of New Mexico was almost entirely between Spanish males and Indian females." [...] "The Y chromosome of Hispano men is hardly Native American at all, while their mtDNA is about 85 percent Indian. Again, the former represents fatherhood, the latter motherhood. The skew between the two means that mating happened in one direction. It means that Indian men and Spanish women were largely on the sidelines when the admixture between Spanish men and Indian women occurred."
^Suarez-Kurtz, Dr G. (August 3, 2007). Pharmacogenomics in Admixed Populations. CRC Press. p. 39. ISBN978-1-4987-1379-5. "In Mexico, approximately 90% of the maternal lineages are of Native American ancestry, implying that there has been very little European female contribution throughout colonial and post-colonial history."
^Kumar, Satish; Bellis, Claire; Zlojutro, Mark; Melton, Phillip E.; Blangero, John; Curran, Joanne E. (October 7, 2011). "Large scale mitochondrial sequencing in Mexican Americans suggests a reappraisal of Native American origins". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 11 (1): 293. Bibcode:2011BMCEE..11..293K. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-293. ISSN1471-2148. PMC3217880. PMID21978175. "Thus the observed frequency of Native American mtDNA in Mexican/Mexican Americans is higher than was expected on the basis of autosomal estimates of Native American admixture for these populations i.e. ~ 30-46% [53, 55]. The difference is indicative of directional mating involving preferentially immigrant men and Native American women. This type of genetic asymmetry has been observed in other populations, including Brazilian individuals of African ancestry, as the analysis of sex specific and autosomal markers has revealed evidence for substantial European admixture that was mediated mostly through men [56]."
^Price, Alkes L.; Patterson, Nick; Yu, Fuli; Cox, David R.; et al. (June 2007). "A Genomewide Admixture Map for Latino Populations". The American Journal of Human Genetics. 80 (6): 1024–1036. doi:10.1086/518313. PMC1867092. PMID17503322. "Results are reported in table 2 and indicate higher total Native American ancestry for LA Latinos and Mexicans (45% and 44%, respectively) than for Brazilians and Colombians (18% and 19%, respectively), which is in line with previous studies.21,22 We also observed uniformly higher Native American ancestry on the X chromosome (57% for LA Latinos, 54% for Mexicans, 33% for Brazilians, and 27% for Colombians), which is consistent with evidence of predominantly European patrilineal and Native American matrilineal ancestry in Latino populations.22"