Talk:Mestizo

Issue with the pronounciation provided
The pronuncation provided is in Peninsular Spanish, but I believe it should be in Latin American Spanish, or at the very least include both. That is, the /θ/ should be a /s/. That would make more sense to me, as a mestizo myself I believe the pronountiation offered should be the one used by the people who use it to describe themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:A897:6D00:CD90:69BD:6951:41E1 (talk) 05:16, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Comment
Please check out the archives of discussion for any contentious points. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:54, 13 July 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Mestico should not be included in this article
I feel that mestico should not be included in this article mestizo due to the fact that it is a Portuguese word that does not have the same meaning as mestizo which is a Spanish word. The Portuguese equivalent of the Spanish word Mestizo is non other than the Portuguese word Mameluco The word Mameluco is a term of Portuguese origin describing the first generation offspring of a European and an Amerindian. Mestico is not the same as Mameluco.
 * I agree with the writer of the above, unsigned, undated post. Mestizo and Mestiço are different. There is already a signpost to readers looking for information on Mestiços in the Portuguese world. Including the lengthy text on that in this article is confusing and makes the article overly long. I think it should be deleted Amuseclio (talk) 23:32, 22 August 2019 (UTC) Amuseclio

Chile isn't a country with a Mestizo majority?
Apparently according to the map in this page Chile is neither a mestizo nor indigenous majorital country. I'm not sure the queality these stadistics may have, as I dont posses an exact approximate, but if you ask a non-fasist or travelled Chilean he will tell you that Chile is a mestizo country. Unlike Argentina, Chile had a massive mestizaje process, as they ad both a substancial amount of native americans and married them, instead of killing them like in Argentina. Moreover, I'm also aware that Argentina recieved a much larger european inmigration both by number and percentage; in contrast to Chile where the popultion descendant of european migrants accounts for some 20-30%. I'm not sure how good the wikipedia article for chilean inmigration is, but it accoutns the population with european descent as a 17%. Then again, why is Chile counted as a non-mestizo country? By comparison, chile cant be put on the same level of Argentina when It comes to mestizos, Chile is much more similar to the rest of Latin America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.136.100.173 (talk) 01:52, 2 January 2013 (UTC) True Chile is a country with a large mestizo population but there is also a part of the total population with a notorious european ancestry specially basque, german, italian and french that had not mixed at all with the rest of the population. This is true specially in the center and the south. This part of the population dominates important aspects of the political and social life of the country. The mestizo population also has less indian blood than in other countries of Latin America. Because the chileans of european descent are mostly in a good economic and social position and the mestizos mostly in a modest economic and social position and since most "non-fascists" belong to the poor or mestizo class and since this poor class has recently improved its status but still resents this elite they like to claim that their ethnic group is the overwhemly predominant group. I am chilean and lived 14 years there and iv my personal experience there I saw a lot of mestizos (although not so mestizos) but also a lot of white people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.131.175.122 (talk) 05:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the image of mestizos in a concert
I want to include the image in the article because it represents how variated mestizos can be nowadays, i really don't see nothing wrong with it and a real life image about the topic in question is always a must in wikipedia. If anybody that disagrees with me is free to coment here and tell me why. Angelicality (talk) 03:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi I'm theryx and although the user Angelicality continue advocating a particular point of view about the image, I respectfully say that I am in total disagreement with the user Angelicality. The people from Colombia appears in the image but the image doesn't say the ethnicity of these people for this reason is more appropriate to use images of people who know certainly that they are mestizos. --Theryx7 (talk) 02:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not a good idea to use single images, because the article is not large enough to support the prescence of multiple images (we need many, because not all mestizos look the same). We've discussed the in-image statement varius times before, now tell me, what do you think the people in the pic looks like? Angelicality (talk) 03:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

It is true that the mestizos can be very different but the reality is that the people that appears in the image are from Colombia but the image does not describe the ethnicity of the people, Colombia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries of Latin America, therefore it is wrong to think that a group of Colombians are all mestizos. It is a serious mistake, the right thing is to use images of people who know that they are mestizo, 3 photos of famous mestizos from different parts of the world with a correct adjustment of size will allow that images are correctly positioned within the article. --Theryx7 (talk) 00:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * As of now I've spend nearly one week looking up articles of famous people from latin america, mainly Colombia and Mexico, however, in none of these articles the ethnicy of the people is explicitaly stated, so i believe we will have the same problem bringing up images of famous persons. For such, the image of the concert in Colombia stills the best option, because, to put 4-6 images in the "modern day usage" section is plain impossible. Angelicality (talk) 01:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It is not impossible to find famous people who are mestizo, moreover it has no sense in the article add an image that does not specify the ethnicity of that group of Colombians, the reality is that it makes no sense adding such images, as you yourself said if you do not know the true ethnicity of a famous person then no sense say that a group of Colombians are mestizos when actually you do not know the true ethnicity of these people.

Colombia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries of Latin America. --Theryx7 (talk) 04:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The chile section: "mate with"???
"a process of 'mestizaje' began where white Spaniards began to mate with the local bellicose Araucanian population of Amerindians" - "mate with"? Seriously? We're not talking about animals here. Honestly not sure whether to change it to raped or had sex with, I don't know enough about it to say what a better term would be. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 15:05, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. Intermarry would be the correct term.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:14, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

took 7 years but i did it.

There should be a Disclaimer on the Genetic studies section
There should be a disclaimer since the statistics shown here is not true for all Mexican individuals. My parents consider themselves "mestizos" I was believed to be mestizo as well. When I took the dna test I was expecting it be around the statistics here were showing. I was really shocked. My mom is from Jalisco (western Mexico) my dad from Zacatecas (central mexico), my dna shows 59% native american, 34% Caucasian (30% euro + 4% MENA), and 7% african! Far less european, way more native and african than expeting because of this article! and my family is not even from the South!--Anen87 (talk) 21:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thats pretty obvious, if the Euro % was truely as high as stated you would see alot more "random" white looking kids in mexican families...In reality its very rare. Thats the middle class of course, lower class tend to be wholly Native American or close to it, upper class are far more white. 107.222.205.242 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Is true, I guess I should have known better, only 1 of my 6 siblings came out a lighter shade, my grandma says he looks like Pepe Aguilar, but all the rest of us are medium-to-dark brown; typical. BTW an interesting note that I've came to realize after seeing other Mexican results is that a lot of them are so close but not quite Mestizo due to the presence of Sub Saharan African blood; it has down the european% in Mexicans, even after adding the MENA% they are still off by 1-5% from reaching true mestizo (50% Caucasian) this % they're off by is around the same amount SSA% occupies...--Anen87 (talk) 06:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Fort-orleans-return.jpg

spanishor portugese and native american only
Mestizos are only of Spanish or portugese and native American descent no other European nations are included in the mestizo category. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.40.197.249 (talk) 00:38, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a full-on Racist Wiki page.
This is a racist article. It almost completely re-defines the terms and definitions that have historically been used to define common "African" admixtures; terms such as Mameluko, Mestizo, Metis,and the like.


 * sigh*

Hi, these terms are most often historically used to refer to admixtures/blood quantum of Native Americans and asians (in the case of the Philippines). The Spanish, French etc that instituted these labels were obviously racist, but the labels had a profound effect on the American continent and still does, so it needs to be discussed. It informs legislature, identity, culture, etc across latin america.Nativebun (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Where is Cuba's section?
This article is gravely incomplete with no section or mention at all of Cuba, a country with a large mestizo population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:46:200:6250:5461:C671:141F:91 (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Suggest removing text on Portuguese Mesticos, French Canadian Metis
I have read the archived discussions on this article, which fifteen years ago were fairly heated. This article is about Mestizos, a category of classification in Spanish America and elsewhere in the colonial Spanish Empire. There are full articles on Mestiços in the Portuguese empire and Métis in Canada. I suggest that this article stick to its core analysis on Mestizos and delete extraneous text regarding other terminology used elsewhere from the Spanish Empire. Amuseclio (talk) 18:22, 23 August 2019 (UTC)Amuseclio

Lead is confusing
The more times I read the lead, the less I understand what mestizo means. Kaldari (talk) 16:17, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Historical
The lead claims the term is "historical" but i see no support for that claim. It may be that the term was common decades ago but it is by no way histoical. I suggest removing the label historical from the lead unless there are convincing sources to back that claim. Sietecolores (talk) 10:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Métis
The Metis are completely irrelevant to the discussion on mestizo and I don't see why they should be included in this article at all. Metis nationhood is about far more than just racial intermarriage.
 * Absolutely agree with the unsigned comment above. Métis are a unique ethnic group with Cree, Ojibwe, French, and/or English ancestry. They have a unique political status in Canada. They are not related to mestizo people, which is a broad term that includes any Latin American Indigenous person with mixed European ancestry (predominantly Spanish or Portuguese) or people of completely Latin American Indigenous backgrounds that have moved to the city or otherwise assimilated into mainstream society. Yuchitown (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown


 * Hi! I 100% agree that Metis as in people of the Metis Nation are irrelevant to this page. However, Mestizo is actually an ethnicity, and the word is used far more to connote ethnicity than it is to connote racial classification. I added a new subject here in the Talk section to discuss this further, if you'd like to take a look :)
 * I think another thing this brings up is that there needs to be a point made that Indigeneity is not defined by blood-quantums, and neither is cultural Mestizaje. Nativebun (talk) 16:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Mestizo is not used as a "racial category", it is a distinct ethnicity and that is super important
Initially, the French brought over the idea of mestizaje and the Spanish translated it and institutionalized it as mestizaje. Yes, for many years it was initially used as an indicator of blood quantums and associated race for people of indigenous descent/Amerindian phenotypes in whats currently latin america. However, this became too difficult to keep track of and as we know eventually became not based on blood quantum, but on phenotype for racial classification (though this is fairly recent- the Spanish kept excellent records of pedigrees). It's also important to note that indigenous is not a race, but Amerindian/Indian is. Indigenous refers to the indigenous cultures/ethnicities across Turtle Island and Abya Yala, Amerindian/Indian is how white people racialized us and impacts the experience of many indigenous people with racism. Some ethnically indigenous people are phenotypically Amerindian, white, black, asian, etc. Many "full blood" (I hate these terms, but it's necessary to get my point across) indigenous people were assimilated (often by force) into spanish colonial society, and thus were racially Amerindian or Mestizo but culturally not Indigenous. They brought with them indigenous cultural aspects though, and over time, especially with the institutionalization of mestizaje by the independent Mexican state, created an ethnicity that was economically and linguistically assimilated to western culture, but with a huge amount of influence/cultural elements coming from indigenous religions, cooking, art, etc etc. Due to the impact of primarily that economic aspect though, they cannot be considered the same as original Indigenous ethnicities because the extraction and individualist mindset is at odds with indigenous sovereignty, and instead uphold the Mexican state. In Mexico, perhaps due to the sheer massive numbers of Nahuas (millions) but also definitely due to the glorification and romanticization of the Mexica empire, the mestizo ethnicity is formed predominantly around mixtures of Spanish and Nahua cultures, typically with an indigenous maternal line and a Spanish paternal line. Mestizo is a distinct ethnicity, it definitely is not indigenous and it definitely is not European.

You end up with 2 separate caste systems: the ethnic, and the racial. In the racial one, it's criollos>mestizos/mulattos/pardos>Amerindian or Black. In the ethnic one, it's Spanish/EU> ethnic mestizos (assimilated to mestizaje, regardless of blood quantum)> Indigenous and African ethnicities.

For example, assimilated/ethnic mestizos come with all blood quantums- some "100%" some "25%" native, but they are all assimilated to the same post-independence mestizo society. Darker-skinned mestizos and/or mestizos who are visibly "more percent" native are, even though they are ethnically mestizo, called "indio" by lighter-skinned mestizos and criollos (pure whites culturally and racially). Among mestizos, you thus have racial mestizos and racial Amerindians. Ethnically indigenous people also come in different blood quantums, and many ethnically indigenous people are racialized as mestizo/a and that should be recognized in discussions about race, but that doesn't make them any less Indigenous. Regardless of blood quantum, they are still 100% indigenous, even if they arent 100% Amerindian. They are NOT ethnic mestizos.

The current article only references mestizaje as a racial category, which is very passé and not at all how it is used by most people today. When most people say mestizo, they are talking about the ethnic group. It varies by country, but for example, in Mexico it is an ethnic group that emphasizes nahua-spanish cultural mixture, and I believe in Peru it refers to Quechua-Spanish cultural mixture. It needs to be noted that mestizos often, due to their economic assimilation, play a major part in the persecution of Indigenous people today in order to attain resources. Because national identities were built around mestizaje and pardo-ism in post-independence latin america, many countries are in a sense mestizo nations- but this last statement would be original research, so I apologize.

Mestizo should definitely still NOT be spoken of as alike to The Metis Nation in Canada, as they are 2 unrelated ethnic groups.

I wrote this while on the train home because my head was hurting seeing the lack of information and nuance on the page, and I sincerely apologize for not adding sources right now but I will add them as soon as I get home. I'm actually studying Indigenous Studies and Latin American studies, so the sources will come from that. Nativebun (talk) 17:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "Mestizo should definitely still NOT be spoken of as alike to The Metis Nation in Canada, as they are 2 unrelated ethnic groups."

On that we completely agree, so I don't know what you keep reinserting "Métis" into the related column, since they absolutely not related. Mestizo is not an ethnic group, since it can include any of hundreds of different ethnic groups. Métis is a very specific group with a shared history and language (Michif). Apples and oranges. Yuchitown (talk)Yuchitown

Mestizo is an ethnicity, I think you are thinking of nationalities. Nationalities can contain ethnicities. And no I dont "keep inserting metis into the related column", whatever you are doing with that I think you were doing with another user, I made only one edit to the page in all my time on wikipedia and I was trying to revert a part that mentioned metis as a word referring to people labeled as such by the french in other places that the french colonized, because the word metis is not unique to the Metis Nation. Nativebun (talk) 17:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is the edit you made :: diff, so yes, you restored Métis as a related people in the infobox, which I reverted. What métis meant in French in the 18th century is not what Métis means today in English. A mestizo person of Maya and Spanish ancestry is not the same ethnicity as a person of Guaraní and Portuguese ancestry. If you want to make an extreme claim, such as Mestizo being a single ethnicity, those claims need to be backed up by reliable, secondary published sources. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Yuchitown (talk) 17:13, 5 April 2022 (UTC)Yuchitown
 * I have not "kept on" doing something, and again it was not my intention to restore that, it was my intention to restore historical meanings of métis  which are relevant to the inception of meztizaje in latin america. Unnecessary rudeness, especially when I agreed with you. You are right, what métis meant in French in many places for hundreds of years is not the same as what it means now in anglo-america, and I'm trying to account for that. In case you didn't notice, this page isn't about anglo-america and is actually in the context of Latin America and Latin American history. We can write in that it doesnt meant the same thing everywhere and across time periods. That being said, we can still account for history. Mestizo isn't used today the same way it was in the 1800s, now people use it to mean culture/ethnicity. WE SHOULD STILL INCLUDE THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN WHICH IT WAS USED TO DEFINE RACE. Adding the historical context of the word métis in latin america as a precursor to mestizaje is not an attack on the Metis Nation, and if you feel that it is and make edits based on those feelings then THAT is soapboxing. We need to make a distinction that the Métis Nation has nothing to do with mestizos, but the word métis, unattached to the Métis nation, has an important historical context in Latin American history. Furthermore, I thought it was obvious since I also discussed nuances within mestizaje regarding ie spanish-nahua cultural mixture, quechua-spanish cultural mixture, etc so theres no need to bring up other random ones like Guaraní and Portuguese ancestry. I'm talking about mestizo in the same way people talk about Indigenous, European, African, etc. None of these are races, nor are they individual ethnicities, but they are larger pan-ethnic groups distinct from each-other. For instance, when we say indigenous we aren't talking about race, we are talking about culture/being part of an indigenous ethnicity. When we say indigenous is in regards to ethnicity, that doesn't mean there aren't ethnicities within it (ie Otomi, Guaraní, Metis, Lakota, etc). It still refers to ethnicity, as does mestizo, african, etc. There are also separate continental meanings African/european/asian, but I hope it's obvious that I'm not talking about that. If you need me to explain that, let me know. Nativebun (talk) 17:35, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Derivation of 'de sangley'
I don't claim any expertise in the subject of the article, but I wonder if there is any backup for the suggestion that 'de sangley' in the Philippines refers to a word meaning 'business'. Is it not much more likely to be a variant of the Spanish word 'sangre' meaning 'blood'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.11.107.19 (talk) 01:41, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Moroccan inclusion
Shouldn't moroccans be included in the mestizo category? from what's known there is a historically sizeable african community there and they eventually mixed with caucasoid arabs/berbers 105.66.135.36 (talk) 12:44, 27 June 2022 (UTC)


 * No, because they're irrelevant to the term. As the sources and article states, Mestizo is a term that specifically formed in colonial Latin America denoting people of mixed Amerindian and European descent. Though, as result of colonization, other countries with Iberian influence including the Philippines would also adopt the term in their own contexts.
 * Furthermore, as 'race' is a social construct, who counts as 'Caucasoid' is nonsensical. So I'm not sure what you're talking about. The Arabs/Berbers would be considered people of colour/minorities in countries like Canada. And many accounts will you that until recent centuries, East Asians were considered 'white' and not 'Mongoloid' or 'Yellow' or any other outdated classification term. Of course, this last paragraph is beyond the point, but whatever. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 10:17, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Portuguese
Ahhhhhhhhhh I am concerned 191.97.87.124 (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Split
I don't think that this article trying to cover both the modern concept of Mestizo identity that exists in Latin America and the very old word used to describe almost all mixed Spanish-indigenous peoples during Spanish colonial times as if it was the same thing is a good idea. Maybe a split would be in order. ★Trekker (talk) 14:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I won't decide to be for or against the proposal until a discussion, but I did want to reiterate prior to any responses: indio/a was more commonly used in South America, despite outcries from indigenous communities...and perhaps those from Southeast Asia. In twentieth- and twenty-first century Peru, for instance, 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, for example, is more commonly connected to language families in both urban and rural vernacular. Also, a note of caution: Native American Studies departments across the U.S. accept indigenous peoples of the Americas into their graduate and undergraduate programs. An unknown number from South and Central America stay in the U.S., become citizens, and identify as Native Americans in the federal (and state) census. Of course that's not relegated to students---swaths of Native American populations in California (an example) are the offspring of non-la-raza immigrants that either do not identify as LatinX/ChicanX, etc., or do identify as both or all three, depending on background. I can think of several leaders as examples, but I'll try to find the recent overall statistics, particularly in urban areas. I believe there was a 2023 NYRB essay partly on this issue. In addition, U.S. schools, organizations, and individuals in Central and South America often use "Natives" in American English legal records. Again, not agreeing or disagreeing (such individuals and groups can speak for themselves), but only wanted to clarify endonyms, exonyms, etc. You bring up a point about words vs. ideas---more than concepts---in linguistics, historical or otherwise. For the etymology of American English, comparing and contrasting nativity with indigeneity is a connected debate...as is words vs. ideas, etc. Bustamove1 (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

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