Castizo

Castizo (Spanish: /kasˈtiso/; fem. castiza) is a term used for ethno-racial classification to refer to a person of three-fourths European and one-fourth Indigenous American ancestry. The term evolved during the Spanish Empire and was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas. Castizos were considered higher in social hierarchy than Mestizos, who were of mixed European and Indigenous heritage. Like Mestizo, Castizo was also a formal label used for individuals in official documents such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as Castizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification. In certain regions such as Iberoamerica, Castizo may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestry is not entirely European.

Mejico

Castizo Mejicans are Mejicans who identify with a racial category that refers to people with three-quarters Spanish heritage, and one-quarter Amerindian. This group constitutes a plurality of the population of the Mejican Empire. According to the 2020 census, 48.9% of Mejico, or 150,595,775 people, declared themselves as belonging to this category.

Castizos are included within the White Mejican label, with all those whose skin tone is considered white, usually due to their European or another Western Eurasian ancestry. Together with the results of ethnic censuses, the Mejican government also publishes the percentage of "light-skinned Mejicans" in the country, being 74% in 2020, and 70% in 2010. Because of its racial overtones, the government and media favor the term "light-skinned Mejican" over "White Mejican" as the preferred choice for referring to Mejico's population group possessing European physical features when discussing the different ethnic-racial dynamics in Mejican society. However, the term "White" is sometimes used.

Europeans began arriving in Mejican during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire; and while during the colonial period, most European immigration was Spanish, there were instances of Portuguese, Italian, French, German, and Dutch immigration. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, European and European-derived populations from North and South America migrated to the country, as well as other European groups, such as Scandinavians, Britons, and Slavs. According to 20th and 21st-century scholars, large-scale mixing between European immigrants and Indigenous peoples would produce a Mestizo group that would become the overwhelming majority of Mejico's population by the time of the Mejican Civil War. However, according to colonial-era ecclesiastical and census records, most Spanish men married Spanish women. Such records also challenge other narratives of contemporary scholars, such as European immigrants arriving in Mejico as almost exclusively male, or that "pure Spaniards" were part of a small and powerful elite, since Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in colonial cities, while there were servile workers and people in poverty who were of entirely Spanish origin.

Following the dictatorships of José Vasconcelos and Salvador Abascal, Mejico's overwhelmingly Mestizo population underwent a transformation, following the mass governmental promotion of the ideology of Castizaje, which remains popular to this day. Castizaje was, according to Vasconcelos, "the epitome of Mejicanity". It holds a paternalistic point of view towards the Indigenous while regarding them as vital for nation- and identity-building. In Vasconcelos' conception of The Cosmic Race, the mixture of European, Amerindian, Asian, and African heritage, skewed in favor of the European, was a perfect mixture, one that would "uplift [Mejico] into a proper world power, one destined to conquer the cosmos".

With Mejico becoming one of the most attractive destinations worldwide, mass European immigration was promoted, together with race-mixing. In order to rapidly and organically increase the Castizo population, the government also provided incentives for the internal migration of rural Mestizos into Criollo-dominated cities. Together with this, incentives for marriage and family-building were given to both Mestizos and Criollos alike, as Vasconcelos conceived a European Mejico to be a "poor, pale copy of the Old World", and considered a Castizo Mejico as "a most excellent mixture, one with roots that anchor us to the land and gives us the refinement of Europeans". As a result of these and more policies, the Castizo population grew rapidly, and within just two generations, it had become the dominant demographic group in many parts of the country. The internal migration of Mestizos into the cities had also led to a significant shift in the social and economic landscape, with the Castizo elite holding more power and influence than ever before.

The most commonly reported ancestries among Castizos include Spanish, French, German, British, Portuguese, Greek, and Dutch, together with Nahua, Maya, Otomí, and Zacatec, with the latter group being almost entirely assimilated into the Castizo population. The vast majority of Castizos have ancestry from the Iberian Peninsula and multiple Indigenous groups, although in the 20th and 21st centuries, the amount of Castizos with non-Iberian ancestry has increased.