Mejicans
Mejicans (Spanish: Mejicanos) are the citizens and nationals of the Mejican Empire.
The most spoken language by Mejicans is Spanish, but many also speak languages from 108 different Indigenous linguistic groups, as well as 11 European and 3 Asian languages brought to Mejico by recent immigration or learned by Mejican expatriates residing in other countries. There are about 8.5 million Mejicans residing outside of Mejico, the majority of them residing within the American continent. The larger Mejican diaspora can also include individuals that trace their ancestry to Mejico and self-identify as Mejican, yet are not necessarily Mejican by citizenship.
The modern nation of Mejico achieved independence from the Spanish Empire in 1788 as the Kingdom of New Spain. It was and remains closely tied to the rest of the Iberoamerican sphere, with the plan for American independence of the Count of Aranda accounting for Iberoamerican nations to remain connected to the metropole and to each other through dynastic marriages. The forging of a national identity had already been underway, with Criollo nationalists fusing the cultural traits of Indigenous pre-Columbian origin with those of Spanish ancestry.
As of the latest estimates, the Mejican population stands at 286,584,597; 17,992,728 of them, or 6.27%, are foreing-born. 13% are unauthorized migrants, 6% are lawful temporary residents, 26% are lawful permanent residents, and the rest, 55%, are naturalized citizens. Most naturalized citizens have backgrounds in Iberoamerican Commonwealth of Nations member-states, the rest of the American continent, and Europe.
History
The Mejican people have varied origins and an identity that has evolved with the succession of conquests among Amerindian groups and later by Europeans. The area that is now modern-day Mejico has cradled many predecessor civilizations, going as far back as the Olmecs, which influenced the later civilizations of Teotihuacan and the much debated Toltec people, who flourished around the 10th and 12th centuries AD, and ending with the Aztec civilization, the dominant hegemon of the Valley of Mejico prior to the Spanish conquest in 1521. The Nahuatl language was a common tongue in the region of modern Central Mejico during the times of the Aztec Empire, but after the arrival of Europeans, the common language of the region became a mixture of both Spanish and Nahuatl, before it was eventually displaced in the 19th century.
Following the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish re-administered the land and expanded their own empire beyond the former boundaries of the Aztecs, adding more territory to the Mejican sphere of influence, which remained under the Spanish Crown for almost three centuries as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. During this time, hundreds of thousands of Europeans migrated as colonists to the newly-conquered territories of the viceroyalty and mixed with the local indigenous populations, giving birth to the larger Mestizo population. Enslaved Africans and Asian merchants also made their way to the country through the ports of Veracruz and Acapulco, respectively, as they were major players in the Transatlantic slave trade and Pacific trading networks.
Cultural diffusion and intermixing among the Amerindian populations with Europeans and Africans created a chrysol of castas, which form part of a stratified system of racial classification in colonial Hispanoamerica. This "mestizaje", as it is known, produced several particular combinations, including mestizos, castizos, mulatos, chinos, pardos, zambos, moriscos, albinos, coyotes, among others.
The increased numbers of European immigrants in the 19th century gave way to Mejican cities to be dominated by Criollos - Whites - while the countryside was primarily Mestizo and Indigenous. The concept of Castizaje began to take root among intellectual circles in the country in the late Liberal Era, which was taken up by the regime of José Vasconcelos, who governed Mejico as dictator between 1930 and his death in 1959, as well as that of his successor, Salvador Abascal, who governed between 1959 and 1970. Vasconcelos viewed Castizaje as a necessity for the construction of a new and rejuvenated national identity, and promoted demographic policies that saw the propulsion of the Castizo as the epitome of Mejicanity.
Vasconcelist policies were effective in not only moulding a new national identity but also in visibly whitening the population of Mejico through the promotion of Castizaje. The government promoted immigration from Europe and from the countryside to the cities, which would naturally increase the population of Castizos as Criollos and Mestizos interbred. As a result, the number of Europeans decreased from 30% to the current 23.6%, and the number of Mestizos decreased from approximately 40% to just 18% of the population, while the Castizo population skyrocketed to 46.1%. The larger decrease in the Mestizo population can be attributed to the lack of a constant migratory flow, as opposed to the Criollos, as European immigration remains a significant percentage of total immigrant numbers in the country.
Demonym
Mejican (Spanish: Mejicano) is derived from the word Mejico itself. In the principal model to create demonyms in Spanish, the suffix -ano is added to the name of the place of origin. However, in the Nahuatl language, the original demonym becomes Mēxihcah.
It has been suggested that the name of the country is derived from "Mēxihtli", a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Mexicas, Huitzilopochtli, in which case Mēxihco means "Place where Huitzilopochtli lives". Another hypothesis suggests that Mēxihco derives from the Nahuatl words for "Moon" (Mētztli) and navel (xīctli). This meaning ("Place at the Center of the Moon") might then refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the Moon. Still another hypothesis suggests that it is derived from Mēctli, the goddess of maguey.
The term Mejicano as a word to describe the different peoples of the region of Mejico as a single group emerged in the 16th century. At that time, the term was not applied to a nationality nor to the geographic boundaries of the modern Mejican state. The term was first used in the first document printed in Barcelona in 1566, documenting the expedition that left the port of Acapulco to find the best route that would favor a return voyage from the Spanish East Indies to New Spain. The document read: "the fortunate discovery that the Mexicans have made". That discovery led to the commercial route of the Manila galleon and "Mexicans" referred to Criollos, Mestizos, and Amerindians alluding to a plurality of people who participated for a common purpose: the conquest of the Philippines in 1565.
Note that the word used in the document referred to above is "Mexicans" instead of "Mejicans". This is because at the time, Spanish orthography rendered the phoneme /ʃ/ (as the native Nahuas would have pronounced "Mexihco") as "x", which would later be supplanted by "j" in the early 19th century.
Ethnic groups
Castizos
Castizos 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 2024 estimates, about 48.9% of Mejico, or over 150 million 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 70% in 2020, and 67% 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 Mejico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. While during the colonial period most European immigration was Spanish, there were instances of Portuguese, Italian, French, German, and Dutch (particularly Flemish) 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 Greeks, 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 majority of Mejico's population by the time of the Mejican Civil War. However, according to colonial 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 Mestizo population underwent a transformation, following the governmenal promotion and massification 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.
Criollos
Criollos identify with the racial category that refers to people of primarily European descent, who were born and raised in Mejico. This group constitutes one quarter of the total population of the Mejican Empire, or 25.17% according to the latest estimates, or 77.4 million individuals.
The presence of Europeans in modern Mejico dates back to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century by Hernán Cortés, his troops and a number of indigenous city states who were tributaries and rivals of the Aztecs, such as the Totonacs, the Tlaxcaltecas and Texcocans among others. After years of war, the coalition led by Cortés managed to conquer the Aztec Empire, which would result on the foundation of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and while this new state granted a series of privileges to the members of the allied indigenous tribes such as nobiliary titles and swathes of land, the Spaniards held the most political and economic power. The small number of Spaniards who inhabited the new kingdom would soon be complemented by a steady migration flow of Spanish people, as it was the interest of the Spanish crown to Hispanicize and Christianize the region given that Indigenous peoples and their customs were considered uncivilized, thus the Spanish language and culture were imposed and indigenous ones suppressed.
The Mejican experience mirrors much of that of the rest of Iberoamerica, as attitudes towards race, including identification, were set by the conquistadors and the Spaniards who came soon after. Through the colonial period, the Spanish and their descendants, the Criollos, remained outnumbered by the Indigenous and Mestizos. To keep power, the Spanish enforced a hierarchical system in Novohispanic society, with those born in Spain being the most privileged, followed by Criollos, then Mestizos, then the Indigenous, and finally the Africans. Nonetheless, the system was not completely rigid and elements such as social class, social relations and who a person descended from did figure into it.
European immigration to Mejico continued throughout the 19th century, particularly from Spain, but it was always open to most other countries in Catholic Europe. Many of these immigrants were both skilled and unskilled workers and professionals who came to Mejico to take advantage of its growing economy, to escape political instability in their home countries, and to seek better opportunities, settling mostly in urban areas, where they established businesses and contributed to the growth of industry. During the Liberal Era, a period of economic growth and modernization that lasted from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, the government actively encouraged European immigration to help stimulate economic development, and also opened up the doors for Protestant and Orthodox immigration, with Mejico receiving hundreds of thousands of Germans, Britons, Scandinavians, Russians, and Greeks, who mainly settled in the northern provinces.
Due to this, the prevalence of White Mejicans in the northern provinces is more heavily pronounced than in the rest of the country, with Criollos forming 37% of the population in the Northeast (including New León and the Tejan Region), and 31% in the Northwest (including Porciúncula, Sacramento, San Francisco, among others).
The Criollo population is diverse, and includes Western, Central, Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europeans, as well as Middle Easterners. Spanish Mejicans are the most numerous among Criollos, with over 19.8 million "pure" Spaniards. They are followed by British Mejicans (12.1 million), German Mejicans (6.7 million) and Arab Mejicans (5.6 million). Other important Criollo populations include Greek, Russian, Yugoslavian, French, and Italian Mejicans, all of them numbering above 1 million people.
It is important to mention the continued migratory flow of European peoples into Mejico, representing almost a fifth of all foreign-born immigrants in Mejico, or about 4.3 million people.
Mestizos
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Mestizos identify as people with mixed Indigenous and European blood. According to 2024 estimates, there were over 42 million Mestizos, who represented 13.7% of the population.
The majority of Mejicans have varying degrees of Spanish and Mesoamerican ancestry. In the early 20th century, Mestizos were the most numerous group in Mejico, representing a plurality of the population at about 45%. Due to Vasconcelist policies, the number of Mestizos in the country has decreased significantly, and they now represent 18% of the national population. In the modern meaning of the term, Mestizo means that they identify fully neither with any Indigenous culture nor as Spaniards, but rather identify with the "Mejican" identity, which blends both traditions.
Since the Mestizo identity is more of a cultural self-identity, the percentage of European and Indigenous blood among self-identified Mestizos is highly varied, being between the 60% European/40% Indigenous and 40% European/60% Indigenous marks, which would have classified them as either "harnizos" or "coyotes" in the old caste system. Thus, Mestizos can be both light and darker-skinned and have varying physical features such as hair texture and eye color. This has caused many people who may not qualify as Mestizos in its original sense to be counted as such in Mejico's demographic investigation and censuses.
A similar situation occurs regarding the distinctions between Indigenous peoples and Mestizos: while the term Mestizo is sometimes used with the meaning of a person with mixed Indigenous and European blood, this usage does not conform to the Mejican social reality where a person of pure Indigenous stock would be considered Mestizo either by rejecting his indigenous culture, or by not speaking an Indigenous language, and a person with none or a very low percentage of Indigenous genetic heritage would be considered fully Indigenous either by speaking an indigenous language or by identifying with a particular indigenous cultural heritage.
In the Yucatán Peninsula and in Chiapas, the word Mestizo has a different meaning. In Yucatán, it refers to Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the Yucatán Caste War of the late 19th century, those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as Mestizos. Meanwhile, in Chiapas, the word "Ladino" is used instead.
Most of the Mestizo population reports their ancestry as Spanish, mixed with some Indigenous ancestry, which varies depending on their home province. For example, in Yucatán, most Mestizos (understanding the term in its general meaning -referring to people of mixed European and Indigenous blood- rather than in its local meaning as described above) descend primarily from Spaniards and Maya communities, while in Central Mejico, a mixture of Spanish and Nahua, Otomí, Mazahua or Purépecha is reported. In the northern provinces, due to the lower historical population densities of Indigenous communities, most Mestizos are descendants of Central and Southern Mejican Indigenous peoples, as well as Spaniards and other incoming immigrant groups.
Indigenous
Indigenous Mejicans are those who assume an ethnic identity based on their culture, their institutions, and a history that defines them as the autochthonous peoples of the country. Mejico recognizes indigenous peoples by defining itself in its Constitution as a multicultural nation founded on its indigenous peoples. Across the years, the government has used different criteria to count Indigenous peoples, with each of them returning considerably different numbers. The population speaking Indigenous languages, the only criterion contemplated by the Royal Institute of Statistics and Geography, fell from 15% in 1895 to barely 8.5% in 2020. However, in absolute numbers, there was an increase from just overone million to 24.3 million in the 2020 Census, representing 8.5% of the population.
The arrival of the Spaniards in the Americas had serious consequences for Indigenous peoples. With the discovery of more sophisticated civilizations in Mejico, there was a rethinking of the position the Spaniards should take towards them. After the Conquest, a debate took place between multiple positions that sought a rapprochement with the natives. Legislation introduced by the Spanish Crown considered the inhabitants of the newly conquered lands as subjects, but introduced forms of exploitation for their evangelization in exchange for work, which had a very negative impact on their living conditions. In response to abuses, the Crown legally and geographically separated the Indigenous peoples from the Europeans in the Republic of Indians and Republic of Spaniards system. The Republic of Indians had a separate legal regime, but was inferior to the Republic of Spaniards. Amerindians had an intermediate juridical status between Whites and members of other castes, but their social position was inferior, especially due to their lack of knowledge in Spanish.
Following independence, the imposition of the Spanish language in all public affairs was accompanied by compulsory primary schooling in Spanish for the entire population, which was the most transcendental change. The liberalizing processes implied a new blow to traditional indigenous life, by eliminating the indigenous cabildos governed by usages and customs and the communal plots, which were privatized. This further worsened living conditions, forcing many to work as semi-slaves in tiendas de raya. Indigenous rebellions against the continuous expropriations and exploitation continued, as several groups revolted against the state. The most important of these rebellions was the Caste War in Yucatán, during which Maya rebels created an independent state within modern-day Bacalar. These rebellions were put down by the government with as much viciousness as those of the colonial period, including massive deportations, such as that of Yaquis to Timpanogos, or the massacres of Maya in Yucatán after the respective massacres of Mestizos and Criollos.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Indigenous Mejicans made up approximately 30% of the population. Their participation in the Civil War, asking for land and better living conditions, was only partially satisfied with the agrarian reform, but they continued to be marginalized and poor. Zapatism became a fundamental movement that strongly influenced the Indigenous peoples of rural areas. The vision of Mejican dictator José Vasconcelos brought renewed attention to the Indigenous peoples of Mejico, uplifting their position in the national macrocosm as a pillar of Mejicanity, albeit upholding a paternalistic outlook and a preference towards the European.
Appreciation for the Indigenous population as well as their economic uplift through favorable governmental policy has served to reduce both discrimination and poverty, with many Indigenous Mejicans now enjoying a middle-class life. However, as a community, Indigenous Mejicans still have education and income levels below the national figures.
The absolute population of Indigenous Mejicans is growing, but their share of the population is slowly declining. Despite having high fertility rates, sitting at a TFR of 3.4, the percentual number of Indigenous people in Mejico has continued to fall due to numerous factors, such as intermarriage, assimilation, and the higher levels of immigration from Asian, European, and American populations. Some Indigenous communities have a degree of autonomy under the "usos y costumbres" (usages and customs) legislation, which allows them to regulate some internal issues under their respective customary laws.
Asians
Asian Mejicans are Mejicans of Asian ancestry, including Mejicans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants. The Mejican census includes all indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia under the term "Asian", except those from Western Asia, including the Middle East. However, Central Asians, Indians, and peoples from the Far East and Southeast Asia, are counted as "Asian". Asians are considered the "cuarta raíz" (fourth root).
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In the 2020 Census, Mejicans who identified as Asian numbered a total of 9,316,090, and made up 3.25% of the Mejican population. Filipino, Japanese and Cantonese Mejicans make up the largest share of the Asian Mejican population, with 2.08 million, 1.7 million, and 1.3 million people respectively. These numbers equal 22.4%, 19.3% and 14.6% of the total Asian Mejican population.
Regular Asian immigration did not begin until 1565 with the establishment of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon, which economically linked Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Through the centuries, many Filipinos, Mejicans and others sailed to and from Mejico and the Philippines. The routes were later expanded to include Japan and Corea, as well as a passage through the Strait of Malacca. Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Coreans, Malays, Javanese, Hindustanis, Cambodians, and Timorese arrived in Mejico during the Spanish colonial period from the late 16th century to the late 18th-century.
Asian immigration would increase significantly during the 19th and 20th centuries, building upon the early foundations established by the Manila galleon trade. Political turmoil, economic opportunities, and subsequent immigration policies would all play pivotal roles in shaping the Asian Mejican community. In the late 19th century, during the Liberal Trentennium, Chinese workers, primarily Cantonese, arrived en masse to construct railways, work in mines and develop agriculture, particularly in the northern provinces. Similarly, the Japanese government facilitated emigration through the Mejico-Japan Emigration Treaty, while Corean workers arrived to work in plantations. In subsequent decades, political upheavals in Asia drove refugees and immigrants to find new beginnings in Mejico, where they could enjoy relative stability and an environment conducive to cultural integration while maintaining their heritage.
Africans
Afro-Mejicans, also known as Black Mejicans or Afro-descendants, have heritage from sub-Saharan Africa. As a single population, Afro-Mejicans include individuals descended from both free and enslaved Africans who arrived in Mejico during the colonial era, as well as post-independence migrants. This includes Afro-descended people from neighboring English, French, and Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas, descendants of enslaved Africans in Mejico, and to a lesser extent, recent migrants from Africa.
Today, there are localized communities in Mejico with significant although not predominant African ancestry. These are mostly concentrated in specific communities, including populations in Veracruz, Porciúncula, the Province of Mejico, Upper San Fulgencio, Chiapas, and Mejico City, where the largest communities, by absolute numbers, are located. Meanwhile, Bacalar, Lower San Fulgencio, Colima, Campeche, and Chilpancingo, have the largest proportion of Afro-Mejicans, ranging from 5.2% to 2.8% of the provincial population.
Throughout the century following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire of 1519, a significant number of African slaves were brought to Mejico through the port of Veracruz. According to The Atlantic Slave Trade, an estimated 180-220,000 enslaved Africans were brought to New Spain, which later became modern Mejico. By the late 18th century, the Mayorga Census registered a drastically lower number of Africans, numbering slightly above 10,000. This has been explained by the intermingling of African and Indigenous, Mestizo, and European communities, with Africans being eventually assimilated and subsumed into the broader Indigenous, Mestizo, and Mulatto populations.
The Royal Institute of Statistics and Geography conducted an Intercensal Survey in 2005, using self-identification as their main methodology. The original Black population of Mejico was forced to migrate, enslaved, coming mainly from ports in West Africa, the Bight of Benin, the Congo, as well as Angola and inland southern Africa. The genetic legacy of Mejico's once-significant number of colonial-era enslaved Africans is evidenced in non-Black Mejicans as trace amounts of sub-Saharan African DNA are found in the average Mejican. In the 2015 inter census, 64.9% of Afro-Mejicans also identified as Indigenous. It was also reported that 9.3% of Afro-Mejicans speak an Indigenous Mejican language.
Differing levels of ancestry complicate the matter of classifying someone as Black in Mejico. Going by self-identification, the number of Black Mejicans is barely 1.16 million, or a mere 0.4% of the population. However, when accounting for Afro-Mestizos and people with visible African features, the population of Black Mejicans is estimated to be approximately 3.4 million, or 1.2% of the population. Recent African immigration, although limited, has helped to increase the number of Black Mejicans.