So I understand over time. Spanish people start having kids with native Americans. Eventually Mexicans grew tired of the Spanish rule and didn’t want it anymore. Now when I go to Mexico. I understand people call themselves Mexicans. But when I was there In puerto Vallarta I encountered 2 men who spoke Spanish but also a Native American language. Nahuatl. They referred to themselves as different people. I can’t remember the name. My Mexican cousin referred to them as different people. I thought abt it and I just find it weird that as a Mexican you share the same blood yet you identify as a different nationality or ethnicity. I’ve heard my grandma use the word Huicholes. Shes Mexican as well.
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Well this is not unique. Many countries have different ethnicities within one country. Remember that nationality deals with what country you live in, but not ethnicity. Like Aboriginal Australians are still Australians. Native Americans are US Americans. Look at Russia, it has many ethnicities and they are all Russians. Some have very strong Asian features, some are very Slavic… all are Russians.
And the most obvious of all is the USA, and apart from Native Americans, you have Americans of many ethnicities that are still Americans.
Same with Mexico, they all live in the Country of Mexico, but are different people.
“Mexican” is a nationality, not a race.
Within Mexico and abroad amongst the diaspora, there are “white” Mexicans like Guillermo Del Toro, predominantly indigenous Mexicans like Tenoch Huerta, and a majority who are mixed with Indigenous and European ancestry, such as Ryan Garcia, Mark Sanchez, and Cain Velasquez.
Regardless of our varying ethnicities, Mexican culture is deeply rooted in the concept of “el mestizaje” (see “the cosmic race”). Unlike Argentinians, who might identify as European or Spanish, Mexicans—whether blonde, brunette, or with indigenous features—primarily see themselves as Mexican. It’s an identity that runs deep, hasta la madre. 🇲🇽
Native American encompasses native people across both continents. Mexico and the US and Canada today are each very different cultures with different attitudes and histories towards their native peoples, but even within North America, the native americans were divided into a number of different cultures and groups, some of which were very different from each other and probably would not have liked being lumped together like that.
>They referred to themselves as different people. I can’t remember the name. My Mexican cousin referred to them as different people. I thought abt it and I just find it weird that as a Mexican you share the same blood yet
That’s the error of your thinking right there. They don’t necessarily share the same blood.
There are indigenous people who never interbred with the Spanish. They were there when the Spanish arrived, and they are still there, speaking languages that existed before the Spanish arrived.
Sure there are a lot of mestizos, but that doesn’t mean that they abandon the heritage of their ancestors, and not all necessarily had Spanish blood.
They didn’t.
The word ‘Mexican’ comes for ‘Mexihcah.’ This is one of the names the Aztecs used for themselves, but it wasn’t just the Aztecs. the Mexica were one of the culture groups that dominated Central Mexico at the time of Spanish contact. As they were also the principal ethnic group of the Aztec Empire, the name took on even large importance when the Spanish used variations of the name to refer to a region even vaster than the people who lived on it.
Add a few hundred years, cultural evolution and fusion, and you have the transformation where the term ‘Mexican’ refers not just to the Mexihcah but to anyone from the region called Mexico. The modern descendents of the Aztecs use a few different names but the most common is Nahuas (the Mexica were Nahua, but not all Nahua were Mexica in ye olden times). Mexican now encompasses a nationality more than an ethnicity.
But native Mexicans are still Mexicans. We’re talking more a name ‘musical chairs’ than a separation.
Like America, Mexico is a land of immigrants. Lots of European, Asian, etc. Lots of Native people too. They are all Mexicans (just like we are all Americans in the US) but the group you are probably thinking of as stereotypical Mexicans are generally mixed Native and European (Spanish). If they retain enough Native culture, language, etc. they might identify as such.
On a sidenote, Mexicans didn’t exactly just get tired of the Spanish. New Spain stretched from Central America to modern-day Cañada. France and Spain were rivals and Spain even won Louisiana from France.
Napoleon invaded Spain and Portugal, and “American-born Spaniards” (Mexicans) declared independence. The Mexican Empire only lasted a few years, then the Republic (Santa Anna) lost Texas, California, New Mexico and more (Mexican-American War). Then the French invade Mexico, set up an empire, which fell to a republic, and so on.
In the North America, colonists kept themselves isolated from native peoples, so many Native Americans will have ancestors who were all Native Americans.
During the colonization of South and Central America by Spain and Portugal, they didn’t. While native peoples weren’t treated equally, there were marriages and children. Some people can, like the Native Americans in the US have lineages that go back to pre-colonization. While others are mixed, and others are just straight descended from the Spanish.
They don’t usually identify as another nationality but it’s like how the Native Americans are US Citizens, they are also descendants of the pre-colonial people.
I remember my anthropology teacher being really curious about the difference. The Spanish forces were brutal to the natives, but now, hundreds of years later, they are comparatively more abundant than the Native Americans are. Mexico and Peru have the largest populations of indigenous people in all the Americas.
I have a Mexican friend who claims to be almost entirely ethnically a Spaniard. This is really no different from a US American claiming to be almost entirely Irish.
Always look at what language is spoken in the legal documents. That’s who is in charge. Diversity is nothing if a culture has to adopt the ways and language of another culture. The closest to true diversity I’ve seen is in Luxembourg, where Four languages are used in law. Switzerland is a close second, also with 4 officially but 3 you actually see.
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