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Mestizo Mexicans are Mexican people of mixed descent. Their ancestry is primarily the result of admixture between the indigenous people of Mexico and Europeans, and also, to a lesser extent, Africans and Asians.
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Research conducted by the country's Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica (INMEGEN) has found that Mexico's Mestizo population is not uniform in its genetic composition, with there being significant regional variation. For example, mestizos of primarily European ancestry predominate in Sonora, while mestizos from the central region (Guanajuato and Zacatecas) have a more even split between indigenous and European. The highest African contribution in the twelve participating states (picked to be representative of the major regions of Mexico) was found in Guerrero and Veracruz, while the highest Asian contribution was found in Guerrero and Sonora.
Under the colonial cast system, a mestizo was the offspring of an español(a) (Spaniard) and indio/a (Amerindian), while other mixed individuals were considered mulattos, zambos, etc. The caste system and the race-based categorization were abandoned post Independence and mestizo eventually passed on to be a cultural attribute rather than racial one. Today, mestizos of various phenotypes make up the majority in Mexico. However, since the term carries a variety of socio-cultural, economic, racial and genetic meanings the estimates of the Mexican Mestizo population are indefinite. The Mestizo category (along with other racial categories) was dropped from the national census after 1921. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, between one half and two thirds of the Mexican population is Mestizo.
History
Miscegenation and culture-mixing have been occurring in Mexico for neary five centuries, and has resulted in a unique mestizo, and more broadly, Mexican identity. Mexican Mestizos owe their African and Asian admixture primarily to African slavery in New Spain (which saw the importation of some 250,000 black slaves) and the thousands of Filipinos and Chinos (Asian slaves of diverse origin, not just Chinese) that arrived on the Nao de China. A smaller African contribution may have also come from the Spaniards; in Spain some 20–23% of genetic material is considered 'non-European', most of which is shared with North Africa and the Near East. More recent Asian immigration (specifically Chinese) may help explain the comparatively high Asian contribution in Northwest Mexico (i.e., Sonora). The INMEGEN report also notes that on average, the largest genetic component of Mestizo Mexicans is indigenous, while African and Asian genetic markers are diminishing with each generation and will continue to do so without new migration. For example, there was an estimated one million Afromestizos (Mestizos of significant African descent) at the end of the colonial period, while today there are about 450,000 Mexicans of significant African descent.
The large majority of Mexicans can be classified as "mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they identify fully neither with any indigenous culture nor with a particular non-Indigenous heritage, but rather identify as having cultural traits and heritage incorporating both indigenous and European elements. By the deliberate efforts of post-revolutionary governments the "Mestizo identity" was constructed as the base of the modern Mexican national identity, through a process of cultural synthesis referred to as mestizaje ([mes.tiˈsa.xe]). Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity on the concept of mestizaje (the process of race mixture).
Cultural policies in early post-revolutionary Mexico were paternalistic towards the indigenous people, with efforts designed to "help" indigenous peoples achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society, eventually assimilating indigenous peoples completely to mainstream Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "Indian problem" by transforming indigenous communities into mestizo communities.
The term "Mestizo" is not in wide use in Mexican society today and has been dropped as a category in population censuses; it is, however, still used in social and cultural studies when referring to the non-indigenous part of the Mexican population. The word has somewhat pejorative connotations and most of the Mexican citizens who would be defined as mestizos in the sociological literature would probably self-identify primarily as Mexicans. In the Yucatán peninsula the word mestizo is even used about Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the caste war of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos. In Chiapas, the term Ladino is used instead of mestizo.
Sometimes, particularly outside of Mexico, the word "mestizo" is used with the meaning of Mexican persons with mixed Indigenous and European blood. This usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure indigenous genetic heritage would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his indigenous culture or by not speaking an indigenous language, and a person with 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.
Autosomal studies
A 2006 study conducted by Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN), which genotyped 104 samples, reported that mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 35.05% "Asian" (primarily Amerindian), and 5.03% Other.
According to a 2009 report by the Mexican Genome Project, which sampled 300 mestizos from six Mexican states, the gene pool of the Mexican mestizo population was calculated to be 55.2% percent indigenous, 41.8% European, 1.0% African, and 1.2% Asian.
A 2014 autosomal DNA study, which analysed data from 1622 samples from all of the Mexican regions, found that Native American ancestry is highest in the centre/south of the country with the north showing the highest proportion of European Ancestry. African ancestry is generally low across Mexico except for a few coastal regions. In conclusion, Native American ancestry accounts for 56% of the heritage of the population, followed by the European (37%) and the African (5%).
Additional studies suggests a tendency relating a higher European admixture with a higher socioeconomic status and a higher Amerindian ancestry with a lower socioeconomic status: a study made exclusively on low income Mestizos residing in Mexico City found the mean admixture to be 0.590, 0.348, and 0.062 for Amerindian, European and African respectively whereas the European admixture increased to an average of around 70% on mestizos belonging to a higher socioeconomical level. In 2011, an autosomal dna study was conducted in Mexico city, with 1,310 samples, showing the average proportion of Native American, European, and African ancestry for the population to be 64%, 32%, and 4% respectively. Additional autosomal dna studies conducted on people from Mexico city show a predominate Native American background, with Native American ancestry ranging from 61-69% in 5 different studies. The number of people sampled in these studies ranged from 66 to 984 people. One outlier study showed a predominate European background for mestizos of Mexico City, showing 57% European ancestry, 40% Native American ancestry, and 3% African ancestry. The sample population for this study however, was only 19 people.
MtDna and y DNA studies
A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics Y chromosomes found the deep paternal ancestry of the Mexican mestizo population to be predominately European (64.9%), followed by Amerindian (30.8%) and Asian (1.2%). The European Y chromosome was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7-95%) and Native American ancestry increased in the center and southeast (37-50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0-8.8%). The states that participated in this study where Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Yucatán. The largest amount of chromosomes found were identified as belonging to the haplogroups from Western Europe, East Europe and Eurasia, Siberia and the Americas and Northern Europe with relatively smaller traces of haplogroups from Central Asia, South-east Asia, South-central Asia, Western Asia, The Caucasus, North Africa, Near East, East Asia, North-east Asia, South-west Asia and the Middle East. Also a study published in 2011 on Mexican Mitochondrial DNA found that maternal ancestry was predominately Native American (85-90%), with a minority having European (5-7%) or African (3-5%) mtDNA.