If Mexican isn't a Race, then what Race are they? Race of Hispanics and Latinos

one thing that's really always bugged me is when people normally Americans uses the term Mexican when referring to someone's race or ethnicity now don't get me wrong I am an American and I do often find myself falling to the trap of using this fallacy and it's a real shame that then is the vernacular we find ourselves using as it really doesn't give justice the reality of the racial situation of Mexico Mexican Americans and really all of Latin America as I've mentioned in a previous video a lot of people tend to think that all of the Americas south of the United States border is all automatically brown or that they all share a common origin which is incredibly inaccurate I'm going to explain why in this video now race in Latin America is a very fickle situation the lines between each particular race are not so cut and dry like they are here in the United States although admittedly race can sometimes be pretty confusing here too because of the historic system of racial hierarchy imposed in Latin America by the Portuguese and the Spanish there were always incentives for Latin Americans to identify a certain way or marry a partner of a certain class or race and this can still be seen to a certain extent in most Latin American countries this hierarchy used either raise or lower people on the totem pole of racial subjugation was called the caste system a slight twist on the South Asian caste system which was also largely inherent based off class and family origin and was also used to determine people's role in society now Latin America is normally defined as all of the Spanish and Portuguese countries in North and South America today although often the term has a very loose definition and if you ask the average US citizen where Latin America is they'd probably just guess everywhere south of the US border which I suppose is understandable the region today has literally the most racially diverse populations of any place on the planet in today's world with no racial group making up over 40% of the total population the first major shift and racial makeup in Latin America started immediately after Christopher Columbus's first landing in the Americas and 1492 and depending on what country you live in today is either regarded as a courageous Explorer or greedy maniac but either way the ensuing colonization and mass migration instituted by the Europeans was truly unprecedented altering the landscape of every region on the continent permanently now even though the majority of Latin American territories would gain independence by the mid-1800s the utter insanity of the caste system stuck around greatly influencing politics culture and race relations in the new countries and here's how it worked although the majority of Latin American countries had already outlawed slavery pretty early on there was still a pretty large number of people of African descent in the region but because of their historic association as slaves they were placed at or pretty near the bottom of the totem pole next up were the Native Americans or amerindians initially making up a huge proportion of the population but as more and more European settlers began to arrive and most Emmer Indians again to assimilate into the growing multiracial population they slowly found themselves in the minority in their own homeland and also found themselves around the bottom of barrel as well various groups of mixed-race sent such as those of half Native half European or half African half European were normally placed somewhere in between having more rights than either of the full-blooded groups mentioned earlier but still not yet at the top at the top of course were Europeans of Spanish blood who had the most rights except if they were actually born in the colonies that they lived in strangely enough seeing how they placed whites born in Europe to be higher than even pure blooded whites born in the colonies not only did the Spanish love giving people rank in their new racial hierarchy system but they loved giving names to the new races as well with those of mixed native and white descent being called mestizo which really just means mixed in Spanish those of mixed mestizo and white descent were known as caste so mixed mestizo and natives were known as cholo and it went on like this for literally dozens of different possible racial pairings clearly the Spanish were very transparent that they were on top and they wanted everyone to know it this attitude largely stems from the fact that the majority of the Iberian Peninsula which includes the countries of Spain and Portugal was occupied by a foreign non-european non-christian people the North African Moors for quite a long time and the European powers had decided to put aside their differences to kick them out of Europe which possibly led to this attitude of racial superiority now that we got that unpleasant history out of the way let's talk about why modern Latin Americans look the way they do having such a diverse range in appearance that many members of the same family might even appear to be of different races well there really is no average Latin American look since there are so many different racial groups as mentioned earlier with the largest and Spanish Latin America being those of mestizo origin who are again of mixed Native American and European descent followed by Europeans and more Indians and Africans although these different categories are rather fluid and it's very difficult to pinpoint people into these groups for a variety of reasons although on paper a mestizo is someone a 50% European and 50% Native American DNA it very rarely comes out like this in reality because of intermixing over the generations and as such someone who identifies as mestizo may be anywhere from 40 to 60% European and 40 to 60% native which studies in Mexico and Chile finding that those mestizos of lower economic standing have on average a higher percentage of native DNA while those who are richer have on average higher European DNA it gets even more confusing when you factor in racial admixture from other areas of the planet such as the huge number of those of Middle Eastern and North African descent in the region and not many people know this but Latin America has by far the highest number of people of middle-eastern ancestry outside with the Middle East itself that's right not Europe not the United States but countries like Brazil Argentina Chile and Mexico have the largest numbers of Palestinians Lebanese and Syrians on the planet outside of their homelands there's also a huge number of East Asians in the region especially the Japanese and Chinese with Brazil actually having the highest number of ethnic Japanese outside of Japan not the United States and up to 15% of Peru's population has at least some Chinese ancestry mostly mixed in with their mestizo population mestizos from places like Mexico Panama Colombia and Venezuela also might have a small degree of African descent stemming from the small number of African slaves that were brought to the region the position of self-identified Europeans in the region is also extremely confusing considering just who is considered white and mestizo is very blurred at times although roots of admixture vary considerably by country and region studies have shown that the average Latin American white has only around 75 to 85% European ancestry with that huge missing chunk being either filled in by Amerindian African or Middle Eastern DNA as such there is a huge overlap of people that could identify either with the white or mestizo label and this would explain just why estimates of whites in Latin America seems to vary so extremely with various estimates placing the number of self-identified White's in Mexico and anywhere from five to thirty percent yeah very useful there are of course a very large number of people of full-blooded European descent mostly in countries in the Southern Cone of South America that received a monstrous number of European immigrants such as Brazil Uruguay Argentina and Chile groups like Middle Easterners Jews and Romani may or may not self-identify as European depending on what country they live in the situation reaches a crescendo of perplexing when the massive waves of immigrants from Latin America reached the United States which has had a much more strict and limited definition of white while having a much more relaxed standard for those identifying as racial minorities for instance those of half-black half-white descent identify solely as African American in the US Census approximately 40 percent of the time while those of half white half Native American descent identify solely as a Native American almost 70 percent of the time for this reason US Census officials were pretty baffled with these groups of people with racial mixtures they had never seen before in large numbers and as such decided to do the laziest thing they could possibly do and classify anyone from Spanish or Portuguese America to be Hispanic or Latino which completely discounts the reality of the situation especially when you take an account Americans from Spain who are also lumped in with this Hispanic group are considered non white while the Portuguese are considered white although the u.s. census classifies all Hispanics and Latinos as an ethnic group which it's not they also allow them to check off one of the primary races of the United States such as white black Asian or Native American but wait there's no mestizo category which the bulk of Hispanics identify as back in their home countries that's okay though because the US census also allows for them to check off the multiracial box which encompasses any one of mixed ancestry so problem solved all right well know the overwhelming majority of Latin American mestizos in the United States do not see themselves as multiracial but rather as one race mestizo sort of in the same way that modern Central Asians don't see themselves as being mixed race despite having ancestry from East Asia the Middle East and Europe since their gene pool is sort of coalesced into a single monolith the majority of mestizos but not all of course don't exactly see themselves as both European and Native American at the same time but as a separate racial group entirely which is why only six percent of Hispanics and Latinos in the United States check off that mixed race box the majority of those of mestizo ancestry in the United States simply check off the box that says some other race and many might not even have heard of the term mestizo before instead using the term Moreno which is used for Latinos of darker skin so yes the situation of race and ethnicity in Latin America and for Latinos in the United States is extremely confusing but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take the time to learn about it and understand their situation I hope this video has helped you to realize why using terms like Hispanic Latino or Mexican to refer to someone's race is convenient yet completely inaccurate thanks for watching everyone as always this has been Mason and I'll see you next time

Channel: Masaman

Views: 2,197,668

Keywords: masaman, Mexican isn't a race, Is mexican a race, What race are mexicans, Mexican, Mexican People, Latin America, Latin Americans, Mexican Americans, Hispanic, Latino, Spanish, Hispanic Americans, What race are Latinos, What race are Hispanics, Race, Ethnicity, Genetics, DNA, Heritage, DNA test, 23andme, 23 and me, Race in Latin America, Ancestry, Colombians, Brazilians, Venezuelans, Brazil, Colombia, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Are Mexicans White, Caucasian, White People, Mestizo, White Latinos, Spain

Id: HOSPD4K1ymg

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2017