Ethnic Diversity in Mexico

The Ethnic Diversity in Mexico

Mexico is ethnically diverse. The second article of the Mexican Constitution defines the country to be a pluricultural nation originally founded upon the indigenous peoples.

Mestizos (those of mixed Spanish and Amerindian ancestry) form the largest group, comprising up to 60-75% of the total population. Amerindians called indigenous peoples (indígenas) are considered the foundation of the Mexican pluricultural nation and therefore enjoy self-determination in certain areas. Indigenous languages are also considered "national languages" and are protected by law. There is also a minority of French, Italian, Portuguese, Basque, German, Irish, Polish, Romanian, Russian and British descents from the waves of immigration that brought many Europeans at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the Americas along with some Canadians and Euro-Americans from the United States and Argentina. Mexico also received a large number of Lebanese, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Filipino immigrants. Afro-Mexicans mostly of mixed ancestry live in the coastal areas of Veracruz, Tabasco and Guerrero.

About Mexico's Indigenous peoples

The Mexican constitution recognizes and protects the 62 indigenous peoples living in the Mexican territory which also extends to the protection and autonomy to Amerindian ethnic groups that migrated from the United States—like the Cherokees and Kickapoos—and Guatemala during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

According to official statistics by the Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples or CDI, Amerindians make up close to 9.5% (as of 2000) of the country's population. Oaxaca is the state with the greatest number of distinct indigenous peoples and languages in the country.

Europeans in Mexico

International organizations report that between 9% and 17% of the country's population could be classified as European, Caucasian or White in Mexico. Most of these are criollo which is the relatively unmixed descendants of the Spanish colonists. However, many other immigrants arrived during the Second Mexican Empire (mostly French) and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries mostly from Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. White Americans, Yugoslavians, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Polish, Romanians, Russians and Ashkenazic Jews, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War also immigrated. The European Jewish immigrants joined the Sephardic community that lived in Mexico since colonial times, though many lived as Crypto-Jews, mostly in the northern states of Nuevo León and amaulipas. Some communities of European immigrants have remained isolated from the rest of the population since their arrival, amongst them the Dutch Menonites of Chihuahua and Durango, the Venets of Chipilo, Puebla and have retained their original languages.

Other Ethic Groups in mexico

Other immigrants in Mexico include Arabs of Lebanese and Syrian origin that represent in significant numbers in Puebla, as well as Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. Mexicans of Filipino descent are estimated at 200,000, mostly located in Michoacán, Guerrero, and Colima. Afro-Mexicans, mostly of mixed ancestry, live in the coastal areas of Veracruz, Tabasco, Oaxaca and Guerrero.

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