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Very true. Unlike US, in Mexico we don't think of ourselves as "white Mexicans" or "indigenous Mexicans" or "Mestizo Mexicans" We're just mexican, and this has it's advantages and disadvantages. A lot of people here on CD try to look at race and racial identity in Mexico through American perspective when it clearly isn't.
It's the same thing back in Puerto Rico. You're either Boricua or you're not. No one cares if you are a black Puerto Rican, or white Puerto Rican, or mestizo Puerto Rican. I moved to Pennsylvania, and all of a sudden the Puerto Ricans born and raised in the states made a big deal about me being white. I'm not a real Puerto Rican because I'm white, and other stupid things that no one ever thinks of back home.
Another fact-free statement from Malamute. What's absolutely amazing and bewildering about your posts is the fact that the TRUTH and REAL INFORMATION are just a tab or a new window away, yet you decide to post mis-information. Most befuddling of all is that city-data actually underlines misspelled words for you, and yet you still post them.
Slavery in it's purest form, was never practiced by "Mexico" as a country, since Mexico as a country didn't exist 'till 1821, and the Plan de Iguala actually banned it. There were reports of isolated defiant slave owners 10 years after, but those and unconfirmed, and it was not practiced as a society the way it was in the Southern United States during that time.
In New Spain, and previously in the Aztec and pre-Hispanic societies there were forms of slavery, and indeed African slaves did make their way into New Spain, although it is unclear how many blacks (Africans or descendants of sub-Saharan Africans) came to Mexico as indentured servants and how many as right-out slaves.
Communities of blacks, or at least higher incidence of people with sub-Saharan haplogroup DNA are found in Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero, and many of us carry bits and pieces of the gene in our own DNA without even knowing it.
Okay -- when Mexico was "New Spain" slavery was practiced. Every Latin American had African slaves. Some people are under the erroneous belief that only the US had slaves which is not the case at all. According to Spanish sources in early "New Spain" at one point the population of African slaves and Indians outnumbered the whites. Indians dwindled to about 1,000,000 in number after small pox took it's toll and African slaves were about 800,000 in number. From then on, immigration from Europe added more whites to the mix. Racial mixing was actually beneficial because the Indians had no resistance to Old World diseases.
I find it interesing that so many Mexicans never learned their country's history including that of slavery and even if they learned it, they don't seem to know where the former slaves went.
It's the same thing back in Puerto Rico. You're either Boricua or you're not. No one cares if you are a black Puerto Rican, or white Puerto Rican, or mestizo Puerto Rican. I moved to Pennsylvania, and all of a sudden the Puerto Ricans born and raised in the states made a big deal about me being white. I'm not a real Puerto Rican because I'm white, and other stupid things that no one ever thinks of back home.
Well as sinless and politically correct as Spaniards might be, they sure came up with a lot of words to indicate race --- for a people who didn't care about race at all, it's kind of interesting how they came up with terms like mulatto, sambo, creole, negro, criollo and so on. Even in the USA they come with a name like La Raza for their political group.
You are all more Spanish but you have some Native American in there too. As far as the Spanish...the Spanish are predominantly white...but they seem to have a little black thrown in there, too, somewhere down the line...whether northern or southern African....but are overwhelmingly white still. That's how I see it. Even "Nordic" people can have a little 'recent' black thrown in there and still look Nordic...because so much of their blood is extremely white. But yes you all look mostly Spanish with a little Indian tossed in.
Well as sinless and politically correct as Spaniards might be, they sure came up with a lot of words to indicate race --- for a people who didn't care about race at all, it's kind of interesting how they came up with terms like mulatto, sambo, creole, negro, criollo and so on. Even in the USA they come with a name like La Raza for their political group.
C'mon the US didn't have those labels because they had one drop rule not because they were open minded
Well as sinless and politically correct as Spaniards might be, they sure came up with a lot of words to indicate race --- for a people who didn't care about race at all, it's kind of interesting how they came up with terms like mulatto, sambo, creole, negro, criollo and so on. Even in the USA they come with a name like La Raza for their political group.
#1
"La Raza" doesn't directly translate to "the race"... it roughly translates to "the people, the masses," etc... and when used in the pejorative sense, it refers to the bottom of the barrel, the lowest common denominator, etc. It has very little to do with race or identity.
#2
Spanish colonial power did indeed establish an elaborate caste system based on race, but one thing to note was the amount of exceptions that were made, and the fact that non-white people in Spanish America could purchase "white" status. Yes, it all seems so silly now, but that's the way it was. Also, being black didn't always mean you were a slave, even in slave-holding days.... either by working your freedom or having someone purchase it for you, you could be free. (BTW, this also applied in Brazil) In the U.S. it was nearly impossible to purchase your freedom, and in Jim Crow days, there were FEW EXCEPTIONS to the whites only rule in segregated schools.
Now, does this make Latin America better than the U.S. when it comes to racial justice and racial awareness? NO. Nor does it make it worse. It's different. Because of the complete injustice and struggles that blacks in the U.S. had to face, there is a certain sense of 'black pride' and 'brown pride' that simply doesn't exist in Latin America, because our racism was never institutionalized (as of our countries' independence) the way it was in the U.S. It's a different sense of racial awareness in latin america than in the U.S. No, it's not a racial utopia, and it's not a place where people are color blind, but race and racial identity is not what it is in the U.S. just like theunbrainwashed said: we know our skin color, but it doesn't really factor into everyday conversations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed
It's the same thing back in Puerto Rico. You're either Boricua or you're not. No one cares if you are a black Puerto Rican, or white Puerto Rican, or mestizo Puerto Rican. I moved to Pennsylvania, and all of a sudden the Puerto Ricans born and raised in the states made a big deal about me being white. I'm not a real Puerto Rican because I'm white, and other stupid things that no one ever thinks of back home.
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