Mexican Identity

Every year, on February 24, as Mexicans we celebrate Flag Day. In school, it’s the one day we go through the country’s history through the flag. The flag we know today has symbols representing three main chapters in our country’s history. The prehispanic, with the seated eagle; the colonial, with the laurel and oak branches; and the French, with the green, white and red.

The Mexican coat of arms has the left profile of an eagle, seated on a cactus, devouring a rattlesnake. It is a symbol based on the prehispanic, indigenous legend about the foundation of the great city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).

Regardless of the average Mexican’s knowledge on the national flag, the holiday feels a little ironic when the centre of our flag—and culture—is our indigenous ancestry and yet we do so much to dismiss it as a society.

Everyone in Mexico is a mestizo, until proven otherwise. “Mestizo” is a term used to refer to people who are, technically, biracial in Mexico. It means you are half indigenous and half white. While its use might be correct in theory, in practice it has meant the depreciation of our indigenous roots.

 

Historically speaking, Mexico is a colonised country by white Europeans and they brought slaves, originally from Africa, with them. So, it’s not that hard to believe that today’s population is “mixed”. Race and color are confusing and even irritating subjects to bring up in conversation in Mexico. They’re swiftly sweeped under the rug of mestizaje. People will usually tell you, “It’s fine, we’re all a mix, it’s not that deep.”

 

But everyone wants to be white. Everyone wants to find out their family hailed from a far away, sophisticated European land.

Ad for national brand features white Mexicans (hopefully), despite more than 67% of the population isn’t this color.

 

Our concept of race in Mexico is so binary and simplified that it wasn’t until 2015 that the INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography) incorporated in their national surveys the option to identify as black or afro-mexican. And being indigenous no longer was conditional on speaking an indigenous language.

After this the population of indigenous people in Mexico went from 7 million to 25 million people.

 

To put it into perspective, the usage of the term “mestizo” today is the equivalent of the phrase “I don’t see color”. While not actively malicious, it takes the responsibility away from the speaker to educate themselves on a system that thrives off their own ignorance. Because Mexico does see color.

Oxfam, a non profit organisation working to help indigenous people in Mexico, reports that the deeper the skin tone the poorer people tend to be. Over 40% of indigenous people don’t finish elementary school.

Throughout the pandemic the indigenous communities have been put under even more duress. It can be clearly seen under the numbers published by the government, where the virus kills 20% of indigenous people infected. That is double the mortality rate for white Mexicans, which is already high considering the world average is 6.9%.



Indigenous people protest the government negligence toward their community during the pandemic in Mexico City.

 
 

I am the only child of Mexican parents. I was born and raised in Mexico. I am the mestiza in the middle of the third photo on this project. Earlier this year an ancestry test revealed I am over half indigenous.

And I was in shock.

My mother was in shock. A relieved kind of shock, because the luke warm discrimination we’d experienced our whole lives was suddenly validated. Our cushioned life and overwhelmingly white friends had somehow made us believe that it was all in our head, that we were the same.

But if this experience served any purpose it was to show me how damaging it can be to deny someone of their experience as any kind of opressed group. It only breeds more apathy and ignorance all across the board.

It took away a part of my identity and it’s currently eroding Mexico’s indigenous culture. It keeps the white and wealthy in a blissful bubble where we’re “all equal” and the working class and brown in a cycle of denial. Because we don’t accept our history or the biases it created in our society today.

The alienation of our indigenous communities and our sub-par education on national history has allowed us all to forget that there’s a high probability of a brown person in Mexico having majority indigenous ancestry.

And like I’ve previously stated, over 67% of the population is brown.