Race Designations in Civil Records

Corrine,

You could log in to the Nuestros Ranchos website and in the search field type in "castas", and it will give you a list of what is in the archives about the various caste designations in Mexico. If you read Spanish, one excellent article you will find is "6301 por que dejaron de importar los ancestros". It gives insight into the political and economic reasons for the caste system and the problems with it as far as record-keeping went. There is also an article there that describes the dozens of castes they gave names to for the different mixtures: black with white, white with indigenous, and any combination thereof.

One reason the US didn't take over Mexico completely was the fact that the citizenry had become very "mestizo" and spoke Spanish. Nowadays we see in many Americans the fear of this country being inundated with mestizos who speak Spanish. They want to keep the "character" of the country as it has always been, i.e. European and English-speaking.

I find all castes in my Mexican ancestry listed prior to 1821 when the Spanish government was forced out. I also find the same people listed in different records with different castes listed. One day they were "mulato" the next time they were "mestizo", then "espanol". That system seemed to serve no purpose after a while and was done away with. Remember that people are always ready to criticize and give a hard time to others for whatever reason. My husband's very white aunts in Mexico were discriminated against by cab drivers who didn't like "espanolas" even though his Mexican ancestry goes back to the 1500s in Mexico. Other dark people are discriminated against if they have money, and so on. I think now it comes down to economics and politics and power and class as much as race.

Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA --
----- Original Message -----
From: Corrine Ardoin
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 4:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Race Designations in Civil Records

This is partly a research topic, but probably also a general topic, so I put
this in research, because I have family information I do not want available
to the general public or to have show up on the internet. Sorry, if this is
not the way to do things.

As I mentioned before, I found the civil death records for my
greatgrandparents in Guadalajara, 1936 and 1941, with both of their race
designations being "mestizo(a)," followed by "mexicano(a)," which is part of
the form, so they would just fill in the blank next to "mexicano" to
designate what type of mexican they were.

Anyways, I looked up mestizo in the regular dictionary and it says this is a
person of Spanish and Indian (like Native American Indian, not India Indian)
descent, also that it means "half-caste." In the Spanish-English dictionary
that I use, mestizo means half-caste, of mixed race. Arturo was telling me
about the caste system in Mexico. I talked to my mother about it and she
says that the elite status was given to the pure Spanish citizens early in
Mexico's history, but later the indigenous held higher status after the
Mexican Revolution and then the Spanish were looked down upon. My
grandmother had told about learning in school, during revolutionary times,
things about the Spanish in such a negative way she would feel really bad
about being Spanish, like it was something to be ashamed of. Anyways,
according to my mother, the mestizos were basically of mixed race, Spanish
and French or Indian or whatever else. My greatgrandmother was Spanish and
Portuguese. The Martin del Campos "de la Yegua Rusa," which my ancestors
were, may have been of Spanish and French descent. However, I am hoping
that if there was any indigenous ancestry, it will say so on records. I
just want to know all about my ancestry.

So, as I was saying, she says how the caste system worked was the rich,
aristocratic Spanish were at the top, the "mestizos" that held merchant type
positions were the middle class, then the Indians were at the bottom. I
know this is a big generalization, too simplified. But, on these particular
civil records, it states that my greatgrandfather was a tailor. I know that
his sister had a shoe store on the plaza right by the Cathedral at the turn
of the century 1800's to 1900's and she had servants, as well. Their father
was a shoemaker, his brother a tailor, so it sounds like they were part of
the middle class. The family also had a farm outside of town, near Zapopan
and were, at times, poor. So, then, I am led to believe that "half-caste"
means "middle class," but I would like to hear more about this. I will be
digging further into this family line and would like to know not just their
race, but how that figured in to their lives.

In researching the history of the city of Guadalajara, I learned that the
downtown had been planned, but then neighborhoods kind of spread and grew
around it, called the "barrios." In these barrios, they were mini villages
in and of themselves, the rich with their comings and goings, their servants
and families, their merchants, tailors, shoemakers, etc. living near them to
cater to their needs. And the Indians were sort of pushed to the outskirts
by Tlaquepaque, I believe. These barrios then became formal districts for
record-keeping purposes and were then called "colonias." The first of these
was in the old downtown. Anyways, that's how I understand it to be.

I would appreciate being enlighted about the above topics if I am mistaken
in regards to the race designation on records, what purpose that served, the
caste system and what mestizo and half-caste really means, and the evolution
of Guadalajara's barrios into colonias. It is a complex city and I think my
family history research will be centered around there for some time, before
I get into records of family that lived in the ranchos.