Abstract

CERVANTES, Guillermo. The spiral of racial mixing . Revista de Ciencias Sociales [online]. 2009, vol.15, n.3, pp.531-540. ISSN 1315-9518.

This essay explores the role played by racial mixing as an instrument to forge a national identify in Mexico, where what is indigenous coexists and fuses with the European in the pursuit and construction of something understood as purely Mexican. Starting with the colonial epoch in New Spain, this study approaches the role conceded to Mexican indigenous peoples and their slow inclusion in society through the adoption of practices considered western and civilized in detriment to the traditional indigenous practices, considered primitive and backward, as a means of assimilation; a phenomenon that later would have to propose the mestizo as a stereotype of Mexican national identity during the nineteenth century; and that would culminate in its consolidation at the beginnings of the twentieth century. Likewise, the perception of racial mixing is approached as a means for civilization in the idiosyncrasy of the Mexican and the Mexican-American to culminate with an evolution of the constant search for what is western, this time through assimilating the US way of life, as a continuation of the civilizing process understood as racial mixing.

Keywords : Racial mixing; identity; nationalism; indigenous; mestizos; eugenics; Mexican-Americans.