Eduardo Porter, who describes himself as “the son of a tallish, white father from Chicago and a short, brown Mexican mother of European and Indian blood, wrote in the NY Times (Aug 11, 2008) about race in Mexico, where he grew up. According to him:

“Today the Mexican census doesn’t ask about race and only started asking about indigenous ethnicity in 2000. Jose Vasconcelos, a politician and philosopher, wrote in the 1920’s that Mexicans were of the ‘cosmic race’ — that which included all others. Yet Mexico’s state-sanctioned mestizo identity allowed its rulers to ignore its beleaguered indigenous populations — virtually defining them out of existence.”

In contrast, American politics are so racially sensitive “whether they resulted in Jim Crow laws or affirmative action,” that we cannot even imagine not categorizing people into racial groups. Porter sees positive and negative effects from our racial sensitivity: on the one hand, there is a well-publicized awareness of racial inequality; on the other hand, an acceptance of the natural, ongoing blending is thwarted. There continues to be a huge disparity between what genetic testing shows about our identities and the way we identify ourselves on census questionnaires.

Porter explains the Mexican take on race as having evolved from the promoting of a “mixed Mexican identity as a way to merge Europeans and pre-Columbian nations into a modern Mexican state.” I wonder if that covers it. The Spanish who settled Mexico had different attitude about race and racial mixing from those of the northern Europeans who settled New England. From the beginning in Mexico, light-skinned progeny of mixed race couples had a place in society, whereas in the USA any African blood consigned the descendent to outcast status. There just seems to have been more racial mixing and more tolerance for it in Mexico. In fact, there may have never been laws in Mexico prohibiting intermarriage. According to the Redbones Heritage Foundation website:

      “1514 Spanish law of 19 October explicitly permits intermarriage with Indians; permission of intermarriages reenacted in 1515 and 1556; intermarriage with blacks neither encouraged nor prohibited.”

whereas,as early as 1630 in Virginia anti-misogyny strictures were recorded — and more specifically,

       “1638 Ordinance of the Director and Council of New Netherland prohibits adulterous intercourse between whites and heathens, blacks or other persons, upon threat of exemplary punishment of the white party.”

Something was different from the very beginning. And it remained different. :Laws against intermarriage were not declared unconstitutional in the USA until 1967, in the case of Loving versus Virgina.

topics: culture