According to CIA World Factbook, people of full or predominant European descent make up 10% of Mexico's population. The Encyclopædia Britannica states those of predominantly European descent make up closer to one-sixth (≈17%) of the Mexican population.
A Mexico City autosomal ancestry study found that the European ancestry of Mexicans was 52 percent; the remainder was primarily Amerindian, with a small African contribution.
Spaniards are the ninth-largest population of Hispanic origin living in the United States, accounting for 1% of the U.S. Hispanic population in 2017. Since 2010, the population with origins from Spain has increased 15%, growing from 707,000 to 810,000 over the period.
European and Eurasian lineages were merged to estimate the paternal European ancestry in each Mexican–Mestizo population (see Discussion), reaching a total frequency of 64.6% (Figure 3).
But most people in Mexico or of Mexican descent these days are not indigenous but rather mestizo, meaning they have a mixture of indigenous, European, and African ancestry.
Filipinos are predominantly of Malay descent, frequently with Chinese and sometimes American or Spanish ancestry. Many Filipinos have Spanish names because of a 19th-century Spanish decree that required them to use Spanish surnames, or last names.
Mexican refers to people who inhabit for are from Mexico, a part of Latin America. Spanish is the main language in Mexico, but not all Mexicans speak the language. This means that people from Mexico are Latino, and they may or may not be Hispanic.
Although a large majority of Hispanic and Latino Americans have Spanish ancestry, most are not of direct, "from-Spain-to-the-U.S." Spanish descent; many are not primarily of Spanish descent; and some are not of Spanish descent at all.
Ethnicity in Mexico today
47% are “White” Mexicans, ones with predominantly European ancestors. 25% are Mestizo, who share a mixture of indigenous and European ancestors. 21.5% are Indigenous, with predominantly indigenous ancestors.
Mestizo Ethnicity
The largest ethnic group in Mexico are the mestizos, who, according to the CIA, make up about 62% of the total population. Mestizo identity is mixed identity, implying European, Amerindian, and possibly African heritage.
Mexico is the country with the largest number of native Spanish speakers in the world. As of 2021, 124.85 million people in Mexico spoke Spanish with a native command of the language. Colombia was the nation with the second highest number of native Spanish speakers, at around 50.6 million.
Mexican refers to an inhabitant or a native of Mexico which is a Latin American country. Hispanic refers to a person who speaks Spanish, one of Latin American descent and resides in the USA. In Mexico, Spanish is the main language but that doesn't mean that all Mexicans can and do speak the language.
People who identify themselves as Spanish, Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Hispanic or Latino refers to people whose ancestors or descendants originated in Central and South America and in the Caribbean, who follow the customs and cultures of these areas and who may speak Spanish.
Recent studies have shown that many of modern Spain's inhabitants have a significant amount of African ancestry, presumably from this time period. This is apparently true of the vast majority of Southern Europeans including Italians and Greeks, as well as the Spanish.
Another way to find out if you have indigenous Americas-Mexican DNA is to have your family members tested. If you have any male relatives, they can take the Y-chromosome DNA test to see if they have indigenous American ancestry.
There are 16,933,283 indigenous persons in Mexico, representing 15.1 per cent of the total Mexicans. Mexico has adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and is a declared pluricultural nation since 1992. Yet, the country's indigenous population are still facing a number of challenges.
Latinos, meanwhile, carry an average of 18% Native American ancestry, 65.1% European ancestry (mostly from the Iberian Peninsula), and 6.2% African ancestry.
Mestizo Mexicans
The majority of Mexicans have varying degrees of Spanish and Native Mesoamerican ancestry and have been classified as "Mestizos".
The language known today as Spanish is derived from a dialect of spoken Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans after their occupation of the peninsula that started in the late 3rd century BC.
In general, Mexicans have both European and Amerindian ancestries, and the proportion varies by region and individuals. African ancestry is also present, but in lower proportion.
What about Brazilians, Portuguese and Filipinos? Are they considered Hispanic? People with ancestries in Brazil, Portugal and the Philippines do not fit the federal government's official definition of “Hispanic” because the countries are not Spanish-speaking.
Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain.
Countries with sizeable populations are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, and, to a lesser extent, Brazil, Belize, Haiti, United States, Canada and the rest of Europe.
Mexican settlement in the Philippines comprises a multilingual Filipino ethnic group composed of Philippine citizens with Mexican ancestry. The immigration of Mexicans to the Philippines dates back to the Spanish period.
person of pure Spanish descent born in the Philippines ("from Las Filipinas"); also called Insulares ("from the islands") or Criollos (Creoles) Americano. person of Criollo, Castizo, or Mestizo descent born in Spanish America ("from the Americas") Peninsulares.