What is "mestizo"

Mestizo \Mes*ti"zo\, n.; pl. Mestizos. [Sp. mestizo; akin to OF. mestis, F. m['e]tis; all fr. (assumed) LL. mixtitius, fr. L. mixtus mixed, p. p. of miscere to mix. See Mix, and cf. Mestee, M['E]tif, M['E]tis, Mustee.] The offspring of an Indian or a negro and a European or person of European stock. [Spanish America]

Mestizo wool, wool imported from South America, and produced by mixed breeds of sheep.

1580s, from Spanish mestizo "of mixed European and Amerindian parentage," from Late Latin mixticius "mixed, mongrel," from Latin mixtus "mixed," past participle of miscere "to mix, mingle" (see mix (v.)). Fem. form mestiza is attested from 1580s.

n. A person of mixed ancestry, especially one of Spanish and Native American heritage.

1. n. a person of mixed racial ancestry (especially mixed European and Native American ancestry) [syn: ladino]

2. [also: mestizoes (pl)]

Mestizo (; Peninsular Spanish: , Latin American Spanish: ) is a term traditionally used in Spain and Spanish America to mean a person of combined European and Amerindian descent, or someone who would have been deemed a Castizo (one European parent and one Mestizo parent) regardless if the person was born in Latin America or elsewhere. The term was used as an ethnic/racial category in the casta system that was in use during the Spanish Empire's control of their New World colonies. Mestizos are usually considered to be mixed Spaniards by the crown of Spain.

The term mestizaje, taking as its root mestizo or "mixed", is the Spanish word for the general process of mixing ancestries. In English the term is miscegenation.

To avoid confusion with the original usage of the term , mixed people started to be referred to collectively as . During the colonial period, mestizos quickly became the majority group in much of the Spanish-speaking parts of Latin America, and when the colonies started achieving independence from Spain, the mestizo group often became dominant. In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, the concept of the "mestizo" became central to the formation of a new independent identity that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly indigenous, and the word mestizo acquired its current meaning of dual cultural heritage and descent.

In colonial Venezuela, was more commonly used instead of . means being mixed without specifying which mixture; it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Amerindian, and Black African.

In the Spanish system of racial hierarchy, the sistema de castas, mestizos/, who formed the majority, had fewer rights than the minority elite European-born persons called , and the minority white colonial-born whites , but more rights than the now minority , , and populations.

In colonial Brazil most of the non-slave population was mestiço ( Portuguese spelling) in the original Iberian definition of the word (mixed). There was no descent-based casta system, and children of upper class white landlord males and female slaves would enjoy privileges higher than the ones given to the lower classes, such as formal education, though such cases were not so common and they tended to not inherit the property, generally given to the children of free women, who tended to be the legitimate ones in cases of concubinage (also a common practice, inherited from Amerindian and African customs).

In the Philippines, which was a colony of Spain, the term mestizo came to refer to a person with Filipino and any foreign ancestry.

In Canada, the Métis people is a community composed of those who possess combined European (usually French, sometimes Scottish or English) and North American Amerindian ancestry.

In Saint Barthélemy, the term mestizo refers to people of mixed European (usually French) and East Asian ancestry.

Mestizo is a rapper from Los Angeles, California. He is a co-founder of Machina Muerte.