The concept of mestizo is a social concept that applies to certain people, those who were born as a result of the union of two people of different ethnicities. The purpose of the word mestizo is precisely to establish the intermediate term that such a person possesses because they do not clearly and directly belong to either of the two ethnic groups to which their parents belong. The mestizo can be the son of two people of any ethnicity, that is, this name can be applied to all kinds of ethnic mixtures. However, it is most often used to designate the descendants of the three different ethnic groups that populated America once Europe knew it: Europeans, native Indians, and black Africans who were brought there as slaves.
Although this should not be the case, normally the term mestizo is used with a certain derogatory tinge towards the person with such characteristics because it is considered that he is not pure like any of his parents. Belonging to an ethnic group precisely supposes the purity of those genes because they are descendants of other individuals who have directly belonged to that specific human community. In many cases, in addition, the notion of mestizo also implied the contamination of an ethnic group mistakenly understood as superior with another mistakenly understood as inferior (such as the mestizo son of a Spaniard and an indigenous woman supposed to be a contaminated form of European blood ).
The mestizo has fulfilled a very important role in the American continent since it has been to a large extent the one in charge of populating the different regions organized by the Spanish power, in addition to fulfilling the heaviest and most dangerous jobs because they are considered to be inferior to the others, even much more than the Indians or Africans themselves. The mixture of all these ethnic groups has given different types of mestizos who each have a different name.
