Thread: Diversity Is Strength!...But Not For Mexican Beauty Queens

Diversity Is Strength!...But Not For Mexican Beauty Queens

Americans are racist xenophobes while Mexicans are a mixed-race people who are therefore non-racist and tolerant, right?

We’ve all heard it.

But contrary to the self-congratulatory rhetoric, the plain fact is that Mexican society is highly stratified by race. It’s just that many Mexicans don’t want to admit it.

According to the CIA World Factbook, 60% of Mexico’s population is mestizo (European/Indigenous), 30% is indigenous, and 9% is white.

That fits in with the recent work of the Mexican Genome Project which calculates that 65% of Mexican genetic material is indigenous (i.e., American Indian) and 35% is non-indigenous (principally European and African)

Of course, the term "mestizo" is somewhat slippery. It includes individuals of mostly European ancestry and a little Indian blood, or vice versa.

The Mexican white-mestizo-Indian spectrum is a continuum. Technically speaking, the "mestizo" classification includes every Mexican with any white/Indian mixture—whether that’s 99% white and 1% Indian or 99% Indian and 1% white.

So there are mestizos at the white end of the spectrum who can pass as whites and for all practical purposes are white. At the other end of the spectrum, there are mestizos who are, racially speaking, indigenous.

It isn’t just skin color. Some Mexicans have dark skin but European facial features. Others have light skin but indigenous features.

And, although many Mexicans won’t admit it, there’s a definite correlation between racial background and socioeconomic status.

It’s not a hard and fast rule. There are plenty of exceptions. But, unmistakably, the higher one travels up the socioeconomic ladder, the whiter the Mexicans are. The farther down one travels, the darker they are.

The poorest three states in Mexico, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas, in the south, are the most indigenous. (According to the Mexican Genome Project, Guerrero is also 22% African).

Which brings me to Mexican standards of beauty—especially feminine beauty. They are racially determined too.

I encountered this phenomenon soon after moving to Mexico. My first job was teaching fifth-graders in a private school. The students were upper middle class and upper class. They were predominantly white. Some were even blond.

In one of my fifth grade classes, every student—with one exception—was white. The only exception was a nice little girl with dark-skin whose family’s economic background was not as high as some of the others.

The fifth-grade boys regarded the dark-skinned girl as the ugliest in the class. The girl wasn’t ugly, but the boys considered her so because of the color of her skin. The girl they thought the prettiest in the class was blonde.

These fifth-grade boys didn’t invent the Mexican standard of beauty. They just reflected it. It’s been going on strong for about 500 years, since the Spaniards arrived.

In Mexican show biz, whites are predominantly represented in the movies, TV and pop music.

One of Mexico’s biggest cultural exports these days is the telenovela, a genre akin to the soap opera. In these series, which are exported worldwide, the principal characters tend to be white and the dark-skinned actors portray servants. Like in real life, in other words.

Last Saturday, October 6, Mexico held its annual Miss Mexico beauty pageant (known here as "Nuestra Belleza Mexico"). The winner of this pageant goes to the Miss Universe pageant—where Miss USA was booed when it was held in Mexico City earlier this year. The runner-up goes to the Miss World contest.

This year's winner was Elisa Najera, (Photo) Elisa is a brunette but she clearly falls within the range of the white/mestizo-white range of the Mexican racial spectrum. For more photos go here.

But you can’t make up your mind from one example. I invite you to look at this photo gallery of all the Miss Mexicos since 1994. Note that they are all white, some are blonde.

The winner of "Nuestra Belleza Mexico" represents Mexico in the Miss Universe pageant, while the runner-up goes to "Miss World." If you look at Mexico’s Miss World representatives since 1995, you’ll see they are white also.

Since Mexicans use two surnames (one paternal, one maternal), you can learn a little more about their ancestry. Notice the presence among the contestants of the surnames Jones and Murray (of the British Isles) and Erhard and Honstein (Germany).

In fact, the Nuestra Belleza contest is presided over by a certain Lupita Jones, a former Miss Universe from Mexico (see photo here . ).

As a point of reference, you might visit the Miss Spain website. If you look at the recent Miss Spain winners, they aren’t that different from Mexican beauty queen types—except that the Miss Mexicos tend to be lighter-skinned.

This indicates that a Miss Mexico candidate could easily cross the pond to the "madre patria" and be competitive.

That’s especially ironic given the PC version of Mexican history. Today’s Mexicans—including white Mexicans—view the Spanish conquistadors as the bad guys and the Aztecs as the good guys (the non-Aztec Indians are usually ignored). Even white Mexicans will tell you "The Spaniards conquered us."

Nevertheless, 500 years later, the Mexican standard of beauty, as reflected in the Miss Mexico contest, is so Spaniard-oriented that a Mexican beauty queen could compete, quite probably successfully, in a Miss Spain contest.

In contrast to Mexico’s white -oriented beauty pageants, notice the racial variety of some recent Miss Americas:

Ericka Dunlap, black

Erika Harold, white/black, American Indian

Angela Perez Baraquio Grey, Filipino American

And Rachel Smith, the Miss USA who was booed in Mexico City this year, was born in Panama and is officially described as "bi-racial".

So the supposedly racist U.S. has more “diversityâ€

Look at Mexico's Congress, they are light skinned.

Here is the Senado/Senate leadership.
http://www.senado.gob.mx/mesa_directiva ... ntegrantes

The whole congress looks like this.

I saw Eva Longoria interviewed and she said as a child and called the "brown one" and she was considred ugly.

Dixie

I emailed this page to the head honcho @ LULAC.

The only thing I said was

Now, tell us again..........who are the racIsts??????

And then this page followed.

Very interesting indeed. I wondered about this after seeing some of the Mexican TV shows. Indeed, the actors all look white.

Rick Sanchez anyone??? He who cries racism.

Originally Posted by Dixie

Look at Mexico's Congress, they are light skinned.

Here is the Senado/Senate leadership.
http://www.senado.gob.mx/mesa_directiva ... ntegrantes

The whole congress looks like this.

I saw Eva Longoria interviewed and she said as a child and called the "brown one" and she was considred ugly.

Dixie

All peas in a pod, no diversity there. My own family has more diversity than the entire Mexican Congress.

This is maybe slightly off the topic, but related. They are always lecturing us about "diversity." But, can anyone here tell me how THEY celebrate diversity? In areas with high concentrations of illegals, where are the various ethnic festivals and other celebrations of diverse cultures? Or is it only Americans who are supposed to "embrace diversity?"

The ethnic majority (Caucasian) is required to embrace diversity by government mandate. The ethnic minorities are served by special governmental programs and allowed to remain "enclaved" and unassimilated, if they wish. Diversity,in that case, is optional for them.

Originally Posted by zeezil

The ethnic majority (Caucasian) is required to embrace diversity by government mandate. The ethnic minorities are served by special governmental programs and allowed to remain "enclaved" and unassimilated, if they wish. Diversity,in that case, is optional for them.

Exactly.