Mestizo

Mestizo
	A casta painting of a Spanish man and an Indigenous woman with a Mestizo child
Regions with significant populations
	Latin America, United States, Spain, Philippines, Micronesia
Languages
	Spanish (mainly) and Indigenous Indigenous languages of the Americas and Austronesian languages;
Religion
	Predominantly Roman Catholic; religious minorities including Protestants and syncretism with Indigenous beliefs exist
Related ethnic groups
	European peoples ; Indigenous peoples of the Americas ; Métis; * African diaspora in the Americas

Mestizo (meh-STEE-tzo) is a Spanish term for a person who is of mixed European (usually Spanish) and Amerindian ancestry.

An image from colonial South America shows that mestizos are the children of Spanish people and Indigenous people

Mestizos have existed since Spain controlled much of what is now Latin America. A mestizo was usually the son of a Spanish father and a Native American mother. Mestizos form the largest part of the population in some Latin American nations. A large minority of mestizos makes up most of the population in Mexico, the Spanish-speaking nation with the largest population in the world.

During the colonial era, many Native Americans were converted to Roman Catholicism and began using Spanish instead of their traditional language. This was because of the concept that existed in the Spanish colonies, which gave more "value" to European people over Native Americans and Africans. Because of this, many Native Americans gained better social status by calling themselves "mestizos" instead of "Indios."

Indo-Mestizo

Indo-Mestizo (also known as Cholo) is a Spanish term for a person who is around 3/4 Native American and 1/4 Caucasian ancestry and an unfortunate derogatory term used by the European cast system for racial discrimination against Original Native people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta

Indo-Mestizos term is a racial slur used mostly to discriminate against Original Native people in Eastern and Southern Mexico, much of Northern Central America, in South American West Pacific Side Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Bolivia.

Indo-Mestizos usually have more Native American traits but may have a light pigmentation with completely Native American features or a dark pigmentation with some obvious Caucasian features.

Famous Indo-Mestizos include Maya Zapata, George Lopez, and Danny Trejo. They are so-called because of their appearance, not because of their known genetic background.

Mestizo Media

A casta painting by Miguel Cabrera. Here he shows a Spanish (español) father, Mestiza (mixed Spanish–Indigenous American) mother, and their Castiza daughter.
Luis de Mena, Virgin of Guadalupe and castas, 1750. The top left grouping is of an indio and an española, with their Mestizo son. This is the only known casta painting with an indio man and española woman.
A statue of Gonzalo Guerrero, who adopted the Maya way of life and fathered the first mestizo children in Mexico and in the mainland Americas (the only mestizos before were those born in the Caribbean to Spanish men and Indigenous Caribbean women)
Distribution of admixture estimates for individuals from Mexico City (left) and Quetalmahue, Chile (right). The position of each dot on the triangle plot indicates the proportion of European, indigenous American and African ancestry estimated for each individual in the population.
Chavela Vargas Mixed-Costa Rican Born - Singer
Keylor Navas Mixed-Costa Rican - Real Madrid Goalkeeper
Painting of the First Independence Movement celebration in San Salvador, El Salvador. At the center, José Matías Delgado, a Salvadoran priest and doctor known as El Padre de la Patria Salvadoreña (The Father of the Salvadoran Fatherland), alongside his nephew Manuel José Arce, future Salvadoran president of the Federal Republic of Central America.
Distribution of genetic ancestry among 441 individuals from Argentina by four major regions.