From Multiracial to Monoracial: The Formation of Mexican American Identities in the U.S. Southwest

The racialization of Mexican Americans in northern Mexico, that is, the U.S. Southwest, following Anglo-Americanization during second half nineteenth century, is an excellent case study historical formations Anglo-American and Spanish American racial orders. Both orders were based on a hierarchy privileged Whiteness stigmatized Blackness. Yet America’s high levels miscegenation resulted ternary allowing for gradation fluidity within categories, addition to formation multiracial identities, including those individuals with African ancestry. Anglo-America was characterized by restrictions more precise definitions categories. This prohibited identities while buttressing binary order broadly necessitated single-race (monoracial) identification as either White or nonWhite, specifically, Black, given their polar extremes hierarchy. Within this order, hypodescent applies most stringently ancestry through one-drop rule, which designates Black all such individuals. article examines monoracialization processes Mexican–American identity formations. Over twentieth shifted from Brown, but without any acknowledgment