Model: Kristelle Louise Sumbilon
MUA & Photography @ ITSURA
According to Wikipedia, Mestiza or Mestizo is a term
traditionally used in Spain and Spanish-speaking America to mean a person of
combined European and Native American descent. The term was used as a racial
category in the casta system that was in use during the Spanish Empire’s control
of their American colonies.
To avoid confusion with the
original usage of the term mestizo,
mixed-race people started to be referred collectively as castas. During the colonial period,
mestizos quickly became the majority group in much of what is today 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 double meaning of mixed cultural heritage and
descent.
