section_path: Demographics/Ethnicity and race
section_name: Ethnicity and race
paragraph_text: Ethnicity and race
  
  Mexico's population is highly diverse, but research on Mexican ethnicity has felt the impact of nationalist discourses on identity. Since the 1930s, the Mexican government has promoted the view that all Mexicans are part of the Mestizo community, within which they are distinguished only by residence in or outside of an indigenous community, degree of fluency in an indigenous language, and degree of adherence to indigenous customs.
  
  It is not until very recently that the Mexican government began conducting surveys that consider other ethnic groups that live in the country, such as Afro-Mexicans (who comprised 2% of Mexico's population in 2020) or White Mexicans (47%). Less numerous groups in Mexico such as Asians and Middle Easterners are also accounted for, with numbers of around 1% each. While Mestizos are a prominent ethnic group in contemporary Mexico, the subjective and ever-changing definition of this category has led to its estimations being imprecise, having been observed that many Mexicans do not identify as Mestizos, favoring instead ethnoracial labels such as White or Indigenous due to having more consistent and "static" definitions.