Mexicans

a nation, the bulk of the population of Mexico, numbering about 43 million (1971, estimate). In addition, about 4 million Mexicans live in the southwestern USA. Mexicans speak Spanish, in which there are many borrowings from various indigenous languages. Most Mexicans are Catholics. The Mexican nation evolved through the mixing of 16th-century Spanish conquerors and later Spanish settlers with various indigenous Indian groups, including the Aztecs, Mayas, Otomis, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs, and to some extent with Negroes brought from Africa as slaves. By the 19th century the mestizo nucleus of the nation had emerged. The development of capitalism, the national liberation struggle against Spanish colonial oppression (which culminated in 1821 in the creation of an independent state), and the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1910-17 contributed to the amalgamation of the Mexican people. Their striking and distinctive culture has preserved Spanish and Indian cultural traditions.