
Mestizos in the United States

Mestizos in the United States are Hispanic and Latino Americans whose racial and/or ethnic identity is Mestizo, i.e. a mixed ancestry of European and Native American from Latin America (usually Ibero-Indigenous mixed ancestry).
This group does "not" include Métis people of the United States (usually with Anglo-Indigenous mixed ancestry) or Métis people of Canada (usually with Franco-Indigenous or Scottish-Indigenous mixed ancestry) residing in the US, nor does it include Tejanos, Nuevomexicanos, Louisiana Creoles, nor Multiracial Americans, whose ethnic identity is Native American or Latin American Indian. Their commonality is that they are all descendants of the indigenous American Indians and White Europeans. In fact the words Métis and Mestizos have the same meaning which is someone of American Indian and White European descent. Many Mestizos identify with their American Indian ancestry while others tend to self-identify with their European ancestry, others still celebrate both.
It is difficult to know the exact number of Latino Americans self-identifying as Mestizo, in part because "Mestizo" is not an official racial category in the Census. According to the 2010 United States Census, 36.7% of the 52 million Hispanic/Latino Americans identify as "some other race", and most of the remainder consider themselves white. Further complicating matters is the fact that many federal agencies such as the CDC or CIA do not even recognize the "some other race" category, including this population in the white category.
Representation in the media.
Mestizos are overrepresented in the U.S. mass media and in general American social perceptions, as "Hispanic" and "Latino" are often mistakenly given racial values, usually non-white and mixed race, such as mestizo or mulatto, in spite of the racial diversity of Hispanic and Latino Americans, while they are overlooked in the U.S. Hispanic mass media and in general U.S. Hispanic social perceptions; critics have accused the U.S. Hispanic mass media of overlooking the mestizo, mulatto and other multiracial Hispanic populations, the Latin American indigenous peoples, the black Hispanic populations and the stereotypical white Hispanics with olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes by excluding them in favor of blond, blue/green-eyed white Hispanic and Latino Americans, along with light-skinned mulatto and mestizo Hispanic and Latino Americans.