History of Racial Mixing in America (Jorge Maldonado)

The discourse around America as a multicultural nation has been raging for centuries. It is no secret that racialization in America has deep roots within the caste system employed by the Spanish after their colonization of the Americas. In this system, different mixes of White, Black, and Indian had different names according to their proportion. Above, we see Juarez Juan Rodriguez’s 18th century painting of a particular caste titled, “From a Spanish man and an Indian woman a Mestizo boy is produced.” Of course, the Spanish put themselves at the very top and the rest were readily assembled in a hierarchy, an ideology that persists into today’s America. This social framework did not go unchallenged, with many people such as Wendell Philips and Randolph Bourne heralding the United States’ multiculturalism and mixing as the next step in the humanity’s cultural evolution. This progressive thought, however, received intense backlash by Whites, sparking the creation of a White narrative where race-mixing between Whites and non-Whites would result in cultural and genetic suicide. Although the foundational thought for a successfully culturally conglomerate America is out there, it remains to be seen whether it will be implemented by Americans.