White Mexicans

White Mexicans (Spanish: Mexicanos blancos) are Mexicans of total or predominantly European or ancestry. The Mexican government conducts surveys of skin color, but does not publish census results for race.

As a racial categorization, there is no single agreed-upon definition of white people. Estimates of Mexico's White population vary depending on context and due to different methodologies used. Latinobarómetro in 2023 and the Factbook in 2012 suggest that around 10% are White or have predominantly European ancestry. Britannica in 2000 and a 2005 study by a professor of the National Autonomous University of Mexico estimated the group both show around 15%. Mexico does not have a single system of skin color categorization. The term "light-skinned Mexican" is often used by the government to describe individuals in Mexico who possess European physical traits when discussing ethnicity. Social stratification and racism in Mexico have remained in the modern era. Although phenotype is not as important as culture, European features and lighter skin tone are favored by middle- and upper-class groups.

The presence of Europeans in Mexico dates back to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and during the colonial period, most European immigration was Spanish. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, significant waves of European and European-derived populations from North and South America immigrated to Mexico. This intermixing between European immigrants and Indigenous peoples resulted in the emergence of the Mestizo group, which became the majority of Mexico's population by the time of the Mexican Revolution. Some scholars challenge this narrative, citing church and census records that indicate interracial unions in Mexico were rare among all groups. These records also dispute other academic narratives, such as the idea that European immigrants were predominantly male or that "pure Spanish" individuals formed a small elite. In fact, Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in colonial cities and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of full Spanish origin.

While genetic evidence suggests that most European immigrants to Mexico were male, and that the modern population of Mexico was primarily formed through the mixing of Spanish males and Native American females, how pronounced said gender asymmetry was varies considerably depending on the study. The Native American maternal contribution figures range from 90% to 59%, while research on the X chromosome shows less variation, with the reported Native American female contribution oscillating between 50% and 54%. Present day Mestizos have varying degrees of European and Indigenous ancestry, with some having European genetic ancestry exceeding 90%, albeit after the Mexican Revolution the government began defining ethnicity on cultural standards (mainly the language spoken) rather than racial or phenotypic ones, which led to a large number of White persons to be classified as Mestizos.