282 CHAPTER 12 | Modern Human Diversity: Race and RacismIndian language; live in a thatched hut or a European-style
house; and so forth. Thus an Indio—by speaking Spanish,
wearing Western-style clothes, and living in a house in a
non-Indio neighborhood—ceases to be an Indio, no matter
how many “Indio genes” he or she may possess.
This sort of confusion of nonbiological characteristics
with the biological notion of heredity is by no means limited
to Latin American societies. To various extents, such confu-
sion is found in most societies of Europe and North America.
Take, for example, the fact that the racial categories used by
the U.S. Census Bureau change with every census. Large
catch-all categories (white, black, American Indian or Alas-
kan Native, Asian and Pacific Islander or native Hawaiian)
include diverse peoples. Asian, for example, includes such
different peoples as Chinese and East Indians, whereas nativeConflation of the Biological
into the Cultural Category
of Race
While the biological race concept is not applicable to hu-
man variation, nevertheless race exists as a significant
cultural category. Human groups frequently insert a false
notion of biological difference into the cultural category of
race to make it appear more factual and objective. In vari-
ous ways, cultures define religious, linguistic, and ethnic
groups as “races,” thereby confusing linguistic and cultural
traits with physical traits.
For example, in many Latin American countries, people
are commonly classified as Indio (Indian), Mestizo (mixed),
or Ladino (of Spanish descent). But despite the biological
connotations of these terms, the criteria used for assigning
individuals to these categories involve things such as whether
they wear shoes, sandals, or go barefoot; speak Spanish or anYao Ming, center for the Houston Rockets, receives his Special
Olympics Global Ambassador jersey from athlete Xu Chuang (left)
and Special Olympics East Asia President Dicken Yung. Standing
side by side, these three individuals illustrate the wide range of
variation seen within a single so-called racial category.© AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko
In colonial Mexico, sixteen different castas (“castes”) were named,
giving specific labels to individuals who were various combinations
of Spanish, Indian, and African ancestry. These paintings of castas
are traditionally arranged from light to dark as a series and reflect an
effort to impose hierarchy despite the fluid social system in place.
In the United States the hierarchy was more rigid; the “one drop
rule,” also known as hypodescent, would ascribe the “lower” position
to individuals if they had even one drop of blood from a grouping
within the hierarchy.© Schalkwijik/Art Resource, NY