By Juan Carlos Finck Carrales 

According to recent official statistics, in Mexico there is a relation between people’s privileges and their skin color: The lighter, the more privilege.

However, social exclusion by racist practices in Mexico has been common practically since its Spanish conquest between 1519 and 1521, in which privileges where absorbed and monopolized by European settlers in Mexico (Spanish people: peninsulares) and their descendants (creole: criollos).

As a consequence, currently in Mexico, the color of skin affects people’s economic and political privileges and powers in individual and social levels related to their class, gender, culture, geographical position, etc.