Mestizaje

In contrast to the ideas of racial purity favored in Europe (see, for example, de Gobineau, 1915), understandings of race in many countries of Latin America, including Mexico, stem from this idea of mixture (Hartigan, 2013; Wade et al., 2014). The myth of mestizaje is anchored in earlier colonial times and the arrival to the “New World” of European conquistadores, imagined mainly as men, who had intimate relations with Indigenous women (Gutiérrez Chong, 2019; Navarrete and Jones, 2020). The sexual encounter of different “types” of humans (see Figure 1) led to the creation of a complex set of “human types” categorized according to the different mixes they represented. The resulting complex casta system had the mestizo at the core (Carrera, 2002).

Thus, the idea of mestizaje and mestizo became central to the Mexican national ideology (Loveman, 2014; Olarte Sierra and Díaz del Castillo, 2014; Wade, 2017; Wade et al., 2014). Various intellectuals recovered this myth during the twentieth century and created the idea of a mestizo population. This idea was then reproduced through the anthropological, sociological, and, more recently, genetic work of various scientists, as well as different technologies (Lomnitz, 2001, Loveman, 2014; García Deister and López Beltrán, 2013). The next section explores how all of these factors come together in two such technologies used in policing. [3]

Cryptoraciality: Creating a Mexican Mestizo

The first technology I discuss is the criteria for self-identification offered as part of the National Survey of Imprisoned Population (Encuesta Nacional de Población Privada de la Libertad, or ENPOL). This survey was designed to generate statistical information on the demographic and socioeconomic profile of the imprisoned population in Mexico and the prosecution and detention process (INEGI, 2021). Using categories like language, ethnic identity, physical characteristics, and skin color to define Indigeneity, the data can determine instances of discrimination and racism. In the survey, Indigeneity is defined not only through traditional linguistic criteria, in which speaking an Indigenous language is proof of having an Indigenous identity, but also through self-ascription, an innovation that can have positive consequences in the judicial process because it allows, in theory, for the provision of a culturally adequate defense (Pichardo Ramírez, 2020). Allowing people to self-identify as Indigenous even if they would not count as such under the usual criteria (for instance, the use of traditional clothes, the reproduction of cultural traditions, and the possession of an Indigenous language) can help foster a less essentialized understanding of Indigenous identity and challenge stereotypical views that the loss of traditional customs is the loss of Indigeneity.

The second technology I discuss is Caramex, a photographic database created to produce “more realistic” composite sketches of Mexican faces to be used by experts (peritos) involved in identifying criminals. Created by renowned physical anthropologists working at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the database was later implemented in the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (then, Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal, today, Fiscalia General de Justicia de la Ciudad de México). The use of the images is mostly restricted to the investigators involved in a case and is intended to be used to support the localization and final apprehension of suspects. However, these images sometimes appear in public spaces (Figure 2).

Figure 2. “If you recognize them, denounce them.” Composite sketches using Caramex  and traditional freehand “mano alzada’’ drawing technique depicted in a subway wagon in Mexico City, 2015. Photograph by author.

There are two motivations for the creation of this database. On the one hand, it is part of the general plan, initiated in the 1990s, to standardize Mexico’s judicial system. As such, it is intended to standardize and improve processes of criminal identification by generating photolike composites instead of drawings. On the other hand, it is a way to improve the portraits of “Mexican faces”—a task that other composite systems, like Identi-Kit and Photo-Fit, were not able to perform (Nieves Delgado, 2020)—an improvement that is achieved by studying the facial diversity of the Mexican population.

I argue that the process of constructing and populating the database to represent the diversity of the Mexican population is informed by racial ideas of mestizaje. To collect photographs for the database, researchers went to the places the historical processes of mestizaje allegedly took place and where characteristics of each of the original three “types” (European, Indigenous, and Afro) are still found. For example, it is assumed that communities located on the coastlines of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico have more African features (Serrano et al., 1998, 62), whereas the northern states, whose populations are allegedly of a higher socioeconomic status, retain more European characteristics (see Martínez Casas et al., 2014). There is also a commonly held belief that certain areas in Mexico, such as the Jaliscan Highlands, have a higher percentage of blond people. These people are often contrasted with, for example, the “very typical Mayan population” of Brown people in Yucatán (Nieves Delgado, 2020). The sampling process to create the photographic database follows these assumptions. In this case, the design of the technology relies implicitly on a racial story that portrays Mexico as a racially admixed country of European, Indigenous, and African people who met 400 years ago and created a population that is racially different to anyone else. As a result, the “Mexican face” is understood to be something specific to this mestizaje process. The use of this photographic database and its success is then taken to testify to such difference.

Interestingly, the use of Caramex requires a lot of tinkering on the part of the expert. Experts are constantly uploading new pictures from the Internet to finish their composite sketches. This incorporation of random images throws into question the racial stability of the Mexican face. In this sense, Caramex shows that technologies can both reproduce and contest racial stereotypes. This insight can open new ways to interrogate technologies and their effects in policing. Moreover, it invites us to reconsider the myths underlying the construction of the Mexican national ideology and to question old stereotypes about the diversity found in the territory.

These two technologies illustrate how race and racism are produced and justified in policing practices in Mexico. Broader criteria for self-identification as Indigenous can contribute to building a nonessentialist understanding of Indigeneity and more culturally adequate judicial processes. Caramex can also question the assumed racial homogeneity of the Mexican and make more explicit the stereotypes at play in our ways of seeing, especially within policing practices (i.e., those of the poor, Brown/Indigenous criminal). At the same time, Caramex can corroborate these same stereotypes and expectations. By helping to create allegedly more objective and realistic portraits, it can foster the instantiation of criminality in a Brown/Indigenous-looking face. Similar analyses can be done with other technologies involved in the justice system, like CODIS and ABIS. Does the idea of mestizaje also play a role in how these databases are produced? The CODIS database in the United States, for example, has significant disparity in the number of profiles of Black people compared to White people (Murphy and Tong, 2020). If the CODIS database in Mexico suffers from a similar disparity in profiles from Brown, Indigenous, and Afrodescendant people compared to White people, it could be another source of racial bias in the judicial system and another tool for the criminalization of vulnerable populations.

Racism and Policing in Cryptoracial Societies

Several studies corroborate the many ways discrimination is enacted (see Color de Piel, n.d.; INEGI 2017). It is not a surprise that the pervasive lack of opportunities for those in structurally disadvantaged positions can lead them to commit crimes. And, in a feedback loop, it is those located towards the poorest, darkest side of the racial spectrum who are then criminalized (including disproportionate stop and searches, disproportionate use of preventive incarceration, and limited access to good legal aid and fair trials). In other words, structural racism leads to the criminalization of poor, racialized populations. For this reason, it is the poorest, not the most dangerous, individuals who populate prisons in Mexico (Azaola and Bergman, 2007, 112).

While Mexicans may proclaim, “We are all mestizos,” it is clear from these studies that we are not all the same. As Peter Wade argued, “The idea of a common mestizo identity for the nation creates a ground for racial democracy, but simultaneously provides a space within which blackness, indigeneity and whiteness are hierarchically valued” (2017, 17). In Mexico, whiteness is at the top of this racial hierarchy and, in general, whiter features are considered more desirable (Arceo-Gomez and Campos-Vazquez, 2019; Villareal, 2010). Thus, part of the deep inequality suffered in the country comes from a racialized way of seeing that systematically favors whiteness. This way of seeing has historical origins and pervades current society.

There is a pressing need to debunk old racial stereotypes that inform the ways we see ourselves and others, including a serious consideration of how technologies used at the different stages of the judicial process can create and reproduce racial inequalities. The incorporation of new criteria for self-identification in the ENPOL survey can build an understanding of Indigeneity not as an essentialized identity but as one that can flow and change over time. Similarly, looking closely at facial diversity in Mexico can help to destabilize ideas of racial homogeneity. In reflecting on our assumptions about human diversity and its role in racial profiling and discriminatory practices in Mexico and other cryptoracial societies, this research has shown that the implementation of these two technologies and their ability to improve or bias the judicial process can significantly influence vulnerable groups’ lives. Ensuring these technologies do not reinforce racial inequities will support efforts to realize justice in Mexico.