you're welcome!
i just took your term "spanish heritage people" haha... i was going to add that it felt weird to call myself or mexicans like that...
the thing is when spanish came, there were many civilizations in what now is Mexico...and there was a massacre of people and their cultures ...also massive rapes...so..it was all mixed...
when they ruled...there was a caste system... kind of depending of the % of european... there were many many castes...
but at school we're only taught the main 3 :
1. Spanish born in Spain...
2. Criollo a spanish but born in Mexico (back then, New Spain)
3. Mestizo a son of spanish and mexican (local, any aztec, maya, etc)
--> there were more of classifying the back slaves and their own mixtures with locals
So, I should have referred mexicans as Mestizos, .. instead of "spanish heritage ppl" because we dont actually feel any connection to Spain (other than the language, even though our greatgrandgrangrangrand..parents or one of them was spanish) but since the term Mestizos is almost used for studying the mexicans during the spanish rule....
Some would give a speech of how proud he is for being a mestizo which means he has roots of the old civilizations (and he wouldn't even know to which exactly)...NOT the spanish
Unlike the indigenous people who didnt mix with the spanish.... so they kept their language and customs, dresses... they only adopted (or imposed?) the religion
But for most of us, we are just mexicans... regardless the civilization or ethnicity who used to rule in your place of birth before the spanish conquest...
so basically we're dark, fair, light, etc and we dont have a clear idea why ...except few cases like southeast where people are short and dark...we all know it's mayan heritage...
You're considered to be mexican for speaking spanish (mexican dialect) ,being born here ...or having a mexican parent