Flexible Ethnicity

On Mexicans, buying Kaweah Indian Nation memberships:

"...it is a powerful contemporary example of historical fact: Mexicans long have used and manipulated race to improve their social status.

Unlike in the US, where race is understood as purely biological, in Mexico it's defined by culture and class as much as it is by DNA. An Indian, for example, is not simply someone with Indian blood, but an individual who behaves, dresses, and speaks "like an Indian." Someone of wholly Indian heritage who speaks Spanish and lives according to Hispanic (as opposed to indigenous) customs would be considered mestizo, or mixed. Not surprisingly, when race is a question of culture, it is a fluid and even changeable category.