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Californios

Californios (singular Californio) are Hispanic Californians, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there since 1683 and is made up of varying Spanish and Mexican origins, including criollos, Mestizos, Indigenous Californian peoples, and small numbers of Mulatos.[2] Alongside the Tejanos of Texas and Neomexicanos of New Mexico and Colorado, Californios are part of the larger Spanish-American/Mexican-American/Hispano community of the United States, which has inhabited the American Southwest and the West Coast since the 16th century. Some may also identify as Chicanos, a term that came about in the 1960s.

For the restaurant, see Californios (restaurant).

The term Californio (historical, regional Spanish for 'Californian') was originally applied by and to the Spanish-speaking residents of Las Californias during the periods of Spanish California and Mexican California, between 1683 and 1848. The first Californios were the children of the early Spanish military expeditions into northern reaches of the Californias. They established the presidios of California and subsequently enabled the foundation of the California mission system.[3]


Later, the primary cultural focus of the Californio population became the Vaquero tradition practiced by the landed gentry, who received large land grants and created the Rancho system.[4] In the 1820s-40s, American and European settlers increasingly migrated to Mexican California. Many married Californio women and became Mexican citizens, learning Spanish and often converting to Catholicism, the state religion. They are often also considered Californios, for their adherence to Californio language and culture.


In 2017 there were 11.9 million Hispanic/Mexican American/Hispanos in California (30% of California's population).[5] They make up the largest group of the 15.2 million California Hispanics, who total 40% of California's population.[6] 2004 studies estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 have ancestry descended from the Spanish and Mexican eras of California.[1]

Definitions[edit]

The term "Californio" has different meanings depending on the author or source. According to the Real Academia Española, a Californio is a person native to California.[7] Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a Californio as both a native or resident of this state and a specific ethnic group: the Spanish settlers and their descendants in California.[8]


Authors such as Douglas Monroy,[9] Damian Bacich[10] or Covadonga Lamar Prieto,[11] among others, define Californios as exclusively applying to Alta California residents and their descendants.  


Historians Hunt Janin and Ursula Carlson consider a Californio to be any settler who migrated to Alta California and their descendants; and also non-Hispanic immigrants who intermarried with Hispanics and integrated into the Californio culture during the Mexican era, and their descendants.[12]


Calisphere[13] and author Ferol Egan[14] restrict the meaning of Californio to the Californian elite who acquired land during the Spanish and Mexican periods and their descendants.


Leonard Pitt considers a Californio to be any Spanish-speaking person born in California.[15] Writer Jose Antonio Burciaga considers Californios to be any Hispanic living in California, even if they have lived there temporarily. Burciaga, in a 1995 Los Angeles Times article, points to such examples as Cesar Chavez, Luisa Moreno and Bert Corona.[16]


Although sources differ on some elements of classification, they have consensus that Californio includes at a minimum, Hispanic people with origins in Alta California.

Battle of Dominguez Rancho

San Buenaventura Mission

A portrayal of Californio culture is depicted in the novel (1884), written by Helen Hunt Jackson.

Ramona

The fictional character of has become the most identifiable Californio due to novels, short stories, motion pictures and the 1950s television series. The historical facts of the era are sometimes lost in the story-telling.

Zorro

recounted aspects of Californio culture which he saw during his 1834 visit as a sailor in Two Years Before the Mast.

Richard Henry Dana Jr.

a land realtor noted as the first Yankee to reside in the old Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1831, described Southern California as a paradise yet to be developed. He mentions a civilization of Spanish-speaking colonists, "Californios", who thrived in the pueblos, the missions, and ranchos.

Joseph Chapman

a novel set in 1880s California, depicts a very wealthy Californio family's legal struggles with immigrant squatters on their land.[69] The novel was based on the legal struggles of General Mariano G. Vallejo, a friend of the author. The novel depicts the legal process by which Californios were often "relieved" of their land. This process was long (most Californios spent up to 15 years defending their grants before the courts), and the legal fees were enough to make many Californios landless. Californios resented having to pay land taxes to United States officials, because the principle of paying taxes for land ownership did not exist in Mexican law. In some cases Californios had little available capital, because their economy had operated on a barter system; they often lost land because of the inability to pay the taxes.[70] They could not compete economically with the European and Anglo-American immigrants who arrived in the region with large amounts of cash.

Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, The Squatter and the Don

(1949-) speaks of growing up in the 20th century playing in the ruins of Missions and his family history as Californios in The medicine of memory : a Mexica clan in California.

Alejandro Murguía

's 1985 horror novel Brain Child features a backstory heavily involving Californio settlers and their descendents.

John Saul

Ávila family of California

Berryessa family of California

Careaga family of California

Carrillo family of California

Estudillo family of California

Guerra family of California

Lugo family of California

Pico family of California

Sepúlveda family of California

Hispanics

Neomexicanos

Tejanos

Chicanos

Mexican Americans

Spanish Americans

Isleños

Floridanos

Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Guide to the Amador, Yorba, López, and Cota families correspondence.

Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Guide to the Orange County Californio Families Portrait Photograph Album.