Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Mestizo racism in Ecuador

Karem Roitman & Alexis Oviedo

To cite this article: Karem Roitman & Alexis Oviedo (2017) Mestizo racism in Ecuador, Ethnic and
Racial Studies, 40:15, 2768-2786, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2016.1260749

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1260749

Published online: 08 Dec 2016.

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ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES, 2017
VOL. 40, NO. 15, 2768–2786
https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1260749

Mestizo racism in Ecuador

Karem Roitmana and Alexis Oviedob
a
Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Oxford, UK; bDepartment of Education,
Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (Sede Ecuador), Quito, Ecuador

ABSTRACT
This paper uses semi-structured interviews with Ecuadorian “white mestizos” of
the upper classes to provide insights into the nature of racism in Ecuador.
Interview data illuminate the specifics of racism and discrimination suffered
by some of those labelled as mestizos, demolishing anew the idea of a
homogenous mestizaje. Longo and cholo emerge as specific ethnic
terminology used to create a racial/class distinctions among mestizos
struggling for ethnoracial capital in a newly defined plurinational and
intercultural state. These findings are contrasted with recent progressive state
policies that address the plight of groups historically marginalized or ignored
by the Ecuadorian narrative of mestizaje, but fail to look within mestizaje to
battle against the remnants of colonial constructions of power and difference.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 20 July 2015; Accepted 7 November 2016

KEYWORDS Racism; Ecuador; mestizaje; ethnoracial capital; longo; cholo

Introduction
Ecuador’s current President, Rafael Correa, has promised a revolución ciuda-
dana (citizens’ revolution) to bring justice and equality to the forgotten and
oppressed. Justice and equality, however, are distant ideals for a country
that is still battling to understand and heal its colonial racial wounds, many
of which are hidden beneath the rhetoric of an all-inclusive mestizaje. This
paper delves into the subtle ways racial barriers are created in the struggle
for ethnic capital among mestizos in Ecuador. Through a critical study of the
racial terminology used by the upper classes of Ecuador’s two main cities,
Quito and Guayaquil, we look at racial dynamics not addressed by state pol-
icies still fixated in a mestizo mindset, and argue that significant racism is
hidden within mestizaje, undermining the ethnic capital of darker skinned
mestizos. To help our readers understand our findings we begin with a
brief background on mestizaje, elites, and anti-racism policies in Ecuador;
move on to summarize our methodology; and then concentrate on our

CONTACT Karem Roitman [email protected]

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2769

findings: how racism is understood in Ecuador, what it leaves out, and how
longos and cholos are discriminated under the premise of an embracive
mestizaje.
The paper’s theoretical framework develops Bourdieu’s work on the types
of capital that serve to create and maintain inequalities (Bourdieu 1986). We
build on research that seeks to understand the nexus of ethnicity/race, and
social, economic, cultural, and symbolic capitals (Molyneux 2001; Reynolds
2010; Moran 2016). We advance the idea of ethnoracial1 capital, which is
the value an ethnoracial identity has in obtaining access to social, economic,
or cultural capital in an unequal society where these capitals can be inter-
changed. Racism devalues others’ ethnoracial capital. The idea of ethnoracial
capital is relevant beyond Ecuador and Latin America as it adds to studies on
social cohesion that seek to understand how ethnicity/race and gender can
affect social capital (Demireva 2015). We focus particularly in Ecuadorian
elites’ strategies to undermine the ethnoracial capital of those who share
their same ethnic label: mestizos.
Our analysis also contributes to an important body of work discussing how
the narrative of mestizaje has impacted racism (De la Cadena 2000, 2005;
Hooker 2005; Hale 2006; Roitman 2009; Wade 2005). Recent research has
sought to understand how the mestizo narrative affects local opinions on
racial inequalities and social integration, studying how minorities are
viewed and how they see themselves in relation to integration through mes-
tizaje (Telles and Bailey 2013; Telles and Garcia 2013). However, using survey
data to decipher relations between mestizos is difficult, as the category hides
the diversity within it. Bailey, Saperstein, and Penner (2014) discuss the link
between skin colour and socio-economic ranking, complicating the mestizo
label and providing an insightful analysis of the multi-dimensional nature of
racism. Our research adds to these macro analyses by bringing in micro-
details that are necessary for fruitful policy creation. It also opens the door
for future survey research that might want to use the identity labels our inter-
view data highlights: cholo and longo.2 Survey work on these labels has yet to
be undertaken, and research on their use is limited (Jijón y Chiluisa 1999;
Torres Cardenas and Patiño Rodríguez 2002; Fletcher 2003).

Ecuadorian elites, mestizaje, and state policies against racism

Little has been written about the upper classes in Ecuador in terms of their
ethnic identity or ethnoracial narratives (Cuvi 2003; Bowen 2011), in part
because they are difficult to reach (Marcus 1983; Shore and Nugent 2002),
in part because of the exoticization of the research subject (Tujiwai Smith
1999), and in part because their attitudes are assumed as understood, as
the blank norm against which to study others and formulate policy (Ward
and Jones 1999). Scholarship on Ecuador identifies the upper classes as
2770 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

“white mestizos”, hinting at a racial or colour distance of this group from other
mestizos (Whitten 2003a, 2003b). Our research shows that these upper classes
have adapted the mestizo narrative to guard their ethnoracial capital. By
defining acculturation into mestizaje as the road to progress, and themselves
as the standards to be emulated, Ecuadorian upper classes have propped up
the value of their “white mestizo” identity. Yet as others have reclaimed mes-
tizaje, and those nominally understood as mestizos have gained in edu-
cational and monetary capital, the upper classes are incentivized to
differentiate themselves from “other mestizos”. Analysing interviewee
responses we see that this demarcation takes place through a racial logic
that becomes evident when the neologisms longo and cholo are invoked.
Research and policies on racism in Ecuador have emerged from an acknowl-
edgement that the state’s mestizo discourse has historically erased afroecua-
dorians and repressed indigenous identities, presenting the latter as ancestral
vestiges to be “cleansed” (Clark 1998a, 1998b; Martinez-Echazabal 1998;
Almeida Vinueza 1999; Espinosa Apolo 2000; Ibarra 2000; Muratorio 2000;
Rivera Velez 2000; Rivera and Cervone 1999; Rahier 2008, 2011; Cervone
2010). Dynamics within mestizaje, however, have attracted sparse attention.
As a state project, mestizaje can be used to unify under a banner of
common mixture, or to separate under classification models that rank
various purities and blends. As elites from Mexico to Chile found in mestizaje
a representative national symbol after independence (Knight in Soto Quirós,
and Díaz 2007), the mestizo narrative has served to structure complex confla-
tions of race, class, and gender.3 While at times it has been romanticized, as in
the work of the Mexican Vasconcelos who lauded mestizos as the “cosmic
race”, mestizaje involves complex power structures within and between emer-
gent mixtures. Aware of these structures, Gloria Anzaldúa presents the
mestizo as: “a mutable, more malleable species with a rich gene pool”,
often trying to reach the “white’s river bank” and hiding their “indian side”
(Anzaldúa 2007; Sylva, Oviedo, and Moncada 2011). The mestizo is, then, a
hybrid, a third space, where new liminal forms emerge to surpass and even
contest their sources (Homi Bhabha in Mitchell 1995). Yet the mestizo con-
testation is a struggle, and one that few win. Thus Spivak notes that while a
few exploit and benefit from hybridity (the “brown workers of the World
Bank, IMF”, etc.), the impasse of others is forgotten (in Hutnyk 2005).
In the case of Ecuador, as Guerrero (1997) summarizes, until 1857 ethnici-
ties were legally separated: each given different rights and responsibilities.
When the Indian Tribute ended in 1857 and citizenship was extended,
partly in response to the growth of the middle classes and the labour move-
ment in the early twentieth century, mestizaje became a consolidating
national narrative. This narrative sought to homogenize the population, ignor-
ing or devaluing non-mestizos (Stutzman 1981; Oviedo 2004). Then in the
mid-1990s Ecuador entered a third period where various ethnoracial groups
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2771

seek to escape the suffocating mestizo narrative and demand protection,

opportunity, and recognition.
In this last period there has been a significant three-pronged advance in
anti-racism: an increase in relevant data collection; the development of struc-
tures to counter racist and discriminatory practices; and an attempt to change
the ideological structures sustaining racial thinking in the country.
Following the Action Plan of the 2004 UN Third World Conference against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Other Forms of Intolerance,
the Ecuadorian government undertook its first national survey on racism, cul-
minating in the report “Racism and Discrimination in Ecuador” (Secretaría
Técnica del Frente Social [STFS] 2004). In keeping with the conference’s
focus on racism and discrimination against black Africans, the report
focused its attention on afroecuadorians, and led to the creation of a
“System of Social Indexes of Afroecuadorian Peoples”, a division inside the
System of Social Indexes of Ecuador (SISE). This project, led by afroecuador-
ians, constitutes a breaking point in quantitative academic research, tradition-
ally developed under white mestizo hegemony, as demonstrated by the fact
that until the World Bank funded PRODEPINE (the “Indigenous and Afro-Ecua-
dorian Peoples Development Project”) in 1998, there were no estimates of the
size of the afroecuadorian population (Guerrero 2006, 15).
The report improved the focus of policy discussion in Ecuador by providing
a richer definition of racism as: “ … a systematic set of ideas, behaviours and
social practices with discriminatory intention and contempt towards any
person, for her/his phenotypic and genotypic features” (STFS 2004, 8). Enga-
ging with decolonization theory, the report underlined that racism and dis-
crimination operate as ideological and structural phenomena and cannot
be explained only in terms of racial prejudices and a lack of education
(Quijano 2000, 533–580). It recognized the racial oppression exercised by
the hegemonic mestizo narrative, focusing on opposing atavistic and natura-
lized forms of discrimination and domination in the country.
Constitutional changes have paved the way for application of the reports’
findings. While the 1998 Constitution declared Ecuador a pluricultural and
multi-ethnic state, the 2008 Constitution defines the State as “ … intercultural,
plurinational and lay” (Asamblea Constituyente 2008). The recognition of inter-
culturality implies the rejection of all forms of racism and discrimination
(Schmelkes 2005) and a plurinational state recognizes diversity of Ecuadorians
not only in ethnic terms, but also legitimating various habitus (Bourdieu 1996).
The state is then presented as a mosaic of various equally valued peoples and
nationalities (Quintero and Silva 2010).
Article 56 of the 2008 Constitution states that “indigenous communities,
peoples [pueblos] and nationalities, Afroecuadorian people, Montubio
people, and the comunas are part of the Ecuadorian State” (Asamblea Consti-
tuyente 2008). This officially ends the conception of a uninational State under
2772 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

the hegemony of white mestizos (Santos 2010). Chapter 4, Articles 56–60,

explicitly lay out the rights of these peoples to their territories, traditions,
and customs, and recognizes the need for reparations. Further, while the
1998 Constitution defined racism only in terms of communication, the new
organic, integral, penal code (Código Orgánico Integral Penal, COIP) typifies
discrimination as a crime in Article 176 (GRE 2014).
To make the constitutional mandate effective, president Rafael Correa
decreed to “Approve and apply as public policy in all state organs the Plurina-
tional Plan to Eliminate Racial Discrimination and Ethnic-Cultural Exclusion”
(Decree #60) (GRE 2009, 10). The Councils for Development of Indigenous
Nationalities, Afroecuadorians, and Montubio People, jointly devised the
plan to “ … re-valuate the role of nationalities and peoples: indigenous, afroe-
cuadorian, montubio and mestizo, in the past and present, as foundations of
Ecuadorian nationality” (GRE 2009, 31).4 Nevertheless, only some state insti-
tutions operationalized the plan. The Ministry of Culture’s Policies for the Cul-
tural Revolution (2010–2013) put “Decolonization” and the “New
Contemporary Ecuadorian Identity” as two of its programmatic axes. This Min-
istry was unique in its attempt to decolonize its discourse, declaring the need
to address the:
Footprint of the colonial heritage, this sense of WE, that historically excluded
indigenous people and people of African descent, in a discourse elaborated
from the seat of power presenting negative, degrading, and devaluing
notions and images of Ecuadorian men and women. (Sylva, Oviedo, and
Moncada 2011, 8)

The Ministry of Culture further developed important projects against racism,

including a project to eliminate institutional racism, and a project for public
servants in the ministry to learn, as part of their job duties, the indigenous
language of their area of expertise. However, due to a lack of resources and
personnel turnover the language project drowned during its pilot. In contrast,
other ministries stuck to fulfilling technocratic commands rather than seeking
a substantial change to their ideological frameworks. The education sector is a
case in point.5
In 2010 the National Assembly began discussions on the Organic Law of
Intercultural Education (LOEI). Since its first draft there was an evident push
for homogenization (González Terreros 2011). One of the crucial points was
the end of the political and administrative autonomy of the Intercultural
and Bilingual Education Direction (DINEIB), in charge of indigenous national-
ities’ education. The DINEIB was replaced by the Sub-secretariat of Intercul-
tural Education (GRE 2011). While the authorities of the DINEIB were elected
by national indigenous organizations with the participation of local
members, the Ministry of Education now chooses the Sub-secretary of Inter-
cultural Education. Education in native languages and the preservation of
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2773

native traditions and costumes, have not significantly improved since the Sub-
secretariat’s inception, which some indigenous leaders have called calamitous
(La Hora 2013). Furthermore, intercultural, bilingual schools, received “official
interventions”, meaning their schedule and grading were reorganized to fit
the homogenizing regulations of the Ministry of Education (Torres 2013).
This brief overview of public policies allows us to note several things: there
have been significant attempts to understand and address the marginaliza-
tion of various ethnic/cultural communities in Ecuador since 1998, with an
anti-racism structure and a new state identity narrative in place since the
2008 Constitution. There is also an awareness of the need for ideological
change to sustain socio-economic programmes. However, policies have
focused exclusively on state identified ethnic minorities, ignoring racial narra-
tives and dynamics within mestizaje. No research has focused on the elites
and how they build/maintain existing narratives of inequality and difference.
Our paper partly addresses these lacunas by investigating how elite dis-
courses form racial barriers between mestizos. Before turning to discuss
how elites understand racism and sustain it within the mestizo narrative,
however, we wish to briefly present our methodology.

Methodology
This paper is part of a larger study of ethnic narratives in Quito and Guayaquil6
conducted between 2003 and 2009, which included media analysis, partici-
pant observation, and interviews. Thirty university-aged, middle-upper class
youths were interviewed in Quito, eight in Guayaquil; as well as forty
(twenty-five men and fifteen women) working-age individuals of upper
socio-economic standing in Quito; and thirty-seven in Guayaquil (eighteen
men and nineteen women). We made use of existing connections between
younger and older interviewees to triangulate responses and gain insights.
For example, younger interviewees were often our first contacts and they
brought up racist terminology which we then used to question older intervie-
wees – who sometimes only discussed these terminology when directly ques-
tioned about it. Younger and older interviewees were sometimes related and
relayed the same stories to us, allowing us to compare responses for inconsis-
tencies that granted glimpses into narratives and power structures. Future
research will engage further with gender and generational differences in
ethnic narratives. Interviewees included four former Ecuadorian Presidents,
several government ministers and previous ambassadors, presidents of the
Central Bank, as well as many key figures from prestigious social and civil
service organization (Junta de Beneficencia de Guayaquil, Kiwanis Club,
Club de la Union, Club de Rotarios, Yatch Club, Club El Condado), and
various members of traditional “elite” families. Our research was made poss-
ible by personal access to gatekeepers and, once connections were
2774 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

established, a snowballing technique was used to gather participants. This

implies a certain connection between interviewees and interviewers, requir-
ing constant reflexivity in the research process (Bourdieu 2003). All interviews
were undertaken in Spanish, transcribed, and then translated. Student inter-
views followed a semi-structured schedule, other interviews were largely
unstructured, and all interviews covered three areas: definition of racism,
role of the upper classes, and the dynamics and labels within mestizaje.
Once interview data were collected, it was reviewed for overlapping
themes, keywords, gender and generational diversity, and outliers. For the
purpose of this paper we concentrated on interviewees’ definitions of
racism and their ethnic terminology. All informants were fully informed of
the research purposes, granting informed consent.7 The identity of intervie-
wees has been anonymized through fictional names.

Racism and elites in Ecuador

According to Ecuador’s 2004 “Racism and Discrimination Survey” “62 per cent
of Ecuadorians believe there is racism in the country, although only 10 per
cent consider themselves openly racist, with whites the most racist (14 per
cent) and afroecuadorians the least (5 per cent)” (El Mercurio 2005). Indigenous
people ranked in second place, apparently being more racist than mestizos,
who ranked third (Klinkicht 2005). Of course, different definitions of racism
will result in different measurements: for instance, while “63% … acknowl-
edged that in Ecuador there are prejudices against afroecuadorians … only
9% acknowledge having or being responsible for these … ”. Yet when the
2004 survey directors created an “Index of Indirect Racial Prejudice” against
afroecuadorians, they calculated that seventy-six per cent of the population
participated in unacknowledged, racist practices (Klinkicht 2005). Further
complicating these statistics, Beck, Mijeski, and Stark found that almost half
of the respondents “claimed not to know what racism was, slightly less
than two-thirds said they did not know what racial discrimination was, and
almost 70 per cent claimed not to know anything about racial prejudice”,
with education and rural/urban location having great explanatory power in
their model (2011, 120). In short, there is no general understanding of what
racism is; and existing views are refracted by prisms of education, personal
identity, and location. Effective state anti-racism policies must be based on
a grounded, qualitative understanding of how racism works at the local level.8
Few of our interviewees, especially among working-age respondents,
stated unequivocally that racism existed in Ecuador. Thus Ximena was rare
in noting “The Ecuadorian has been racist by principle, and this has limited
[individuals’] access to everything” (Ximena/Quito 2005).9 More often respon-
dents argued that racism is not a problem in modern Ecuador:
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2775

It depends on how you define racism: if it is a negative attitude toward other races,
blocking development opportunities for them, I would say that this is not signifi-
cant here [in Guayaquil] … (Nicolas/Guayaquil 2005)

And again:
I don’t think there is still racism in Ecuador … Although we must consider that it
is a natural human tendency to try to have one’s own group. But racism, racism
in Ecuador, I have not seen! (Ana/Quito 2005)

Like Ana, most interviewees argued that racism is insignificant and/or decreas-
ing in Ecuador, even while acknowledging the existence of geographical and
social separation by phenotypes, or “ones own group”. To explain what
“racism really is”, interviewees often used the United States and South
Africa as illustrations:
I think that racism doesn’t exist [in Ecuador], as it does in the US, or in South
Africa … To think less of, or to hate, an Indian is just something I don’t do.
What I feel toward them is pity … because all the governments use them …
[There is also no racism] against the black because there are so few they
don’t even cross our mind … (Carolina/Quito 2005)

I can sincerely tell you that I have never seen a problem of racial segregation in
Ecuador … And I have traveled much [as Minister and Ambassador] … we can
compare Ecuador with the United States … [in the 1950s] it really caught my
attention that blacks could only sit in the back of the bus … [in Ecuador]
certain races have been more economically exploited. (Joseph/Guayaquil 2005)

Through their comparisons with the USA and South Africa, interviewees
implicitly defined racism as violent, institutionalized actions against a formally
defined racial group. While state supported or mandated segregation was pre-
sented as racism, racial separation that has evolved from a state’s narrative,
such as mestizaje, was understood as local “tradition” rather than racism.
Rethoric that infantalizes ethnoracial groups was also not understood as
racist. The racialization of space, where different ethnoracial groups tend to
live and work in specific areas of the country, as well as social separation by
phenotypes, were naturalized and unlinked to any racial motive. Knowledge
of the extent to which social space is racialized in Ecuador appears limited,
moreover, as exemplified by the former Minister applauding the lack of seg-
regation in Ecuadorian buses. The burden of poverty on minorities was dis-
cussed as the result of economic and governmental mismanagement of
uninformed masses, not racism.
If interviewees understand racism as existing only between formally
defined identities, then state instruments, like censuses, frame what inter-
actions are understood as racist. In relation to mestizaje, state instruments
establish a single “mestizo” group, listed along with other recognized identi-
ties: white, black (and mulato), indigenous, montubios.10 It is then
2776 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

unsurprising that interviewees did not broach the possibility of racism

between mestizos, and always discussed racism in terms of white/mestizos
versus blacks/indigenous:
Sadly, I do think that there is discrimination. I think that if you look white you can
more easily enter anywhere … at [an elite university] there are many indigenous
students … who have been given interviews in certain companies, and the
doormen of the companies wont let them enter because they cannot believe
that [they] are going to an interview. (Gloria/Quito 2005)

In Ecuador we have had prejudices primarily against afroecuadorians and indi-

genous people … (Emanuel/Quito 2005)

… in the last few years the few Indians who have been able to reach the univer-
sities have succeeded and that has sort of woken up their people from the
morass in which they have been … So I don’t think one can speak of racism
in Ecuador. (Carolina/Quito 2005)

Importantly, several interviewees placed the blame for discrimination on the

backs of its victims, who must “wake from their morass”. Racism, then, was
presented as the result of an omission by the victim rather than an act of dom-
ination. This victim-blaming position aligns with representations of structural
oppression as simply “natural”, “local traditions” and, as we will later note, was
invoked to explain the oppression of longos and cholos.

Mestizaje, racism, and racist mestizos

When discussing their own identity, most interviewees identified themselves
as mestizos. Tomaso, a student in Quito, noted:
Now everyone is a mestizo because … through the media people are learning
that the autochthonous values of Indigenous people are good, or [at least]
not as bad as they were thought to be … Moreover it is now trendy to say
“yes, I am [partly] Indian.” It is a process of self-expiation for the past. (2005)

Tomaso’s statement exemplifies a pattern among interviewees in Quito: when

asked to speak about their ethnic identity or ethnic relations in Ecuador, most
began by highlighting that in the last decade they had learned “we are all
mestizos”. Yet, when questioned, interviewees acknowledged differences
within the mestizo group. Andres, for example, stated that there are “econ-
omic and also physical differences … as some [mestizos] look more like
Indians” (Quito 2003).
When asked to expand on what differentiates mestizos, interviewees’
answers engaged with the extent to which what Bourdieu would term cul-
tural, economic, and social capitals can overcome racial separations. Edu-
cation was often presented as a panacea to solve social inequalities,
especially, but not only, among working-age interviewees. Miguel, an econ-
omics student, for example, stated “Education plays a very important role
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2777

within mestizaje, because it is what allows people to break racial and ethnic
barriers” (Quito 2003). Yet, the majority of university-aged interviewees
emphasized the feedback mechanisms between education, race, and econ-
omic resources. In other words, education affects socio-economic well-
being and racial identity, but it is also a function of these. For instance,
… if you attend “El Americano” [private school], it is expected that you will be
white and from money … in “Mejía” [state school] you will find only “longos men-
sajeros” [“longo” couriers] even if they have money … [or] janitors’ children.
(Julian/Quito 2003)

Younger interviewees stressed that education does not present the ultimate
exit from ethnoracial chains. For example, Susana declared:
There are people who are prepared11 but they are not that pleasant [“right
image”], agradables12 and because of that they are not given work. (Susana/
Quito 2003)

Economic capital was a second variable discussed for its power to nullify ethno-
racial barriers. As Julian declared,“ … if one sees a mestizo, a ‘cholito’ with good
education, who ends up with money, people will see him as less of a cholito”.
Similarly, Patricio noted, “there are no real physical differences [between mes-
tizos] because … the determinant is money” (Patricio/Quito 2003). Yet other
responses threw shadows on this whitening argument. Ironically, respondents
would often describe an individual’s appearance to argue that phenotypes
were of no consequence, demonstrating the social salience of racial character-
istics. For instance, Galo noted: “even though he looks like an Indian, he has
been accepted by mestizos” (Galo/Quito 2005). A well-known, wealthy Ecuador-
ian lawyer was used to exemplify this dynamic; a man of “indigenous features”
he was deemed a “janitor dressed as a lawyer” and as “[forever the] son of a
worker” despite his educational and economic achievements (Patricio and
Esteban/Quito 2003). Other respondents similarly explained:
If I … play football with some guangudo13, even though we are both wearing the
same clothes, one can still see the difference. Deep down physical characteristics
are fundamental, regardless of socio-economic status. (Julian/Quito 2003)

It usually goes together: poverty with more indigenous phenotypes, with less
access to education. They [those with indigenous phenotypes] have fewer
opportunities than the less mestizos’. (Ximena/ Quito 2003)

Often it was when interviewees brought up the idea of physical differences

between mestizos that they made use of the word longo.
… there are economic differences and there are also physical differences
[between mestizos], some look more like Indians … these are the ones that are
called longos because of the way they speak … because of their appearance
… and also because of their habits. (Andres/Quito 2003)
2778 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

The use of longo hints at the interaction of the social, cultural, economic and,
most importantly, the physical. Skin colour cannot be overcome with money,
education, or social contacts.
… in my university it’s about the looks … Kids with no money but with the right
looks will get together, and this also happens in bars, such as Cerebro: gringos
with their awful outfits are allowed in, but a person that is well dressed and
with money but darker will not be allowed in. (Susana/Quito 2003)

The veracity of this interviewee’s statement was attested to by the owner of

one of the most popular bars in Quito. His partner noted, “Yes, Rodrigo,
does that. He stands at the door and checks who comes in. If you look
‘longo’ we just say ‘members only’, or ‘it’s full’” (Maritza/Quito 2005).
Reviewing how interviewees characterized longos one finds that they are
unambiguously distinguished from indigenous peoples, as Carolina explains:
You never call an indigenous person longo, you never say “Indio longo”, because
you call longo someone like the construction worker, who is darker, who has
more of the features of the Indian than the white … it is a derisive term …
longo you call any of those cholos who make you upset. (Carolina/Quito 2005)

The longo was always identified as a mestizo with “more indigenous” or “more
mestizo” characteristics. And, as in Carolina’s explanation, longos were linked
to lower socio-economic occupations.
While longos compete for the ethnoracial capital of other mestizos, indi-
genous people, especially those who promote the radical culturalist agenda
of neoindigenismo, contribute to the safeguarding of symbolic boundaries.
This might explain why the first are vilified and the latter romanticized.
Thus while acculturated indigenous people were described as igualados14
(Karina/Quito 2003), non-acculturated indigenous people were lauded
(Isabel/Quito 2003).
Even geographically [indigenous people] are well defined … there is much more
discrimination against longos than against indigenous peoples. We all agree that
the indians are our roots and because of that we have a respect for them even if
no one wants to be an indian … (María Soledad/Quito 2003)

Some interviewees sought to distance themselves from a physical character-

ization of longos, trying to link the term instead to habits and behaviours:
“longos have an inferiority complex” (Karina/Quito 2003).
To me this appellative of longo is a cultural issue. It is not a matter of skin … [to
be a] longo for me is rather a mentality [that rejects everything … it is … to be
aggressive, violent, and uncultured; to not trust anything from society. (Tomaso/
Quito 2005)

In Tomaso’s statement the “resentment” and “self-rejection” characterizing

longos is highlighted. Several interviewees followed suit and argued that
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2779

longos are not accepted because they aggressively reject their heritage;
longos are unhappy with being neither indigenous nor Spanish (Ana/Quito
2005). Longos are, in so many words, unaccepting post-colonial subjects,
who are wrung out between romanticized “pure” ideals they cannot
embody, and the ruling mixed elite, who fears being contaminated.
Despite this psycho-social explanations of longo, the fact that biology plays
a significant role in defining who is a longo was attested to by interviewees’
ease in describing “what a longo looks like”: “dark hair and look runita”,15 said
Roberto (Roberto/Quito 2003), and according to several respondents they are
“small”, “dark [skinned]”, with “very straight, shiny hair, like bristles”, slanted
eyes, angular noses. It was also stated that they are “unattractive” and have
less “refined” features (Paulina/Quito 2003). In this regard, one of my intervie-
wees spoke about her experiences with students in one of Ecuador’s elite
universities,
… a high percentage of students undergo plastic surgery over the summer
holiday … because discrimination is still visual here in Ecuador … For that
segment, whom some would call longos, little is actually done. They are the
ones who come here every year with nose surgeries and they try to integrate,
they try to get into some niche in society and never get anywhere. (Gloria/
Quito 2005, emphasis added)

Interviewees in Guayaquil displayed a similar logic of differentiation through

the use of the term cholo. When asked “who are cholos?” a few informants in
Guayaquil ventured descriptions of the “fishermen of the coast”,16 or spoke of
the cholo as “ … the mixture of a natural inhabitant, proper of this region, with
a mestizo … ” (Joseph, Verónica, Antonia, Cristina/Guayaquil 2005). While the
idea that the cholo is of mixed heritage was usually present, a class distinction,
expressed through aesthetics, was also almost invariably brought up. A female
interviewee discussed the social and cultural capital that sets the cholo apart:
… you perceive that [the cholo] is of a different “type” … and you … hold him
beneath you … I am not referring only to education but also to behaviour, to
the way one carries oneself … The way of speaking, of dressing, the clothes
of a cholo … we call these chola because … with what little money they have
they are vulgar … (Cristina/Guayaquil 2005)

Interviewees used cholo as an adjective, qualifying individuals or actions. All

respondents were clear about the negative connotations of the term. Local
media articles noting individuals’ efforts to dodge the label by wearing
foreign and expensive brands attested to this undesirable meaning. Interest-
ingly, cholo was also used by informants as a verb: one cholea, that is, calls
another a cholo or “treats the other like a cholo”, in order to re-establish threa-
tened boundaries (Pedro/Guayaquil 2005). In this our findings closely parallel
those of Torres and Patiño on youths of Guayaquil’s upper socio-economic
strata, who use cholo as a tool of verbal violence against the invasion of
2780 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

“elite” areas by others (Torres Cardenas and Patiño Rodríguez 2002). Thus, a
person who refuses to conform to the norms of speech, dress, and manner
associated with his or her racial appearance and economic strata, one who
adopts western models of dressing, and thus attempts to gain ethnoracial
capital, will be labelled a cholo.
When interviewees’ statements are examined against the national ethnic
narrative of mestizaje, it appears that, like the longo, the cholo is an individual
who seeks social advancement through the path of mestizaje, and thus threa-
tens the upper classes’ ethnoracial capital. Several interviewees explicitly
expressed their dislike of cholos because of their role in this unacknowledged
economy. As a female respondent explained
Cholo … cholo is the one who wants to be in a position that does not belong to
him … Because they have always been subjected, they have always been peons
in the haciendas or they have worked as domestic servants, they have always
been marginalised. Now, then, when these people try in one way or another
to progress they are called CHOLOS! (Susana/Guayaquil 2005)

She quietly continued,

There are, of course, isolated cases of such people becoming successful … And
when that happens … you hear people say very quietly, almost under their
breath, ‘He is a worthless cholito and yet look at where he is’ … in terms of edu-
cation and wealth. (Susana/Guayaquil 2005)17

As in Quito, Guayaquilenian interviewees praised the “beauty of pure races” in

contrast to cholos. Folkloric identities were applauded as long as they
remained distant and non-threatening to my informants, as Susana’s state-
ment exemplified:
… I am not the sort of person who would ever say “this cholo” … On the con-
trary I love being able to appreciate the purity of the race … I love it … [love] our
Indian, the highland indigenous who is considered very, very, submissive …
(Susana/Guayaquil 2005)

Conclusion
Interview data provide insights into the subtle mechanisms of racial differen-
tiation among mestizos in the main Ecuadorian cities of Quito and Guayaquil,
and how these differentiations interact with social and economic variables
such as wealth, aesthetics, and education. Like all ethnic appellations, cholo
and longo cannot be “objectively” defined because they are polysemic
terms created daily in colloquial exchanges. However, they are even more pro-
blematic than other labels because their narrative is more unstructured and
less historically grounded, being, therefore, far more flexible. Moreover,
cholos and longos have not become institutionalized as ethnic groups and
are, consequently, more threatening to the status quo. While montubios,
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2781

indigenous peoples, afroecuadorians, and other recognized, and “bounded”

ethnic groups, represent themselves as separate non-mestizo populations
within the mestizo state in order to advance their “ethnoracial capital” as a
political tool, longos and cholos are considered mestizos and must therefore
share the mestizo ethnic capital. As long as the upper classes are implicitly
understood as mestizos, longos and cholos could share their capital.
Sharing capital, however, dilutes it and might, consequently, alter the
ethnic hierarchy.
This paper has sought to delve beneath the broad construction of mesti-
zaje in Ecuador to discuss the specific narratives that allow discrimination
among mestizos. The premise of this paper is that unless this discrimination
is acknowledged and addressed, a large portion of the Ecuadorian population
is left without recourse to protect itself from unfair treatment. Failing to
acknowledge the longo and cholo narratives may also limit the impact of
anti-discrimination policies for indigenous and afroecuadorian populations.
After all, ignoring certain forms of oppression means that only some symp-
toms of Ecuadorian racism, rather than its roots, are being treated.
Recent state policies to confront racism and discrimination go some way
towards acknowledging the perceptions of “the other” derived from the
country’s colonial heritage, and investing resources to combat structural
inequalities of education and social access. These policies, however, do not
seem fully aware of the subjective interpretation of mestizaje by different
social classes. Given the tremendous role the mestizo myth has played in
shaping the Ecuadorian state narrative of belonging, policies to combat
racism and discrimination need to continue seeking the advancement of
traditionally marginalized communities while also probing into the mestizo
community to address practices that limit individual advancement and
community development. Ecuador has a long way to walk to eradicate
racism, and it is not just the State’s task, but a mission for the entire society.
This complex task might be started by acknowledging ethnic terminology –
cholo, longo – that is too quickly unresearched, swept under the rug of “we
are all mestizos”.

Notes
1. By race we refer to socially constructed categories based on physical differences,
while ethnicity refers to cultural distinctions. We note a constant slippage and
conflation of these terms by interviewees, the state and media. Thus, following
Loveman (2014) throughout the paper we will use the term ethnoracial.
2. Looking at the historical construction of this term, some note that longo comes
from the kichwa language, meaning: “adolescent indigenous man” (Córdova in
Fletcher 2003), but this is not how the term is now used. Mary Weismantel notes
that the negative connotations of longo are so strong that the term can only be
explained to an English-speaking audience as analogous to the offensive term
2782 K. ROITMAN AND A. OVIEDO

“nigger” (Weismantel 2001, xxxiv). Similarly the term cholo has been traced to
the first century of Spanish colonization and used derisively to refer to the
children of mestizo men and indigenous women (Saignes and Bouysse-
Cassagne 1992). Some argue cholo comes from the náhuatl “xolo”, meaning
slave, or from the Peruvian Mochica “cholu”, meaning young. Others, under-
line that it was used to refer to native American dogs, (Saignes and Bouysse-
Cassagne 1992). In the nineteenth century the term was applied to indigen-
ous people who became landless (Ibarra 1998, 16), yet modern civic and
history books now teach that cholos are a type of mestizo (Espinosa Apolo
2000). Since the early twentieth century, cholo has also been used to refer
to coastal Indigenous people (De la Cuadra 1960) and a movement seeking
the recognition of cholos as an ethnic group has emerged (Alvarez 2002).
In Perú and Ecuador, settlers of the lowland metropolises, Lima and Guayaquil
respectively, used the label for highland immigrants with evident indigenous
heritage. In short, the terms longo and cholo have a long history, but in this
paper we turn to look at their modern, insidious use to sustain subtle racist
structures.
3. There are notable differences in how mestizaje was taken up. In Guatemala
whites and indians lived in practically separated territories; in Costa Rica mesti-
zaje was not invoked due to the historic decrease of the indigeous population
(Soto Quirós, and Díaz 2007; Telles and Garcia 2013).
4. The Plan focuses on justice and law, including the diffusion of collective rights;
community training in crimes related to racial discrimination; courts for ethnic
equality; judiciary school; training in human rights for the police and army;
training in matters of race discrimination for lawyers; laws for racial equality;
and the reform of the legal code to address discrimination. It also focuses
on rights and integrity, which includes affirmative action programmes; inter-
cultural health; recovering of ancestral knowledge and patrimony; and protec-
tion of territories of peoples in voluntary isolation. Other axes to the Plan
include intercultural education, citizenship, participation and institutional
enforcement, and international relations (Ministerio Coordinador de Patrimo-
nio 2009).
5. It should be noted, however, that in the last five years great resources have been
invested in education, health, and other social services for marginal commu-
nities (SENPLADES 2012), and there has been a significant increase in the enrol-
ment rates of indigenous and afroecuadorians in higher education: from 7% in
2002 to 20% in 2014. Affirmative action initiatives have also shown results; for
instance, Ecuadorian embassies and consulates in various countries are now
led by ethnoracial minorities (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2014).
6. To gain a grounded, contextual understanding of racism, we focus on these two
cities and do not engage with discourses in other areas in the country, such as
Cuenca (where “chola” has a very distinct meaning – see Mancero 2012); or with
other ethnic labels that play a similar role to cholo and longo, such as chagra
(Cervone 2010).
7. We adhere to the Association of Social Anthropologists’ Ethical Guidelines, avail-
able at http://www.theasa.org/ethics/ethics_guidelines.htm (18 August 2007).
8. Thus we agree with Bulmer and Solomos (1999) that there is not “ … a single
monolithic racism which structures ideas and values in all societies”’ but
rather racisms “ … constructed and reconstructed through time and space by
social action”.
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 2783

9. Perhaps the marginally greater acknowledgement of racism among younger

interviewees demonstrates a growing awareness of social problems. Alterna-
tively perhaps younger interviewees yet to be fully power-holders in the
labour market feel freer to comment. Testing these hypothesis requires longi-
tudinal studies. The difference in responses between working-age and univer-
sity-age individuals was not large enough, however, to merit separating the
groups for this paper.
10. The last only included since 2010.
11. Who have the skills to undertake a job successfully.
12. “Pleasant” refers to physical aspects, that is, “they are not pleasing to the eye”.
13. A pejorative term for indigenous men with long hair.
14. Social climbers.
15. Runa’ is the Quichua word for “human”, however, “runa” and “runita” is some-
times used derisively to refer to people with Indigenous features.
16. Interviewees always used the masculine form, pointing to the need to consider
gender.
17. The diminutive of cholo – cholito, cholita – makes the term less confrontational,
more paternalistic and condescending.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the reviewers of this paper for their thoughtful and
insightful comments. Karem would like to thank Simon Mungall, Cathie Lloyd, Kevin
Cooney, and Jose Mendez for their support.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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