What is cultural mixing:
The cultural mix It is the product of the encounter, exchange and assimilation of different traditions, customs, practices, techniques, beliefs, values and behaviors between different ethnicities, peoples or cultures.
In this sense, cultural mixing is characterized by the combination and fusion of the particularities of different ethnic groups, which finds its cultural expression in art (music, literature, painting), the way of dressing, food (ingredients, forms of preparation, techniques), as well as in values, religion and language.
The most important consequence of cultural mixing is the creation of a new cultural reality that takes elements from different cultural groups of origin, but always differentiating themselves from each other, and giving way to a new cultural identity.
This process of meeting, mixing and assimilating different cultural traditions has also been called cultural syncretism.
Latin America is one of the most important examples of cultural mixingsince it coincided, starting in 1492, with the arrival of Europeans to the American continent, individuals from completely different worlds and cultural realities: Europe, Africa and America.
The customs, traditions, beliefs and even the physical characteristics of each other made possible the creation of new cultural realities that, by assimilating the characteristic elements of each cultural group, had a particular form of expression in each country.
The case of current Mexican society constitutes, in this sense, a specific example of American cultural miscegenation.
In Mexico, the language, religion, political institutions and economic practices of Spain coexist with the customs and traditions of the Nahuas (original inhabitants of the territory known as Mesoamerica), their lexicon to designate their world (chocolate and tomato are words from Nahuatl), and its cuisine and its particular way of using ingredients, plants and spices.
See also Syncretism.