:::I've identified two reasons for removing text from this article. One is that a lot of the text is not about Californios (your original point, Hmains). An example of that was removal of the subsection titled "Ideology of the Criollos". The second type of removal is what, to me, read as derogatory and POV comments about the Californio period in California history. One example was"...government (what little there was)...". Another, which I intend to remove or modify in future, is "...rancho owners often went from rancho to rancho on a large horse bound party circuit. Weddings, christenings, and funerals were all "celebrated" with large gatherings." 

 I invite editors to place  tags after specific text that seems to need sourcing. That will help me (and others) to clean up citation deficiencies. In general, where text is linked to other articles that are sourced, I don't feel that the same sources need to be cited in this article. Also, future edits by me in this article will be smaller (small chunks), making them easier to discuss.