Californios instance of ethnic group
Californio (plural Californios) is a term used to designate a Hispanic Californian, 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. 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 1960's.
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.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. 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). They make up the largest group of the 15.2 million California Hispanics, who total 40% of California's population. 2004 studies estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 have ancestry descended from the Spanish and Mexican eras of California.Definitions
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. 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.Authors such as Douglas Monroy, Damian Bacich or Covadonga Lamar Prieto, 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.Calisphere  and author Ferol Egan  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. 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.Although sources differ on some elements of classification, they have consensus that Californio includes at a minimum, Hispanic people with origins in Alta California.Foreigners
The independent minded Californios were also influenced by increasing numbers of immigrant foreigners (mostly English and French, English-speaking Americans being grouped with the "English", or Anglos) who entered the district. They assimilated with the Californios, becoming Mexican citizens and gaining land either independently granted to them or through marriage to Californio women. They also began to be active in local politics.For example, American Abel Stearns was an ally of the Californio José Antonio Carrillo in the 1831 Victoria incident, yet sided with the southern Californians against the Californio would-be governor Alvarado in 1836. Alvarado recruited a company of riflemen from Tennessee, many of them former trappers who had settled in the Monterey Bay area. The company was led by another American, Isaac Graham. When the Americans refused to fight against fellow Americans, Alvarado was forced to negotiate a settlement.Ethnicity
Californios included the descendants of agricultural settlers and retired escort soldiers deployed from what is modern-day Mexico. Most were of mixed ethnicities, usually Mestizo (Spanish and Native American) or mixed African and Amerindian backgrounds.
Despite the depictions of popular American 20th-century TV shows such as Zorro, few Californios were of "pure" Spanish (Peninsular or Criollo) ancestry. Persons who were most likely to be native-born Spanish or of Spanish ancestry were Franciscan priests, and career government officials and military officers who had limited assignments in California.According to mission records (marriage, baptisms, and burials) and Presidio roster listings, several "leather-jacket" soldiers (soldados de cuero), operating as escorts, mission guards, and other military duty personnel were described as europeo (i.e., born in Europe), while most civilian settlers were classified as of mixed origins (coyote, mulatto, etc.). The current term mestizo was rarely used in mission records: more common terms were indio, europeo, mulato, coyote, castizo, and other caste terms.
An example of European-born soldiers are the twenty-five from Lieutenant Pedro Fages detachment of Catalan Volunteers. Most of the soldiers on the Portola-Serra expedition of 1769 and the de Anza expeditions of 1774 and 1775 were recruited from Spanish Army infantry regiments then stationed in Mexico. Many were assigned to garrison the presidios, and retired at the end of their ten-year enlistments. Numerous veterans settled in California. Because of the demographic bias in this period toward men among the Spanish, some men who stayed in California married native Californian women who had converted to Christianity at the missions.
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