On December 1, 1946, Miguel Alemán Valdés became president of Mexico. He was a civilian and a law graduate of UNAM. According to México Desconocido, official protocol used his academic degree “como título de su investidura” (as the title of his office).
Many politicians then began to use licenciado as a title of prestige. Mi licenciado became “sinónimo de poder” (a synonym for power) in politics, the law and the bureaucracy. From there the use spread to the rest of society.
In Mexico, a university degree becomes a form of address. Licenciado or licenciada is used for “anyone who has a degree in any number of fields,” one guide explains. Engineers are addressed as ingeniero or ingeniera, and teachers, university professors included, as maestro or maestra. Another guide notes that calling someone simply Ingeniero is “completely acceptable” even when the speaker knows the person’s first name.
Article 250 of Mexico’s Federal Penal Code punishes anyone who claims the standing of a professional without the legal title. The penalty is one to six years in prison and a fine.
The title rests on the cédula profesional, which the Ministry of Public Education issues through its Directorate General of Professions. The cédula is required in fields such as health, law, architecture and engineering.
In 1993, the linguist Scott A. Schwenter published a study of tú and usted in the Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica of El Colegio de México. His Mexican informants were middle-class adults in Mexico City. They chose tú in 32 percent of their answers. The study found that they tend to use usted with people of every age group.
The sample was small, 18 informants, and the data are more than 30 years old.
The linguist Cristal Cepeda has studied the use of usted in Mexico and other Latin American countries. She told Mexico News Daily that usted is used “with older people and authority figures, especially outside the family context.”
In Mexico City, tú is now “the most frequent, but not categorical, form of address.”
On August 15, 2024, at the Teatro Metropolitan in Mexico City, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum asked to be called presidenta. “Los próximos seis años, diremos presidenta con ‘A’. Porque lo que no se nombra, no existe” (For the next six years, we will say presidenta with an A. Because what is not named does not exist).
In December 2024, the Senate approved a constitutional reform that adds presidenta, gobernadora and other female titles to the Constitution.
In Mexican markets, vendors call shoppers güero or güera, “fair one.” According to UnoTV, they do so “sin importar el tono de su piel o el color de su cabello” (whatever the tone of their skin or the color of their hair).
“El respeto nos ayuda a vivir en armonía” (Respect helps us live in harmony) is a first-grade lesson of the Ministry of Public Education. It teaches children “frases de cortesía para saludar y despedirse” (courtesy phrases for greeting and saying goodbye). It also explains that “en español, los niños generalmente hablan a las personas mayores de ‘usted'” (in Spanish, children generally address older people as usted).