Ladino is an exonym initially used during the colonial era to refer to those Spanish-speakers who were not Peninsulares, Criollos or indigenous peoples.

[5][6] In popular use, the term ladino commonly refers to non-indigenous Guatemalans, as well as mestizos and westernized Amerindians.

In the Central American colonial context, it was first used to refer to those Amerindians who came to speak only Spanish, and later included their mestizo descendants.

Indigenist rhetoric sometimes uses ladino in the second sense, as a derogatory term for indigenous peoples who are seen as having betrayed their homes by becoming part of the middle class.

"The 20th century K'iche Maya political activist, Rigoberta Menchú, born in 1959, used the term this way in her noted memoir, which many considered controversial.