Torna atrás

Torna atrás (Spanish pronunciation: [toɾnaˈtɾas]) or tornatrás is a term used in 18th century Casta paintings to portray a mestizo or mixed-race person who showed phenotypic characteristics of only one of the "original races", such as European or Amerindian ancestry.

[1] The term torna atrás (in English, similar in meaning to "throwback" or "harken back to") could also refer to the appearance of racial characteristics not visible in the parents.

The term torna atrás does not appear as a legal category in colonial documentation, but it is often shown in families portrayed in casta paintings in eighteenth-century Mexico.

[6][7] Although tornatrás was originally used to describe a descendant of mestizos, albinos and Europeans, in the Philippines they were commonly known as those born from a Spanish father and a mestiza de Sangley (mixed native and Sangley Chinese) mother or a pure-blooded Sangley Chinese mother; they can be born to any mixed native and Spanish parent and any mixed native and Chinese parent.

Examples of famous tornatrás persons in colonial history are José Rizal, Andrés Bonifacio, and Manuel Quezon.