than you would in most US communities -- and in Utah more than most. I often hear Americans throw in the fact that a person is Jewish, or Chinese-American, of black, when it doesn't have anything to do with the topic being discussed. Mexicans might do this too, but it doesn't mean that they don't consider the Jewish Mexican to be Mexican, or their very white neighbor to be Mexican. Maybe you didn't, but they do.

Do you think it's possible that it's your biases, rather than theirs, that are coloring the way you perceive this?

And no, "Mexican" is definitely not a race. Unless you want to define Mexican as meaning the original Mexicans of native descent.