Behind the portraits featured in Mexico’s latest banknote redesign lie centuries of cultural colonialism, eurocentrism, and unconscious self-prejudice.Nip and Tuck for Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Intervention of Miguel Cabrera’s painting [1750])In 2013, the Bank of Mexico launched an eight-year program¹ to comprehensively replace the family of banknotes in circulation, aiming to make counterfeiting more difficult and increase their durability. Among the objectives of the new design was also to incorporate graphic elements that broadly and diversely represent the country.This article does not aim to evaluate the formal design of the banknotes, their technical characteristics, or whether the elements they comprise effectively represent Mexico broadly and diversely, but rather one of the most characteristic aspects of any banknote: the portraits of personalities.These portraits immediately caught my attention, as they offer a striking example of whitewashing², subtle but significant modifications to the physical features of historical figures with whom millions of Mexicans interact daily. In this context, whitewashing refers to the digital or artistic lightening of skin tones or alteration of features to make individuals appear more Caucasian. This practice is widespread in advertising, cinema, fashion photography, and other media.Portraits and Ideals: A Historical PracticeThe deliberate modification of portraits is not new. During the Renaissance, it was common for secular and religious elites to commission portraits not for accuracy, but to present an idealized version of themselves. These depictions reflected the era’s humanist values, replacing divine centrality with man as the focal point of the universe. There was no need for retouching afterwards— the bias came directly from the artist’s brush.This pursuit of bodily ideals reached a disturbing climax with the rise of Aryan race ideology³, which falsely established aesthetic standards used to marginalize and persecute those who didn’t fit within them. It was believed that a person’s traits, behaviors, and capabilities were biologically predetermined by race — laying the foundation for a twisted form of social Darwinism.“The soul of the race speaks through the face” · Illustration comparing young Aryans and Jews.Real or “Ideal” Portraits?Sor Juana Inés de la CruzLet’s consider two figures featured in the new banknotes: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Benito Juárez. In Sor Juana’s case, it’s important to acknowledge the limitations of reconstructing her appearance more than 300 years after her death. The most widely circulated image of her is Miguel Cabrera’s 1750 portrait — an idealized version that has shaped the collective imaginary.According to scholar Juan Cú, in his study on The True Portrait⁴, this portrayal reflects the ideal Greek beauty canon of colonial New Spanish era:Her nose is small and graceful, harmonious with the face; the two dimples are small, of controlled breathing towards extreme passions; her mouth is formed by two thin lips, apt to say just and sincere things simply;Portraits of Sor Juana: 1. Miguel Cabrera (1750) / 2. Nicolás Enríquez de Vargas (1704–1790) / 3. Lithograph from the newspaper El Renacimiento de México, 1869 / 4. Lithograph from the newspaper El Mosaico Mexicano, 1837.This description reveals how physical traits were interpreted through a moral and symbolic lens. In reality, according to Cú, based on forensic analysis of her skull, Sor Juana did not conform to classical Western ideals of beauty. Each available depiction reflects the biases and aesthetic standards of its time, and one could argue that only the third, lesser-known portrait suggests the more complex features associated with Latin American mestizaje.Benito JuárezBenito Juárez presents a different case. As a more recent historical figure (1800s), we have photographic evidence of his appearance. While photographs can also be altered, they limit the degree of creative reinterpretation available to artists. Juárez’s Zapotec origins are well-documented — yet even this has not shielded his image from whitewashing.Portraits of Benito Juárez: 1. Photograph, circa 1860. Hulton Archive / 2. Retouched photograph. Artist Unknown. Library of Congress. / 3. Drawing, artist and date unknown. / 4. Portrait, 1870, by GrangerIn Juárez’s case, adjustments to the nose, eyebrows, eyes, cheekbones, and other facial characteristics create an image that distances him from his Indigenous roots. Most concerning is that these modifications are not subtle oversights — they are clearly intentional design choices.Retouching National IconsA closer look at Mexico’s most recent banknote series reveals unmistakable signs of retouching. Facial features such as the nose, eyebrows, eyes, and cheekbones have been subtly reshaped to make Benito Juárez appear more “refined” — or more aligned with western aesthetic norms. This is not a careless oversight or innocent embellishment; it is a deliberate design decision that conforms to a visual standard that has historically excluded Indigenous representation.Whitewashing on Mexican banknotes: 1 and 3 · Portraits before the redesign / 2 and 4 · Portraits on new banknotes.Unfortunately, this practice is nothing new. From classical portraiture to contemporary advertising and fashion photography, visual media have long been used to reinforce narrow and biased beauty ideals. What’s most concerning is how deeply normalized these interventions have become — even in something as pervasive and symbolically loaded as national currency.Cultural Colonialism, Power, and Hidden BiasesThis is not an isolated phenomenon. The impulse to idealize — especially through a eurocentric lens — has shaped visual culture in many domains.⁵ The modernist design movement, for example, sought to “universalize” human representation by standardizing icons and proportions based on white european models. In this logic, what is not caucasian is considered abnormal.We continue to see this logic in our daily lives: in the glorification of global north nations, the hierarchical division between the so-called first and third worlds, and the consistent denial or devaluation of our Indigenous and African heritage. These internalized attitudes are so ingrained that we rarely recognize them.Such biases are often learned unconsciously, through cultural osmosis. Paradoxically, we may even develop prejudices against our own ethnic, religious, or gender identities — without realizing it.⁶Today’s real-time image modification on social media platforms, where filters lighten skin, reshape noses, and narrow faces, echo the same colonial ideals embedded in design history.Design Is PoliticalThis is why our role as designers extends far beyond aesthetics and functionality. Whether we accept it or not, all design is political. And if we don’t question our inherited design assumptions, we risk becoming passive participants in systems of exclusion and cultural erasure.What might have changed if the designer responsible for these portraits had reflected on the implications of subtly reshaping Juárez’s features? What if they had embraced his Indigenous identity fully and accurately, rather than smoothing it into something more “palatable” by colonial standards?Designers must become increasingly conscious of the power and responsibility we wield in shaping culture. If we continue designing on autopilot⁷ — uncritically replicating the norms we’ve inherited — we risk perpetuating what can only be described as a form of cultural suicide.Justification for the new banknote family. Bank of Mexico.Whitewashing definitionAryan Race Ideology: Holocaust MuseumThe true portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la CruzPater, R. (2017). The politics of design (1st ed., p. 130). Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.Banaji, M., & Greenwald, A. (2013). Blindspot. New York: Delacorte Press.This is water, David Foster Wallace.Whitewashing on Mexican banknotes? was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.