Originally, Don Diego Vega (though later on McCulley uses Don Diego De La Vega, and I prefer this name) is truly a Mexican in spirit not a Spaniard, yet he is of Spanish origin. In the original McCulley version he was the son of two Spaniards Don Alejandro Vega and Chiquita de la Cruz. Don Alejandro Vega was a major landowner in California due to the "generosity" of the Spaniards. In addition Don Diego Vega spent many years in Spain learning to be a gentleman. That said Don Diego Vega saw himself as one of the people, and thus as Mexican, a group that was a mixture of the Spaniards, Indians, and Mestizos. His whole Zorro personality was based off fighting the corrupt politicians and soldiers who preyed on the people.

Don Alejandro is what you would call a "Peninsulars," a person who was born in Spain and was part of the ruling class.
Don Diego Vega is what you would call a "Criollos," a man of Spanish descent but born in New Spain (aka Mexico). It was this group of people who overthrow Spanish rule to form mexico.
Mestizos are the mixtures of Spanish and Indians
Indigenas are the native Indians or people with significant half bloods.

Now when Zorro takes places is not firmly decided. The original author McCulley purposefully blended an "atmosphere" of California during Spanish and Mexican rule. He makes references of events that would place zorro through the 1790s to 1850s. Well this is a big deal for if before 1810 it was during Spanish Rule, 1810 to 1821 was an 11 year revolution where Mexico revolted against Spain, 1821 would be Mexican rule, and 1846 to 1848 America fought Mexico in the Mexican American war and during the early part of 1846 California was captured by the Americans, finally 1848 started the California gold rush.

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Now if you saw the wonderful movie the Mask of Zorro you are familiar with some of the characters that Zorro was based on (of course the movie isn't even close to being historically accurate, 1840s is not the same as 1850s). In the movie Don Diego De La Vega trains a man named Alejandro Murrieta, after Alejandro Murrieta brother (Joaquin Murrieta) and friend Three Finger Jack (Manuel Garcia) is killed by Captain Harry Love. Well all three of these characters (but not Alejandro) were actual real life people.

Joaquin Murrieta was a thief and murderer in California during the 1850s. He was a leader of 5 bandits. His right hand man was called Manuel Garcia. Well during the 1850s the state of California put a ransom on his head so Captain Harry Love gathered a group of "lawmakers" together and searched for Joaquin Murrieta. He encountered a group of people killed two of them, and claimed it was Joaquin Murrieta and Three Finger Jack (Manuel Garcia). Now to prove it was them he stuffed Joaquin face in a jug of alcohol, as well as a second jug for Three Finger Jack's three finger hand (who face was unrecognizable since he was shot in the face). The head and fingers were sent throughout california where people paid money to see the legendary remains. Now there are some accounts that Harry Love killed two innocent mexicans and bribed people to state this was Joaquin Murrieta.

Now a year after Joaquin Murrieta death there was an author named John Rollin Ridge' who made a 90 page fictional book about Joaquin Murrieta. In this fictional book Murrieta wife was raped by Americans, and his brother was hunged from a tree. Because of this Murrieta was not an outlaw but instead a Robin Hood who hated and killed Americans and stole from the rich and gave to the poor. This is how Murrieta was concieved as a Mexican robin hood. In the end the bounty that caused Captain Love to hunt down was due to the fact Murrieta was plotting to overthrow those damn yankees.

Now the cultural story of Joaquin Murrieta was what helped inspire McCulley to create Zorro.

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On another note I will so pay to see pictures of you dressed up as Zorro So please Mark *begs*