 Too bad he was a race mixer.  As far as I'm aware, all 3 of John Wayne's wives were White, Latinas/Hispanics culturally, but still White. There are tens of millions of White people from Latin America y'know. His wives were all from upper-class families too, back in those days pretty much the entire upper/ruling classes of Latin American society were White-Europeans, it is still that way for the most part. His first wive's father was the Consul General of Panama and a very wealthy businessman, his third wife I know also came from a very affluent family from Peru, her father was a senator and very wealthy. In those days (and still today for the most part) it would be quite rare to see any non-Whites that are that affluent and wealthy in Latin America. So I highly doubt they were mestizas, and they look White/Spanish to me in the photos I've seen.