Meaning of "Rancho"

Hi, I hope this doesn't come across as disrespectful or that this is the wrong sub.

I'm a Mexican immigrant living in the US, and often, talking to Mexican Americans, I hear them say that their parents "grew up in the rancho" or that they go back to mexico to "the rancho".

Where I grew up in Mexico I mostly heard rancho to refer to a particular type of farm. For a while that's what I imagined people were referring to but seeing how common it is I am no longer sure and it feels disrespectful to ask in person.

Do they literally mean that their parents were farmhands or is it something more like "the countryside"?