# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Cuban autosomal genetics and pigmentation

## Angela

It's beyond me why they would still be using AIMS. The results largely comport with those from more professional studies of Latin America as a whole, but for more precise data I'd go to those studies.

See:

"Cuba: Exploring the History of Admixture and the Genetic Basis of Pigmentation Using Autosomal and Uniparental Markers"

It should be noted that these samples are from Cuba itself. One third of the population emigrated, and the majority of those people, other than the ones sent over by Castro, were the "white" Cubans. I've seen quite a few of their results, and many of them have less than 5-7% "minority" ancestry. Even that surprised them, having been assured that they were of 100% European ancestry. The presence of Amerindian ancestry was a particular shock, as all the history books stated that they had been wiped out. Also interestingly enough, some of them did notice that some of the phenotypes from the eastern part of the island were a bit exotic. "

"We carried out an admixture analysis of a sample comprising 1,019 individuals from all the provinces of Cuba. We used a panel of 128 autosomal Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs) to estimate the admixture proportions. We also characterized a number of haplogroup diagnostic markers in the mtDNA and Y-chromosome in order to evaluate admixture using uniparental markers. Finally, we analyzed the association of 16 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with quantitative estimates of skin pigmentation. In the total sample, the average European, African and Native American contributions as estimated from autosomal AIMs were 72%, 20% and 8%, respectively. The Eastern provinces of Cuba showed relatively higher African and Native American contributions than the Western provinces. In particular, the highest proportion of African ancestry was observed in the provinces of Guantánamo (40%) and Santiago de Cuba (39%), and the highest proportion of Native American ancestry in Granma (15%), Holguín (12%) and Las Tunas (12%). We found evidence of substantial population stratification in the current Cuban population, emphasizing the need to control for the effects of population stratification in association studies including individuals from Cuba. The results of the analyses of uniparental markers were concordant with those observed in the autosomes. These geographic patterns in admixture proportions are fully consistent with historical and archaeological information. Additionally, we identified a sex-biased pattern in the process of gene flow, with a substantially higher European contribution from the paternal side, and higher Native American and African contributions from the maternal side. This sex-biased contribution was particularly evident for Native American ancestry. Finally, we observed that SNPs located in the genes _SLC24A5_ and _SLC45A2_ are strongly associated with melanin levels in the sample."

I never saw any minority ancestry in someone like Desi Arnaz or Oscar Hijueilos whatsoever. In Marco Rubio maybe a hint of Amerindian?


He looks so Spanish to me here:




I do see it in Ted Cruz' father: something across the eyes.

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## Carlos

Attachment 10616
Vicente Parra

Yes they are very Spanish, the first one has reminded me a lot of the Spanish actor Vicente Parra. The second fails me something else, I see something black in it, the teeth do not fit me so much with Spain, the glasses can be anywhere, and the baby also Spanish but with a "Filipino" touch. For me it is much easier to detect the differences because I am Spanish. I have seen many Cubans and Cubans one hundred percent Spanish in appearance, usually they are descendants of the communists who left Spain during the war or after or even before the war, 20 or 30 years, but even so I do not know if the latitude, altitude and other factors can cause some changes to occur because I notice them differently as if there had been a different co-occurrence in the chance of the genes.

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## Angela

The first two are of Desi Arnaz and I think he looks very Spanish. The third is Oscar Hijuelos, who I think looks even more northern. This is him younger.


I'm a great admirer of his novels.


These "white" Cubans are mostly the most fervent of anti-Communists who fled from Castro when they were stripped of all their possessions. The ones of that generation, but also many of their children, are a consistent and passionate Republican voting block. 

The last one is the father of one of our Presidential candidates in 2016, and I also see something "off" about him. It has been said of him that he was one of the few pro-Communist Cuban immigrants.

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## Carlos

Óscar Hijuelo perhaps reminded me of the Spanish journalist Pepe Navarro in his essence.

Attachment 10617

The father of Ted Cruz for me no doubt has a Native American factor.

I usually notice a slight difference, although they almost look like Spanish there is a final finish something like a cappuccino, a soft foam on top, another final finish, Óscar Hijuelos would not have it for example, but the other two actors have it, it would be a single coffee without sugar and two cappuccinos.

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## Angela

^^

Three more famous ones with whom you might not be familiar:

Gloria Estefan: 



Marco Rubio:


Andy Garcia:

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## Carlos

Gloria Estefan and Andy García knew them, the middle one did not. Gloria Estefan has relatives in Asturias, usually visiting the small town of one of her ancestors. Andy Garcia has never interested me too much as an actor; although he is a good actor. All three have a finish or an indigenous essence that I do not recognize. I do not recognize their looks as Spaniards, I feel bad, but that's the way it is. There may also be other factors such as attitude, look, things that still transmit without speaking and that they acquire by living in a different culture that is also perceived. I did not even remember a teacher of Latin English, I came from New York and her attitude was very different, her look at the Latinos I see now in Spain who come directly from their South American countries. Right now I do not remember any Latino celebrity that was not of two Spanish parents.

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## Carlos

Marco Rubio had not seen him in my life, he seems like a good guy, but I get the feeling that he can not be himself, he lives very corseted, poor. Now I will look for him to see who he is.

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## Carlos

He supposed it, I think he's a pretty cruel person and if they let him get there he could be a monster. It is not clean wheat, it is enough because it is what suits you. A lie.

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## Angela

> He supposed it, I think he's a pretty cruel person and if they let him get there he could be a monster. It is not clean wheat, it is enough because it is what suits you. A lie.



He* IS a good guy. You shouldn't assume that someone whose politics are different than yours is necessarily a bad person.

I know a lot of good people who are far left progressives. I ignore their stupid political opinions. :)

*Ed. Marco Rubio

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## Carlos

My assessment of what I perceive is not influenced by the political inclinations of the character in the photo. In that photo, what I perceive is that the process of dehumanization had begun, it is possible that now it is not human, it is what I see and that is what I tell it, and it also has a lot to hide.

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## Eochaidh

I was at the University of Miami in the 1970's when many of the early waves from Cuba had recently arrived. The cafeteria that I used was mostly staffed by Cuban women. Several of these women had red hair and green eyes. Many had fair skin and freckles and could easily be thought of as Irish until they spoke. One of my brothers married such a fair haired fair skin Cuban woman. I had learned of the Celtiberos from Spain in Spanish class in High School, so I wasn't entirely surprised, but I still remember those faces.

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## Carlos

Spanish immigration to Cuba began in 1492, continued in 1898 and continued until today. The first sighting of a Spanish ship was the approach to the island on 27 or 28 October 1492, probably in Bariay on the eastern end of the island. Christopher Columbus, on his first trip to America, sailed south from what is now the Bahamas to explore the northeast coast of Cuba and the north coast of La española.

Some 446,000 descendants of Spaniards have applied for citizenship
Most of the petitions covered by the Law of Historical Memory come from Cuba and Argentina

When Spaniards want to minimize some fact in which we are involved or alleviate that of a third party, we usually say the phrase: More was lost in Cuba (Más se perdió en Cuba)

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## Carlos

Those Cuban women from the bar could have been something like Blanca and Susana Estrada these two Asturian sisters. It is not that all Spanish women are like that but we also have them. 

Attachment 10620
Susana Estrada

Attachment 10621
Blanca Estrada

They were queens of the nude in Spain. (I found it hard to find them dressed)

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## Tutkun Arnaut

I met once a Venezuelan woman who was divorced from a Hungarian husband. She traced her roots back in Spain, but had no memory or knowledge of relatives in Spain. She had particularly good looks and was approached by many people of different races, many of them rich. The last one I remember was a reasonably rich Asian. There was no way she could accept if the person was no European. No money or richness could corrupt her! I brought this example to suggest that such way of thinking could be in pockets of Cuba, and being Cuban does not necessary mean one is mixed. I don't see Marco as mixed. The senator from New Jersey is obviously mixed.

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## Angela

The number of Cubans without any trace of "minority" ancestry is pretty small, and limited to descendants of very recent migrants. The percentages for the minority "white" Cubans can be very small, however, in the range of a percent or two to about 10 percent.

It's the same situation which is present in Afrikaners. 



That minority ancestry has been a shock to a lot of them.

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## Carlos

[CITA = Tutkun Arnaut; 563322] Conocí a una mujer venezolana que estaba divorciada de un marido húngaro. Ella trazó sus raíces en España, pero no tenía memoria ni conocimiento de los familiares en España. Tenía una apariencia particularmente buena y fue abordada por muchas personas de diferentes razas, muchas de ellas ricas. El último que recuerdo fue un asiático bastante rico. No había forma de que ella pudiera aceptar si la persona no era europea. ¡Ningún dinero o riqueza podría corromperla! Traje este ejemplo para sugerir que tal forma de pensar podría estar en los bolsillos de Cuba, y ser cubano no significa necesariamente que uno esté mezclado. No veo a Marco tan mezclado. El senador de Nueva Jersey obviamente está mezclado. [/ QUOTE]

That does not seem to say that being mixed is incriminating nothing further from it, can be something fabulous. Sincerely Marco Rubio for me and is a subjective opinion is mixed with black and Indian; although the final finish may seem more white, even Nordic.

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## Govan

> The number of Cubans without any trace of "minority" ancestry is pretty small, and limited to descendants of very recent migrants. The percentages for the minority "white" Cubans can be very small, however, in the range of a percent or two to about 10 percent.
> 
> It's the same situation which is present in Afrikaners. 
> 
> 
> 
> That minority ancestry has been a shock to a lot of them.


Because minorities have Spanish names and surnames and thus are not identificiable from this perspective. They just are in shade. 

But any people from multicultural/ethnic area for centuries shouldn't be shocked or suprised about admixture.

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## Carlos

They are young countries so the assimilation of something like this is very different from how it is assimilated by someone from the old world. For us, the mixture makes us proud to take us back to mythical, legendary or historical times so that we integrate it well because that origin can be millenarian newly discovered but it is evocative and it is possible that in such a young country to believe itself white and that suddenly a Indigenous or black origin is too close to them in time, and not enough time has passed to have integrated it and to see it as part of one in a legendary, legendary way. If a European obtains a mixture with a black African from a few thousand years ago, it is not painful for him as it could have been, but in America with fresh information and in a short historical time the sensation must be different and full of prejudices.

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## Carlos

For example, no modern Spanish speaks badly of the Romans (ancient) no one speaks of genocide, invasion, plunder, slavery accusing modern Romans of Imperial Rome and yet there are many heads of plovers that accuse modern Spanish all those things because the story is too recent, which by the way I take to say that for Hollywood the Vikings were beautiful, muscular and postmodern and went for a walk and show off and the Spaniards to loot, steal, rape and kill Indians. That is why I think that some exotic results in America for someone who believed to be one thing and get a different one can be more complicated than for a European or other places in the world.

You also spend in the films about the Imbencible Armada, when Queen Elizabeth I, the English appear with a postmodern image and the Spaniards come out with a grotesque characterization, a large nose with a wart on the tip or a disheveled lock on the face, you see suddenly postmodern people (English of the time) and (Spaniards of the time) characterized grotesquely, you twist in the chair, what happens?

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## New Englander

What is the Black supposed to represent, Mediterranean ancestry? Why would they be more Med than Spanish and Italians?

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = New Englander; 563517] ¿Qué se supone que representa el negro, la ascendencia mediterránea? ¿Por qué serían más medianos que españoles e italianos? [/ QUOTE]

For a white South American, a black result in his DNA imagines that it represents an origin in slavery. For a European, as I would say, for a legendary and legendary warrior who made an expedition through the Kingdom of Tartessos or a legionary of the troops of the Roman Empire, there are many more centuries to fantasize than those available to a white Cuban who only has the option of slavery as a possibility. But the problem is yours because of prejudice.

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## Ygorcs

> The number of Cubans without any trace of "minority" ancestry is pretty small, and limited to descendants of very recent migrants. The percentages for the minority "white" Cubans can be very small, however, in the range of a percent or two to about 10 percent.
> 
> It's the same situation which is present in Afrikaners. 
> 
> 
> 
> That minority ancestry has been a shock to a lot of them.


Maybe it's just my impression, but from the admixture charts above Cubans look much less of a "melting pot" than Colombia, Puerto Rico and Mexico, with a much clearer division between European-majority and African-majority individuals. The admixture proportions look much more evenly distributed in those other nations, with very few almost completely European or almost completely African/Amerindian individuals (at least in this sample of individuals).

Btw, is this for real: _that minority ancestry has been a shock to a lot of them?_ Wow then the idea of _mestizaje_ or, in Brazilian jargon, _miscigenação_ really stuck among white Cuban much less than for other Latin Americans. I think many Brazilians were in fact surprised to find that they are _less_ admixed with other races than they thought, not the other way around. I think an average Brazilian white would hardly be "shocked" to know that (s)he has some African and Amerindian ancestry. It's pretty much "general knowledge". Perhaps that could happen in some small towns in the South of the country, but not elsewhere.

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## Tutkun Arnaut

> [CITA = Tutkun Arnaut; 563322] Conocí a una mujer venezolana que estaba divorciada de un marido húngaro. Ella trazó sus raíces en España, pero no tenía memoria ni conocimiento de los familiares en España. Tenía una apariencia particularmente buena y fue abordada por muchas personas de diferentes razas, muchas de ellas ricas. El último que recuerdo fue un asiático bastante rico. No había forma de que ella pudiera aceptar si la persona no era europea. ¡Ningún dinero o riqueza podría corromperla! Traje este ejemplo para sugerir que tal forma de pensar podría estar en los bolsillos de Cuba, y ser cubano no significa necesariamente que uno esté mezclado. No veo a Marco tan mezclado. El senador de Nueva Jersey obviamente está mezclado. [/ QUOTE]
> 
> That does not seem to say that being mixed is incriminating nothing further from it, can be something fabulous. Sincerely Marco Rubio for me and is a subjective opinion is mixed with black and Indian; although the final finish may seem more white, even Nordic.


I don't know if being mixed is better or worse! But certainly ,since there is a lot of talk about being mixed, there is concern about it, among people. In 1920 there were about 30 books opposing Einstein's view of relativity theory. Einstein famously said if I was wrong 1 book would have been enough. So, my point is if there were not questions about the benefits of being mixed, no one would have been talkin who is mixed and who is not.

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## Ygorcs

> They are young countries so the assimilation of something like this is very different from how it is assimilated by someone from the old world. For us, the mixture makes us proud to take us back to mythical, legendary or historical times so that we integrate it well because that origin can be millenarian newly discovered but it is evocative and it is possible that in such a young country to believe itself white and that suddenly a Indigenous or black origin is too close to them in time, and not enough time has passed to have integrated it and to see it as part of one in a legendary, legendary way. If a European obtains a mixture with a black African from a few thousand years ago, it is not painful for him as it could have been, but in America with fresh information and in a short historical time the sensation must be different and full of prejudices.


Actually in my "vast" experience online my impression has always been that New World and particulatly Latin American people deal with the fact they have mixed ancestry much better than Old World people, who are much more strongly attached to their ethnic/national myths as primeval and homogeneous ethnicities or races. They are only unbothered by mixed results when those mixes are from relatively close populations, not totally different races, and when those population structures are long gone and nowhere to be seen. In my experience being mixed is much more acceptable to most Latin Americans than to Europeans, Asians and Africans, who often seem to think that they're less of a part of their respective ethnicity or nation because they have even a minor proportion of alien ancestry. For obvious historic reasons Old World people tend to believe more in the idea that their people has been there in the same land and more or less precisely as they are nowadays since bygone eras.

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## Angela

> Maybe it's just my impression, but from the admixture charts above Cubans look much less of a "melting pot" than Colombia, Puerto Rico and Mexico, with a much clearer division between European-majority and African-majority individuals. The admixture proportions look much more evenly distributed in those other nations, with very few almost completely European or almost completely African/Amerindian individuals (at least in this sample of individuals).
> 
> Btw, is this for real: _that minority ancestry has been a shock to a lot of them?_ Wow then the idea of _mestizaje_ or, in Brazilian jargon, _miscigenação_ really stuck among white Cuban much less than for other Latin Americans. I think many Brazilians were in fact surprised to find that they are _less_ admixed with other races than they thought, not the other way around. I think an average Brazilian white would hardly be "shocked" to know that (s)he has some African and Amerindian ancestry. It's pretty much "general knowledge". Perhaps that could happen in some small towns in the South of the country, but not elsewhere.


I obviously haven't taken a survey. I can only go by the four Cuban Americans (and their families) with whom I'm acquainted. (One is a woman married to one of my many second cousins. They live in Miami...well, Coral Gables, actually )

You're right in that according to them Cuba was very stratified by color/ancestry. From what they had been told the Indian aborigines had been wiped out and their genes were not passed on. Likewise, they were told that while there may have been men who had "alliances" with black women, the children of those unions became part the "mulatto" population. 

So far as they knew and had been told, they were "white" or "pure" European. Discovering that some of them carried Indian and/or SSA mtDna's was indeed a shock. I heard stories of families of their acquaintance about whom there were rumors of a black or mulatto family member, and how the families would move to the bigger cities where people didn't know them and the ancestry could be hidden. I think they probably therefore assumed that if there was such ancestry in their own families it would be known.

What I surmise is that in those situations the admixture was recent. The admixture which showed up in these "exotic" mtDnas or the 2-7% minority autosomal ancestry which showed up in these white Cubans must have been old admixture, from the first days of the colonization. The one family I know with lots of recent ancestry from Spain and Italy to Cuba had European mtDna and yDna and only about 1.5% minority ancestry.

I think this is analogous to the situation in South Africa, where the old admixture was either forgotten or deliberately hidden. 

One thing that has to be kept in mind is that this chart shows the admixture percentages of people who remained in Cuba. In my experience, most of the Cubans who came to the U.S. have very little minority ancestry. (That ancestry is, by way of contrast, high and visible in the Cubans who were prisoners expelled by Castro and dumped on the U.S.) Were they included in this chart the percentage of only very slightly admixed Cubans would be higher.

As to why Cuba would have been so stratified compared to other countries in Latin America I don't know, but it piques my curiosity. I'll see if my friends have any insights.

@Carlos,
I'm glad to hear that a lot of Spaniards are sanguine about any possible SSA or Moorish ancestry in them. However, that's clearly not the case with all Iberians. I think I remember you taking part in discussions with the whole very vehement group of Spaniards who used to frequent this site who were adamant to the point of mania that there was no such admixture in Spaniards. I got "virtually" screamed at and insulted so often when I tried to inject a little sanity into the discussions that I remember it all quite vividly. :)

Of course, I never believed all Iberians were Stormfront racists, and sincerely hoped and hope that the ravings of a few Italians on these kinds of sites aren't held against all of us. 

As for the U.S. Americans of colonial background do occasionally have stories of an Indian ancestor and are extremely attached to the idea. A lot of the complaints about genetic testing have to do with the fact that it's so seldom found, and when it is it's in the range which Elizabeth Warren has, which is not very much at all. Also, there's the phenomenon that the minority ancestry which is found is a couple of percent of SSA. What happened is that admixed people explained away their "dark" looks by saying there was an Indian in the family: that's how the stories started. The Melungeons of Virginia and North Carolina still insist they have Indian or Portuguese or Jewish ancestry, when Melungeon descendants who have been test clearly show a few percent of SSA ancestry, and no Amerindian at all. Interestingly, they only possess European mtdna, but the occasional SSA yDna shows up. Apparently, the community was formed in the late 1600s by British women indentured servants and African men at the early time when such unions were not yet outlawed, and African males were also just indentured servants. Again, interestingly, some people romanticize the Melungeons and want to be related to them even when it's clear they're not. I've never seen that kind of romanticization about Indian ancestry out west in areas with a lot of Indian reservations. It's not so "romantic" close up.

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## Ygorcs

> I don't know if being mixed is better or worse! But certainly ,since there is a lot of talk about being mixed, there is concern about it, among people. In 1920 there were about 30 books opposing Einstein's view of relativity theory. Einstein famously said if I was wrong 1 book would have been enough. So, my point is if there were not questions about the benefits of being mixed, no one would have been talkin who is mixed and who is not.


Sensible and reasonable people do not talk about who is mixed and who is not because being mixed is better or worse, or because of questions "about the benefits of being mixed". Those people talk about who is mixed and who is not just because they want to know what their ancestry is and how an individual's or a population's genetic makeup got formed in the countless ancestral generations. Being mixed is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. Whether something is genetically a benefit or not depends on what specific trait you're talking about and under what environmental pressures you are: it has to do with some specific gene variant for this or that, and not with an entire autosomal admixture from a certain genetic structure. This issue is not about being better or worse, it's just an interest to know what_ it really is_, the truth. It just happens that most of the time, if you dig enough in the past of a people's genetic history, the objective fact is that they're mixed - but some people aren't prepared to hear the truth.

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = Ygorcs; 563532] En realidad, en mi "vasta experiencia en línea", mi impresión siempre ha sido que el Nuevo Mundo y en particular los latinoamericanos se enfrentan al hecho de que han mezclado la ascendencia mucho mejor que la gente del Viejo Mundo, que está mucho más vinculada a sus mitos étnicos / nacionales como etnias o razas primigenias y homogéneas. Solo les molestan los resultados mixtos cuando esas mezclas provienen de poblaciones relativamente cercanas, no de razas totalmente diferentes, y cuando esas estructuras poblacionales han desaparecido hace tiempo y no se ven por ninguna parte. En mi experiencia, ser mixto es mucho más aceptable para la mayoría de los latinoamericanos que para los europeos, asiáticos y africanos, que a menudo parecen pensar que son menos parte de su respectivo origen étnico o nación porque tienen incluso una pequeña proporción de ancestros alienígenas .

More than Latin Americans in general, I was referring to elites who consider themselves white.

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## Carlos

[CITA = Tutkun Arnaut; 563531] ¡No sé si mezclar es mejor o peor! Pero ciertamente, ya que se habla mucho sobre ser mixto, existe preocupación entre las personas. En 1920 había alrededor de 30 libros que se oponían a la visión de Einstein de la teoría de la relatividad. Einstein dijo que si me equivocaba, un libro hubiera sido suficiente. Entonces, mi punto es que si no hubieran preguntas sobre los beneficios de ser mixto, nadie habría hablado de quién está mezclado y quién no. [/ QUOTE]


​After the holocaust of Nazi Germany, what do you want me to say? In Europe if it gives the feeling that the feeling of the populations is racial or ethnic homogeneity except the small outbreaks of regional nationalism, although we are also mixed perhaps the mixture having been formed in a longer period of time have not left an oral tradition enhanced by political measures from the governments. In the case of Spain, it is true that as we see Romanization with good eyes we reject the Muslim era because of the strong contrary policy that there was, recapture, expulsions, conversion. There is no kind of feeling, affection and identification with that time as if it had not existed. We have three historical monuments from the Muslim era standing up that for the romantic Europeans of the 19th century were the most but for the Spaniards it is a pride as monuments but without sentimental affectation or identification with what they represented, as well as there may be a feeling that the Altamira caves are from our ancestors Muslim monuments we do not see them with the feeling that they are from our ancestors. So I think that the elapsed time is fundamental for perception.

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## Carlos

Genetic results in the t.v. Chilean They tend to be stupefied almost without words when they get a high percent as Native American and even barely commented.

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## Ygorcs

> Genetic results in the t.v. Chilean They tend to be stupefied almost without words when they get a high percent as Native American and even barely commented.


I'm always a bit baffled at how many Chileans think their country is "white". I mean, not only the autosomal DNA studies all show their Native American ancestry at ~40% or even over 40%, but you just need to walk the streets of Santiago to notice that there is a huge Amerindian presence there, and the majority of the population is clearly mestizo.

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## Angela

> I'm always a bit baffled at how many Chileans think their country is "white". I mean, not only the autosomal DNA studies all show their Native American ancestry at ~40% or even over 40%, but you just need to walk the streets of Santiago to notice that there is a huge Amerindian presence there, and the majority of the population is clearly mestizo.


Indeed, this blindness as to possible "non-European" ancestry seems to extend to more than just Cubans. In the case of this man, who looks extremely upset to discover he is a mestizo, in effect, i.e. 50% Amerindians, just look at his family, presumably his mother. How on earth could he think she looks European? 

I saw a bit of that in the Cubans I know as well, where it seemed to me that a few of their family members showed some minority ancestry. People believe what they're told, I guess. Also, it's been my experience that people differ in their ability to visually discriminate between people. That's why eyewitness identifications are sometimes so unreliable.

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## italouruguayan

Regarding the feeling of white Latin Americans about whether or not they have Native American or African ancestors, I think that it is very influenced by the memory of the stratified colonial societies, where the darker the skin, the lower the place on the social scale, and obviously nobody wanted that. In many countries European immigration was favored in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, seeking a "whiter" society. An example of this can be seen in a Brazilian painting , where the black grandmother seems to thank God that her mulatto daughter married a European immigrant and gave her a "white" grandson. Significant title of the painting is "A redencao de Cam", The Redemption of Ham .....

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## italouruguayan

https://goo.gl/images/TBK9gR

Sent from my SM-G930F using Eupedia Forum mobile app

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## italouruguayan

While this man has obvious non-European components, it seems to me that 51% Central American (considered Native American) is a bit high. In all Gedmatch calculators my Native American component does not exceed 18%, while in My Heritage it reaches 25%. That makes me think that in My Heritage "Central American" does not mean Native American but mestizo.

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## Duarte

> While this man has obvious non-European components, it seems to me that 51% Central American (considered Native American) is a bit high. In all Gedmatch calculators my Native American component does not exceed 18%, while in My Heritage it reaches 25%. That makes me think that in My Heritage "Central American" does not mean Native American but mestizo.



MyHeritage DNA autosomal test company define in this way the Central America ethnicity:
CENTRAL AMERICA 


“The largest population of Central America, spanning from Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela, is of Mestizo descendent - a mixture of Spanish, Native American, and African ancestry. In contemporary society, many people with Central American ethnicity have settled among the nations in South America, reaching as far south as Uruguay and Argentina.”

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## Ygorcs

> Regarding the feeling of white Latin Americans about whether or not they have Native American or African ancestors, I think that it is very influenced by the memory of the stratified colonial societies, where the darker the skin, the lower the place on the social scale, and obviously nobody wanted that. In many countries European immigration was favored in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, seeking a "whiter" society. An example of this can be seen in a Brazilian painting , where the black grandmother seems to thank God that her mulatto daughter married a European immigrant and gave her a "white" grandson. Significant title of the painting is "A redencao de Cam", The Redemption of Ham .....


Excellent points. That's exactly the crux of the matter.

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## davef

> Sensible and reasonable people do not talk about who is mixed and who is not because being mixed is better or worse, or because of questions "about the benefits of being mixed". Those people talk about who is mixed and who is not just because they want to know what their ancestry is and how an individual's or a population's genetic makeup got formed in the countless ancestral generations. Being mixed is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. Whether something is genetically a benefit or not depends on what specific trait you're talking about and under what environmental pressures you are: it has to do with some specific gene variant for this or that, and not with an entire autosomal admixture from a certain genetic structure. This issue is not about being better or worse, it's just an interest to know what_ it really is_, the truth. It just happens that most of the time, if you dig enough in the past of a people's genetic history, the objective fact is that they're mixed - but some people aren't prepared to hear the truth.


Yeah everyone is mixed with various ancestries save for people who have been untouched since prehistoric times. I'm mixed myself-Anatolian Neolithic, Levant Neolithic, Iran Neolithic, and Western Hunter Gatherer.

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## Ygorcs

> https://goo.gl/images/TBK9gR
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930F using Eupedia Forum mobile app


I'll just add here the comment I had made in the thread you accidentally created when you tried to post this image in this one:

That's actually a famous 19th century Brazilian painting, named (suggestively) _Redemption_. It is the precise description of the idea of _branqueamento_ (whitening) so common in the 19th century and early 20th century in Brazil: instead of racial segregation, sterilization or other drastic inhumane measures, Brazil supposedly needed to whiten its population gradually through intensive European immigration followed by an unofficial but socially powerful incentive to mixed-race marriages, usually involving a white man taking a dark-skinned mestizo or black woman for spouse. The idea, of course, was that, since Brazilians always thought of race just as a matter of looks, not of ancestry, a future Brazilian population would look white or white-ish regardless of the African and Native American components in their ancestry. According to the racist ideas of social darwinism so cherished at that time, they justified a process of miscegenation that had already begun centuries earlier by claiming that it was a matter of "national interest" to create a more intelligent and productive "Brazilian race" with the ingenuous and rational characteristics of the "white race" prevailing over the physical virtues of other races mixed into the "melting pot". A load of bullshit, of course. I think the same ideas were very popular in other Latin American countries.

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## Carlos

Because I have been in contact with many people. A Spanish father told me how his daughter had married someone from Ecuador, but of a white elite who rejected marriages with someone mestizo or of indigenous appearance. One of those boys had a somewhat indigenous girlfriend and the family and the environment managed to break up the couple. It is possible that that elite are resorting to marry Spanish women because they have been two parents who have told me how their daughters with a university career have married men from these highly racist groups.

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## Angela

^^Indeed. I know of Latin American upper class people who have sent their children to study in Spain precisely in the hopes that they'll find and and marry a Spaniard.
Here in the U.S. they encourage their children to marry "Anglos", which means basically any "white" non-Hispanic.

It's all very sad making.

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## italouruguayan

That unfortunate attitude of the upper class in some Latin American countries surely originates in the sensation of being a small caste that feels its own existence threatened. Here in Uruguay it seems to me that the upper class is not so strict about it ... they try to marry people with money, regardless of their origin. In fact, there are people with a lot of money (especially, landowners from the interior) who have a mestizo appearance.

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## Agudot

Yo los veo completamente espaoles. Igual que los anteriores, su porcentaje de sangre indgena o africana , si la tienen, es residual o norteafricana de origen medieval. Gloria Stefan es de origen asturiano, del norte de Espaa como muchos cubanoamericanos.

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## Angela

> Yo los veo completamente espa�oles. Igual que los anteriores, su porcentaje de sangre ind�gena o africana , si la tienen, es residual o norteafricana de origen medieval. Gloria Stefan es de origen asturiano, del norte de Espa�a como muchos cubanoamericanos.


The language of this site is English. If you need to use a translation device.

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## Carlos

[QUOTE = Agudot; 564246] Yo los veo completamente espa oles. Igual que los anteriores, su porcentaje de sangre indígena o africana, si la tienen, es residual o norteafricana de origen medieval. Gloria Stefan es de origen asturiano, del norte de España como muchos cubanoamericanos. [/ QUOTE]

Completely Spanish are not seen as they have their native American mix that gives them their own appearance, some more than others is true. To say completely is to deny reality and what is evident. I understand that for Canadian or North American producers who make documentaries about the discovery or conquest of America it is useful to use mestizo or mestizo extras and actors to interpret the scenes of soldiers, discoverers or conquerors, but you know perfectly well that they do not look completely like Spaniards of Spain, Europe, is the reality.

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