Joined: 31 May 2005 {Posts: 66 } Location: South Carolina
Posted: Tue 13 Sep 2005 14:10 Post subject: Race Classification in Latin America
So there are usually more mixed-race people all over Latin America than so-called pure-bloods, except in a fewcountries. I was guessing that 8% are blacks, 19% are whites (because of the majority in Argentina, Uraguay and the sizable percentages in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica), 22% are Indians, 1% are Asians, East Indians, and Pacific
Islanders, and 50% are mixed-race (mestizos, mulattos, zambos, Asian-mixes, triracial mixes, etc). I am just estimating. Are Jamaicans, Haitians, Surinamese, Belizians, and Guyanans considered Latin Americans even though their official languages are neither Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese?
Sadly, that kind of statistic won't go over well in the United States. Here in America if you have one drop of black blood in you, you are considered black. That is why people were upset with Tiger Woods when he said he was defending his position on being a mixed race individual. That is why I think race will be more rigidly classified in the states than over in Latin America.
I have noticed that there are usually more part-black people than blacks, part-Indian people than Indians, and part-whites or Asian people than both whites and Asians. Many in America are so afraid of race mixing and worry that there won't be enough blacks or whites left. That IMO is quite sad. I wonder if that is how it is with some individuals in Latin America.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Tue 13 Sep 2005 17:39 Post subject: Re: Race Classification in Latin America
gera2561 wrote:
So there are usually more mixed-race people all over Latin America than so-called pure-bloods, except in a fewcountries. I was guessing that 8% are blacks, 19% are whites (because of the majority in Argentina, Uraguay and the sizable percentages in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica), 22% are Indians, 1% are Asians, East Indians, and Pacific
Islanders, and 50% are mixed-race (mestizos, mulattos, zambos, Asian-mixes, triracial mixes, etc). I am just estimating. Are Jamaicans, Haitians, Surinamese, Belizians, and Guyanans considered Latin Americans even though their official languages are neither Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese?
Sadly, that kind of statistic won't go over well in the United States. Here in America if you have one drop of black blood in you, you are considered black. That is why people were upset with Tiger Woods when he said he was defending his position on being a mixed race individual. That is why I think race will be more rigidly classified in the states than over in Latin America.
I have noticed that there are usually more part-black people than blacks, part-Indian people than Indians, and part-whites or Asian people than both whites and Asians. Many in America are so afraid of race mixing and worry that there won't be enough blacks or whites left. That IMO is quite sad. I wonder if that is how it is with some individuals in Latin America.
You bet,
I will tell you. Latin Americans in general are very proud of their people. We have noticed since a long time ago, that mixtures improve the "stock" rather than degrading it. So we are not afraid of other fellow humans beings.
For us, ethnic groups and races form the PAST of our regions. For current life are not that determinant as in other latitudes. However, most of our dreams are focused in the future, not in the past at all.
Sometimes we see those "pure" races and found them imperfect. How to say it kindly: exagerated. Too white, Too dark, too small, too wide nose or too long ones, too long faces or too long eyes, etc. Pure races are excesive in a way or another. Latinos peoples are average, smooth, simple and common individuals that don't call pretty much the attention, except by our beauty queens
Race purity is just a nuts' phylosophy. Individuals have the right to choose with which one they marry and have kids. The society should not intervine in that.
Joined: 31 May 2005 {Posts: 66 } Location: South Carolina
Posted: Tue 13 Sep 2005 20:23 Post subject:
I agree that race purity is ridiculous when you consider that even a pure Spaniard or a pure Japanese is a mixture of ethnicities and cultures dating back centuries. Careful about talking about pure people; some people might assume that you as a mixed race person might be looking down on a pure person, if there is any such thing.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Thu 15 Sep 2005 03:11 Post subject: Making fun
gera2561 wrote:
I agree that race purity is ridiculous when you consider that even a pure Spaniard or a pure Japanese is a mixture of ethnicities and cultures dating back centuries. Careful about talking about pure people; some people might assume that you as a mixed race person might be looking down on a pure person, if there is any such thing.
Hi,
Believe it or not, Hispanics like to make fun of "pure" peoples. After all we have listening for too long that we are "mongrels" and "inferior" people. Even Hitler in his book Main Kampf talk about the "degradation" of Latin America, a continent that is poor because is mixed race.
That hurts. And we are upset at Nordics and others that have dare to say such things against our peoples. And we are patient, as well. So, in our unconcient colective mind we know that sooner or later we'll have the opportunity to show the world we are not inferior. But only a people is waiting to succeed.
Posted: Mon 19 Sep 2005 03:21 Post subject: "Pure race" is problematic
gera2561 wrote:
I agree that race purity is ridiculous when you consider that even a pure Spaniard or a pure Japanese is a mixture of ethnicities and cultures dating back centuries. Careful about talking about pure people; some people might assume that you as a mixed race person might be looking down on a pure person, if there is any such thing.
"Pure race," racial "purity," etc., is a problematic idea. Within a species how does one define a pure race? (Esp. re our inter-fertile human species?) Where did the subset idea of a pure human "race" within our human race come from?
Writing Social Anthropology (New York, 1963), Paul Bohannan cited British geneticist Hans Kalmus's 1948 remarks extrapolating from the purifying of lab mouse strains to numbers of generations of full human sibling incest (brother +sister for 1,600 yrs @ 25yrs/gen), or father-daughter or mother-son incest (~33 gen. in 850 yrs) needed to breed similarly pure human strains. (Id., p. 198, & see references.) This procedure doubtless would create distinctive-looking peoples. But if they still could crossbreed back into "parent" human racial stock (our human species), then what importance would such "lab peoples'" racial "purity" be? Unless society drew a "color" line demanding continued incest/endogamy, why would gory details of ancestral "germ-plasm" interest anyone but the willing marital partners (& their descendants)? Icelanders may fit this "purity" model slightly. All so closely a-kin within a known count of generations, their genetic baseline is of DNA interest. (Viking founding of Iceland is historical.) Icelanders look very "white" with a distinctive family resemblance. I have never heard of them encountering racial discrimination.
If the understanding of species difference defines two or more mutually exclusive populations -- archetypal species cannot breed out of their own species -- biologically cannot hybridize fertile offspring (e.g., sterile mule =donkey +horse) -- then what biological connotation attaches to human "races" defined and understood as being endogamous ancestral breeding groups? Ushering the Jim Crow reign of terror was published theory by medical doctors such as Samuel G. Morton and Josiah C. Nott claiming that eventual hybrid sterility threatens extinction of mankind ("pure whites" anyway) proportionately to the remoteness of the invisible "black blood" in "white"-looking descendants of Mulattos. (Nott, Types of Mankind ..., 7th ed.; Philadelphia: 1855; pp. 397-398.)
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/sgml/moa-idx?notisid=AJA7398
Nott's dire warning influenced Jim Crow far and wide.
Hitler wrote:
"The result of any crossing, in brief, is always the following: (a) lowering of the standard of the higher race, (b) physical and mental regression, and, with it, the beginning of slowly but steadily progressive lingering illness.
"Every race-crossing leads necessarily sooner or later to the decline of the mixed product. The danger for the mixed product is abolished only in the moment of the bastardization of the last higher, racially pure element."
Obviously, our social understanding of "races" is assumed existence of endogamous groups defined by "color lines." Doesn't this biologically cued endogamy evoke caste -- also species -- meaning a closed breeding population? The One-Drop "rule" takes this "color-line" imagery to its hypnotic extreme by inculcating unshakable belief in some in utterly invisible "blackness," embodying "Negroid essence"; purportedly someone's "true race." But what if mules or some other gross, hairy animal were discovered hybridizing with humans? Wouldn't we all feel like supporting a similar strict social barrier trying to keep our species "pure"? Might Jim Crow terror have inflamed scientifically groundless fears along this general line? If so, are the Jim Crow fallacies (e.g., racial "difference," & the eugenic "gene-pool" concerns) all thoroughly exposed or discredited in everyone's mind now?
George
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Mon 19 Sep 2005 15:13 Post subject: Re: "Pure race" is problematic
winwinkel wrote:
"Pure race," racial "purity," etc., is a problematic idea. Within a species how does one define a pure race? (Esp. re our inter-fertile human species?) Where did the subset idea of a pure human "race" within our human race come from?
Writing Social Anthropology (New York, 1963), Paul Bohannan cited British geneticist Hans Kalmus's 1948 remarks extrapolating from the purifying of lab mouse strains to numbers of generations of full human sibling incest (brother +sister for 1,600 yrs @ 25yrs/gen), or father-daughter or mother-son incest (~33 gen. in 850 yrs) needed to breed similarly pure human strains. (Id., p. 198, & see references.) This procedure doubtless would create distinctive-looking peoples. But if they still could crossbreed back into "parent" human racial stock (our human species), then what importance would such "lab peoples'" racial "purity" be? Unless society drew a "color" line demanding continued incest/endogamy, why would gory details of ancestral "germ-plasm" interest anyone but the willing marital partners (& their descendants)? Icelanders may fit this "purity" model slightly. All so closely a-kin within a known count of generations, their genetic baseline is of DNA interest. (Viking founding of Iceland is historical.) Icelanders look very "white" with a distinctive family resemblance. I have never heard of them encountering racial discrimination.
If the understanding of species difference defines two or more mutually exclusive populations -- archetypal species cannot breed out of their own species -- biologically cannot hybridize fertile offspring (e.g., sterile mule =donkey +horse) -- then what biological connotation attaches to human "races" defined and understood as being endogamous ancestral breeding groups? Ushering the Jim Crow reign of terror was published theory by medical doctors such as Samuel G. Morton and Josiah C. Nott claiming that eventual hybrid sterility threatens extinction of mankind ("pure whites" anyway) proportionately to the remoteness of the invisible "black blood" in "white"-looking descendants of Mulattos. (Nott, Types of Mankind ..., 7th ed.; Philadelphia: 1855; pp. 397-398.)
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/sgml/moa-idx?notisid=AJA7398
Nott's dire warning influenced Jim Crow far and wide.
Hitler wrote:
"The result of any crossing, in brief, is always the following: (a) lowering of the standard of the higher race, (b) physical and mental regression, and, with it, the beginning of slowly but steadily progressive lingering illness.
"Every race-crossing leads necessarily sooner or later to the decline of the mixed product. The danger for the mixed product is abolished only in the moment of the bastardization of the last higher, racially pure element."
Obviously, our social understanding of "races" is assumed existence of endogamous groups defined by "color lines." Doesn't this biologically cued endogamy evoke caste -- also species -- meaning a closed breeding population? The One-Drop "rule" takes this "color-line" imagery to its hypnotic extreme by inculcating unshakable belief in some in utterly invisible "blackness," embodying "Negroid essence"; purportedly someone's "true race." But what if mules or some other gross, hairy animal were discovered hybridizing with humans? Wouldn't we all feel like supporting a similar strict social barrier trying to keep our species "pure"? Might Jim Crow terror have inflamed scientifically groundless fears along this general line? If so, are the Jim Crow fallacies (e.g., racial "difference," & the eugenic "gene-pool" concerns) all thoroughly exposed or discredited in everyone's mind now?
George
Hi,
It is quite clear that biological reality of race is very humble. People share most of their genetic makeup. Otherwise we would see men with six fingers, with tails, or any other weird caracteristic. And mixing would be impossible because of biological barriers. In that case I believe we would be talking about different species, not races. Perhaps neaderthal men were, in fact, a different species distinct of homo sapiens sapiens.
The race phylosophy, I believe, comes from the breeding of farm and domestic animals. There the growers select genetic lines to make animals succeed in specific task. That's the way the sheppard dog appear, or the arab horse, the milky cow, or the siam cat.
Racists started very early to compare animal breeding with the breeding of human beings. It is clear Spartans, for instance, were trying to breed a warrior race killing the babies and young individuals that did not fit in their racial standards. And Spartians are also the main paradigma of the military western mind, from Greece, to Roman, to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
During Christian times racism was kept in line with the idea all men were equal under the eyes of God. An idea that was encouraged by the church and that was applied as such in Catholic Latin America. That's why Latin America was several degrees of magnitude more tolerant that Anglo-Saxon, French and Holland Americas.
However, I believe the first pioners and colonialists of today's United States were also tolerant fellows in certain degree. There are lots of stories of white men marrying indian women; a behavoir that was quite common in the past, in the years from previous to the American revolution. I believe most of the results of those mixing become mainstream Americans that mixed with the new waves of European immigrants which keep comming and comming. So racism against Indians was not inmediate. Racism against Blacks, though, was always there.
However, things changed whith the evolution theory of Darwin. And particularly with Spencer's social darwinism ideas. From there on, the pseudo scientific racism spread like fire through the western world. And from there on genocides started to multiply. It is not a coincidence, I believe, that darwinism coincided with the end of slavery. Societies started to worry with the mixing of peoples, in particular with Africans.
But biology also have the concept of hybrid strenght that is quite easy to see in animals and plants. From that concept appeared the phylosophy of the "Cosmic race". The idea that the mixed people got more strenght, health and endurance that pure races. The fact that certain pure puritan sects, that practised endogamy, showed genetic defects (long hears, genetics ills, deformed hands, etc) was shown as a proof that genetic isolation was a sure way of decline.
In mixed populations the ideal is the "Cosmic race", and that phylosophy has served to stop racism and to give every person the dignity of being just what he/she is: a human. And the "hybrid strenght" myth have given mixed people the arguments to confront racists and insult them.
Posted: Tue 20 Sep 2005 01:11 Post subject: Re: "Pure race" is problematic
oevega wrote:
[Omissions.]
However, things changed whith the evolution theory of Darwin. And particularly with Spencer's social darwinism ideas. From there on, the pseudo scientific racism spread like fire through the western world. And from there on genocides started to multiply. It is not a coincidence, I believe, that darwinism coincided with the end of slavery. Societies started to worry with the mixing of peoples, in particular with Africans.
But biology also have the concept of hybrid strenght that is quite easy to see in animals and plants. From that concept appeared the phylosophy of the "Cosmic race". The idea that the mixed people got more strenght, health and endurance that pure races. The fact that certain pure puritan sects, that practised endogamy, showed genetic defects (long hears, genetics ills, deformed hands, etc) was shown as a proof that genetic isolation was a sure way of decline.
In mixed populations the ideal is the "Cosmic race", and that phylosophy has served to stop racism and to give every person the dignity of being just what he/she is: a human. And the "hybrid strenght" myth have given mixed people the arguments to confront racists and insult them.
Regards,
Omar Vega
"Hybrid vigor" is an idea that I suppose is okay to proudly hurl sometimes.
But we cannot have it both ways. Hybrid vigor needs hybrids! Do we really want to stigmatize our biracial children and adults as "hybrids"? Who wants to be known as the neighborhood mongrel? The town half-breed? "Spurious issue"? Dr. Yehudi Webster (who gets national coverage for his book demanding end to racial classifications) argued with me that our multiracial young people should introduce themselves at parties as "racially unclassifiable." How popular do you think that will make them?
I have read that hybrid vigor is a first-generation phenomena. It shows up mostly in the F1 generation -- first crossing -- of two very inbred, different F0 populations. Therefore, hybrid vigor is not likely demonstrated in Latin America, where peoples have been re-mixing themselves for many generations. I think a general, subtle "mongrel vigor" dominates fitness over purebred, thoroughbred domesticates. But do we have multiracial humans on hand panting to flaunt their mongrel vigor?
Maybe we could explore whether "purebred" is "better" in a separate thread? I know, one line of argument sees racial refinement in racial "purity." Animal breeders craft a sort of art-beauty this way. Is this thinking right for humans? Does it matter how long a population evolved to its stereotypical "pure" phenotype? (White supremacists bewail loss of their "white purity.") Does long isolation invest any "race" with a multicultural right to be? (E.g., native Hawaiians, American Indians?) Also, there are those feeling sure that "different races" must be precursors of future evolutionary cleavage -- they believe the "races" are "incipient species." How can we know? What logical/moral issues might arise from our turning our government or society to midwife The Birth of A Nation expecting a brand new homonid species? (It's what Jim Crow segregation was all about.) Would preventing it be immoral? (E.g., did Mexico & Latin America plunge into genetic crime, as Democrat U.S. congressmen against the 14th Amend. argued in the 1860s?)
oevega wrote:
The race phylosophy, I believe, comes from the breeding of farm and domestic animals. There the growers select genetic lines to make animals succeed in specific task. That's the way the sheppard dog appear, or the arab horse, the milky cow, or the siam cat.
Racists started very early to compare animal breeding with the breeding of human beings. It is clear Spartans, for instance, were trying to breed a warrior race killing the babies and young individuals that did not fit in their racial standards. And Spartians are also the main paradigma of the military western mind, from Greece, to Roman, to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
I agree with this view of the historical confluence of domesticated animal breeding and the growing influence of science (e.g., Linnaeus, Blumenbach, Darwin, et al.) following the Enlightenment in the latter 18th-century. I use to have a Smithsonian article on the amazing creature-creations of Victorian animal breeders. It was around 1830 that rethinking of Blumenbach-classified human "races" began looking to influential doctors as "Farmer God's animal-breeding" instead of mere undulations in wild, natural plumage. Of course, this laid language, mental foundation for a pissing-match view of "different" human "breeds" judged at a sort of cosmic county fair.
I would like to remind everyone that our U.S. government is deeply mired in this "human domesticated breeds" notion of fence-line crisp "blood difference" between ethnicities/"races." It defines all our civil rights protections, affirmative action, Indian affairs (e.g., treaties), our policy toward Hawaiians, Samoans, Puerto Ricans, and others beside our mainland "minorities"; and it poisons our foreign policy toward several other continents. It also underpins our biased support of Israel against the Palestinians in the Middle East. And this ghastly U.S. perception of human being "breeds" in domesticated "bloody" herds (or "incipient species") is spreading like wildfire over our borders and around the world.
George
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Tue 20 Sep 2005 01:31 Post subject: Re: "Pure race" is problematic
winwinkel wrote:
"Hybrid vigor" is an idea that I suppose is okay to proudly hurl sometimes.
But we cannot have it both ways. Hybrid vigor needs hybrids! Do we really want to stigmatize our biracial children and adults as "hybrids"? Who wants to be known as the neighborhood mongrel? The town half-breed? "Spurious issue"? Dr. Yehudi Webster (who gets national coverage for his book demanding end to racial classifications) argued with me that our multiracial young people should introduce themselves at parties as "racially unclassifiable." How popular do you think that will make them?
That is all a naming matter. In Latin America, for instance, there exist the idea that "pure" people is somehow weaker that mixed "all-terrain" "4-wheel drive" people.
It is so much so that even certain branches of Nazi movements existed in the past in South America. They were looking for the superior mixed-men: the mixture of Gauls and the most brave Natives. Those were the same people that gave shelter to Nazi war criminals after their utopia finish with defeat.
Quote:
I have read that hybrid vigor is a first-generation phenomena. It shows up mostly in the F1 generation -- first crossing -- of two very inbred, different F0 populations. Therefore, hybrid vigor is not likely demonstrated in Latin America, where peoples have been re-mixing themselves for many generations. I think a general, subtle "mongrel vigor" dominates fitness over purebred, thoroughbred domesticates. But do we have multiracial humans on hand panting to flaunt their mongrel vigor?
In Latin America we associate it with beauty. We believe it is not coincidence that many Latinas have been beauty queens, for instance. We asociate it with creativity as well. Specially in arts and music. It is a myth, of course. But the idea of superiority of pure races is also a myth.
Quote:
Maybe we could explore whether "purebred" is "better" in a separate thread? I know, one line of argument sees racial refinement in racial "purity." Animal breeders craft a sort of art-beauty this way. Is this thinking right for humans?
Of course. It would be very interesting to follow in other thread. The argument against breeders is the following. Yes, they obtain pretty dogs by breading, but those dogs suffer a lots of genetic deseases that the common mixed dog does not have.
Posted: Tue 27 Sep 2005 22:27 Post subject: In Buenos Aires, Researchers Exhume Long-Unclaimed African R
Why would the World Bank fund a project like this? Is this part of a U.S. plan to export the ODR to Latin America? Note how the article implies that white Argentines with some black ancestry aren't really "white."
Quote:
In Buenos Aires, Researchers Exhume Long-Unclaimed African Roots
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 5, 2005; A14
BUENOS AIRES -- Their disappearance is one of Argentina's most enduring mysteries. In 1810, black residents accounted for about 30 percent of the population of Buenos Aires. By 1887, however, their numbers had plummeted to 1.8 percent.
So where did they go? The answer, it turns out, is nowhere.
Popular myth has offered two historical hypotheses: a yellow fever epidemic in 1871 that devastated black urban neighborhoods, and a brutal war with Paraguay in the 1860s that put many black Argentines on the front lines.
But two new studies are challenging those old notions, using distinct methods: a door-to-door census to determine how many Argentines consider themselves black, and an analysis of DNA samples to detect traces of African ancestry in those who consider themselves white.
The results are only partially compiled, but they suggest that many of the black Argentines did not vanish; they just faded into the mixed-race populace and became lost to demography. According to some researchers, as many as 10 percent of Buenos Aires residents are partly descended from black Argentines but have no idea.
"People for years have accepted the idea that there are no black people in Argentina," said Miriam Gomes, a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires who is part black and considers herself Afro-Argentine. "Even the schoolbooks here accepted this as a fact. But where did that leave me?"
It left her as part of a practically invisible fringe, a group whose very existence had been snubbed by the country's early statesmen. The nation aggressively courted "the reviving spirit of European civilization" -- in the words of 19th-century Argentine social architect Juan Bautista Alberdi -- and promoted an image of a European country transplanted on South American soil.
"Argentina was interested in presenting itself as a white country," said George Reid Andrews, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has specialized in black history in Latin America. "Its ideologues and writers put a great emphasis on the yellow fever epidemic and the war, and it was feasible to pretend that the black population had simply disappeared as immigration exploded."
Estimates of the current population of blacks in Buenos Aires are essentially wild guesses, partly because the Argentine government has not reflected African racial ancestry in its census counts in well over a century.
But Gomes is among the group of scholars and scientists who want to take a closer look at today's black culture in Argentina, which they believe will help them form a clearer picture of what happened in the past.
Funded in part by the World Bank and assisted by Argentina's census bureau, the group launched a limited census of various neighborhoods in the capital last month.
First, they asked whether any people in the house considered themselves Afro-Argentine, then they asked whether anyone in the house had any black ancestors. In neighborhoods with historically high concentrations of black residents, they conducted more detailed surveys of religious practice, diet and social organization -- an attempt to measure the influence of African culture there.
The results won't be analyzed until later this year. Diego Masello, a professor with the National University of the Third of February, said the thorniest challenge of the census has been eliciting honest answers -- or any answers at all.
"In some cases, the census-takers reported that residents who visibly had some African traits, even some who appeared completely black, absolutely refused to participate," said Masello, who is helping direct the census.
Gomes said such responses have been frustrating, but illustrative.
"Without a doubt, racial prejudice is great in this society, and people want to believe that they are white," Gomes said. "Here, if someone has one drop of white blood, they call themselves white."
But personal definitions do not count when analyzing DNA, which is what a group of scientists from the University of Buenos Aires and Oxford University in England did earlier this year. After collecting blood samples at a local hospital, they searched for genetic markers that indicate African ancestry. The results, to be published this year in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggested that 10 percent of those who identified themselves as white were, in part, descendants of black Argentines.
"A lot of people were very surprised by this," said Francisco R. Carnese, a geneticist at the University of Buenos Aires and co-author of the study. "When you walk around Buenos Aires, you don't see signs of African ancestry. But you see it in the genes."
Carnese said there was also a growing desire among Argentines to figure out their heritage -- one reason that multiple studies are trying to shed light on the same thing, he said. For most Argentines, that means delving into the cultures of Italy, England and Germany, but Africa also deserves consideration, he said.
The near-invisibility of black culture and roots in Argentina has been a striking contrast with neighboring Brazil, which once imported millions of African slaves and has a large, high-profile Afro-Brazilian community.
Africans had a strong hand in shaping Brazilian culture: samba music, the Lenten festival of carnival and African religions that have melded with Roman Catholicism to form hybrid systems of faith. Even the national dish, a black bean staple called feijoada , is popularly credited to 16th-century slaves.
In Argentina, partly in response to the new research, black interest groups have started promoting what they say is a strong African influence on some of the traditions most closely associated with Argentina. There was little slave trade with Argentina; many Africans who ended up there had originally been imported to Brazil.
"The first paintings of people dancing the tango are of people of African descent," Gomes said.
The asado -- the traditional Argentine barbecue that includes glands, livers and other organs from cows -- also was influenced by blacks who collected the parts that the Argentine cowboys, or gauchos, threw away, according to Masello.
The census-takers hope their work will inspire the government to include African ancestry in its next census in 2011 -- a decision that Gomes said she believed would go a long way in acknowledging the role of Africa in today's Argentina.
"If we're not counted," she said, "there's no way to really convince people that we actually exist."
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Wed 28 Sep 2005 00:09 Post subject: Re: In Buenos Aires, Researchers Exhume Long-Unclaimed African R
Hi Mrs. Powell:
Powell wrote:
Why would the World Bank fund a project like this? Is this part of a U.S. plan to export the ODR to Latin America? Note how the article implies that white Argentines with some black ancestry aren't really "white."
Perhaps they are the same guys that claim Platon, Cleopatra and Beethoven were Blacks. Afrocentrists I guess I don't know.
Actually, there has been a long campain to prove that every musical style in Latin America is African in its origin, for example. Although there have been some important influences, saying that "every" style is African is just ignoring the European and Indians roots of Latin America.
Those guys are not interesting in Latin America. The only thing that want is to prove Latin America is African to fullfill the worldwide negritude agenda. That's what I think.
I will just point out to certain things that are not precise, to say the least.
Quote:
In Buenos Aires, Researchers Exhume Long-Unclaimed African Roots
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 5, 2005; A14
BUENOS AIRES -- Their disappearance is one of Argentina's most enduring mysteries. In 1810, black residents accounted for about 30 percent of the population of Buenos Aires. By 1887, however, their numbers had plummeted to 1.8 percent.
From where does the person get that number? I don't know
Quote:
So where did they go? The answer, it turns out, is nowhere.
Popular myth has offered two historical hypotheses: a yellow fever epidemic in 1871 that devastated black urban neighborhoods, and a brutal war with Paraguay in the 1860s that put many black Argentines on the front lines.
But two new studies are challenging those old notions, using distinct methods: a door-to-door census to determine how many Argentines consider themselves black, and an analysis of DNA samples to detect traces of African ancestry in those who consider themselves white.
The results are only partially compiled, but they suggest that many of the black Argentines did not vanish; they just faded into the mixed-race populace and became lost to demography. According to some researchers, as many as 10 percent of Buenos Aires residents are partly descended from black Argentines but have no idea.
If Argentineans were 10% Black they would look like Venezuelans that are 10% Black. They don't
Quote:
"People for years have accepted the idea that there are no black people in Argentina," said Miriam Gomes, a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires who is part black and considers herself Afro-Argentine. "Even the schoolbooks here accepted this as a fact. But where did that leave me?"
It left her as part of a practically invisible fringe, a group whose very existence had been snubbed by the country's early statesmen. The nation aggressively courted "the reviving spirit of European civilization" -- in the words of 19th-century Argentine social architect Juan Bautista Alberdi -- and promoted an image of a European country transplanted on South American soil.
"Argentina was interested in presenting itself as a white country," said George Reid Andrews, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has specialized in black history in Latin America. "Its ideologues and writers put a great emphasis on the yellow fever epidemic and the war, and it was feasible to pretend that the black population had simply disappeared as immigration exploded."
That's true. There was an intentional politic of "whitening" in Argentina.
Quote:
But Gomes is among the group of scholars and scientists who want to take a closer look at today's black culture in Argentina, which they believe will help them form a clearer picture of what happened in the past
Good for Gomez. He got a free lunch of the world Bank.
Quote:
Gomes said such responses have been frustrating, but illustrative.
Yeap. Gomes won't rest up to he proves his tesis. Whatever it takes
Quote:
"Without a doubt, racial prejudice is great in this society, and people want to believe that they are white," Gomes said. "Here, if someone has one drop of white blood, they call themselves white."
It seem Gomes is the one looking for the "One drop" of Black blood.
Quote:
But personal definitions do not count when analyzing DNA,
Yeap. Who believes what does dumb Argentineans, white wannabies, say about themselves.
Quote:
which is what a group of scientists from the University of Buenos Aires and Oxford University in England did earlier this year. After collecting blood samples at a local hospital, they searched for genetic markers that indicate African ancestry. The results, to be published this year in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggested that 10 percent of those who identified themselves as white were, in part, descendants of black Argentines.
Yeap. They GOT them !!! So, not only British and Queen Elizabeth are Blacks, after all.
Quote:
"A lot of people were very surprised by this," said Francisco R. Carnese, a geneticist at the University of Buenos Aires and co-author of the study. "When you walk around Buenos Aires, you don't see signs of African ancestry. But you see it in the genes."
They will have to learn to look more carefully.
Quote:
Carnese said there was also a growing desire among Argentines to figure out their heritage -- one reason that multiple studies are trying to shed light on the same thing, he said. For most Argentines, that means delving into the cultures of Italy, England and Germany, but Africa also deserves consideration, he said.
Knowing the Argentineans I believe they would never ever want to find out about an African heritage at all. I tell you.
Quote:
The near-invisibility of black culture and roots in Argentina has been a striking contrast with neighboring Brazil, which once imported millions of African slaves and has a large, high-profile Afro-Brazilian community.
Brasil is another country
Quote:
Africans had a strong hand in shaping Brazilian culture: samba music, the Lenten festival of carnival and African religions that have melded with Roman Catholicism to form hybrid systems of faith. Even the national dish, a black bean staple called feijoada , is popularly credited to 16th-century slaves.
Brasil is another country, once again. It is like saying the genetics of the U.S. is the same that the one of Mexico.
Quote:
In Argentina, partly in response to the new research, black interest groups have started promoting what they say is a strong African influence on some of the traditions most closely associated with Argentina. There was little slave trade with Argentina; many Africans who ended up there had originally been imported to Brazil.
Yes. People here knows that Black interest groups are targeting the identity of our region and countries. But people is aware of it.
Quote:
"The first paintings of people dancing the tango are of people of African descent," Gomes said.
That may be so but this is not something to be proud about. Tango started in the prostitutes environment of the immigrant port of Buenos Aires.
Quote:
The asado -- the traditional Argentine barbecue that includes glands, livers and other organs from cows -- also was influenced by blacks who collected the parts that the Argentine cowboys, or gauchos, threw away, according to Masello.
That's nuts. Interiors of animals is a traditional Spanish food since the middle ages. Barbucues are from the times of King Salomon.
Quote:
The census-takers hope their work will inspire the government to include African ancestry in its next census in 2011 -- a decision that Gomes said she believed would go a long way in acknowledging the role of Africa in today's Argentina.
Gomes once again. Well, don't ask people about their backgrounds. Otherwise there won't be many Black people accounted.
Quote:
"If we're not counted," she said, "there's no way to really convince people that we actually exist."
Yes. Start countring. Let's wait what are the results. However, I already know the answer.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Thu 29 Sep 2005 02:42 Post subject: The case of the Black Beans....
Quote:
Africans had a strong hand in shaping Brazilian culture: samba music, the Lenten festival of carnival and African religions that have melded with Roman Catholicism to form hybrid systems of faith. Even the national dish, a black bean staple called feijoada , is popularly credited to 16th-century slaves.
In the previous post something wasn't right, so I check the above paragraph once again and I found the following.
(1) Samba and folk santeria, and we could add Capoheira as well, are of African origin, without doubt.
but,
(2) Carnival was introduced by Europeans. We can see their impact in all the places where Europeans were: Venice, Oruro-Bolivia, etc.
(3) Black Beans dishes are not a contribution of Africans. The ones that did it where the Native Americans. They are the ones that domesticated the "common Bean" (Phaseolus vulgaris) one of whose varieties is the Black Bean. And Amerindians have "black bean" and meat dishes thousand of years before Europeans and Africans arrived to these lands.
Actually, Black beans are consummed across the Americas from prehistoric times, and from Cuba to Mexico, to southern South America. Therefore it is hardly recent invention at all.
What that proves?
Nothing.
Just that one have to be careful to claim meriths for one people that actually belongs to another.
Information about the Black Beans recipes follows,
Regards,
Omar Vega
Quote:
Two New Beans from America
Before Columbus, the Old World was familiar with numerous kinds of beans, but neither our common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, nor the lima bean, P. lunatus, was known. Their American origin is fixed by descriptions and references to finding them at many widely scattered points over the Americas about 1500 and soon after.
The word "bean," like the word "vegetable," is indefinite. It is used to refer to the seeds of many different kinds of plants.
Our use of the expression "common bean" is in accord with the scientific name Phaseolus vulgaris, which means exactly that. It includes our dry, field varieties, such as Navy or Pea Bean, Red Kidney, Pinto, Great Northern, Marrow, and Yellow Eye. It also includes all our edible-podded garden beans called stringless or snap beans and formerly called string beans. (Some varieties are stringy.)
The English first used the name "kidney bean" in 1551 to distinguish our American common bean from Old World types.
In the South and some other parts of this country lima beans are commonly called "butter beans." In New England this colloquialism is sometimes used to refer to yellowpodded ("wax") varieties of snap beans.
Lima Bean a Native of Guatemala
Not long ago Brazil was believed to be the country of origin of lima beans, but new evidence points to Guatemala. Wild primitive lima beans have been found there, along with a remarkable diversity of cultivated forms. Their distribution from Guatemala has been traced by the various "prehistoric varieties" left along Indian trade routes.
One course of prehistoric "bean migration" extended up through Mexico into what is now our Southwest, thence eastward to spread from Florida to Virginia. The lima beans grown by the various Indian tribes over all that territory varied from the present small types used by the Hopi Indians in the Southwest to the Sieva type found in the East.
Another course extended down through Central America into Peru, where the large-seeded, large-podded types were developed in the warm coastal areas. The name "lima bean" obviously came from Lima, Peru, one point at which the species was found by early European explorers.
A third, but less extensive, branch of development extended eastward through the West Indies and thence southward toward the mainland of South America. This Caribbean branch of the species contains types that tend to develop poisonous quantities of cyanide under certain conditions, but the other two branches have not shown this treacherous tendency. These "bad actors" are generally very small, nearly round, and often are hardly recognizable as lima beans.
There is an almost endless diversity of seed sizes, shapes, and color combinations among the lima beans, although few colored varieties are now grown in the United States.
Since dry common and lima beans are highly concentrated foods and are easily carried and stored for long periods, the explorers and slavers of the early 1500's found them ideal for replenishing their ships' stores. Supplies were obtained from Indians in numerous places in the Americas and incidentally carried to the farthest parts of the earth-Europe, Africa, the East Indies, India, the Philippines.
By the late 1700's there were many records of the lima bean in all those places. Apparently it was first recorded in Europe about 1591. It is far less important in most of Europe than is the common bean, since it requires warm weather for good growth.
The bush varieties of lima bean are of rather recent development (since 1875), although the dwarf mutation on which they are based had doubtless recurred innumerable times before anyone thought of making use of it.
The common bean also is believed to have originated in Central America and to have undergone somewhat the same distribution as the lima bean. Because of its greater range of cultivation all over the Americas at the time of discovery, and its greater diversity in North America, it is probable that its culture is even older than that of the lima bean.
Beans a Mainstay of Indian Diet
When the white man discovered the Americas, beans were almost as universally grown as maize and supplemented maize in the diet to a very important degree. Climbing beans were generally planted along with maize all over the Americas.
Maize is high in starch but deficient in certain proteins, while beans are high in those proteins. The combination of beans and maize, we know in the light of modern nutrition, met most of the requirements of those Indian tribes of Central America that used little or no meat. The Indians invented succotash.
The pods of some forms were eaten in the green state, at least by white men, virtually from the time of their discovery. It was less than a hundred years ago, however, that truly stringless, nearly fiberless, tender-podded varieties, such as we know today, were developed.
Black Beans Recipes and Cooking Tips
From Peggy Trowbridge,
Your Guide to Home Cooking.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
Black beans are a variety of kidney beans
Black beans have long been a protein-rich staple food of many Latin cultures. Today, black beans are enjoyed by most cultures around the world. Learn about black beans, and get some cooking tips before delving into the black bean recipes.
Black bean history
Black beans, botanically-known as Phaseolus vulgaris, are native to the Americas. One of over 500 varieties of kidney beans, black beans are also known as turtle beans, caviar criollo, and frijoles negros. These beans date back at least 7,000 years when they were a staple food in the diets of Central and South Americans.
The beans are about the size of a pea, up to 1/2-inch long, with the slightly less-pronounced boat-shape common to kidney beans. They have a satiny black skin and a white center. When cooked, the flavor is strong and slightly sweet and the texture is creamy.
Popular black bean recipes and uses
Although Latino peoples have long used black beans in soups, stews, and chilis, the Coach House restaurant in New York City, USA, is credited with expanding the popularity of black beans with the general American populace and tourist visitors. Their black bean soup became a smashing success in the 1970s.
Black beans are now also popular in bean salads, bean soup mixes, bean pancakes, and refried beans. The Brazilian national dish, feijoada, celebrates black beans in a hearty meat stew which is enjoyed by most Brazilians nearly every weekend. The Cuban dish Moros y Cristianos, or Moors and Christians, is a dish of black beans and white rice traditionally served on New Year's Day for good luck.
Feijoada, a traditional Angolan, Brazilian, Portuguese dish also common among other former Portuguese colonies, is a stew of black beans (in Brazil) or white or red beans in Portugal, with a variety of pork and beef products such as salted pork trimmings (ears, tail, feet), pork sausage and bacon, and salted beef (loin and tongue). Angolan and São Tomean feijoadas uses palm oil. Northeastern Portugal includes vegetables and uses red beans, while neighbouring Northwest prefers white beans. This dark purplish-brown stew is best prepared over slow fire in a thick clay pot.
It is pronounced [fe.ʒu.'a.da], using IPA notation.
Feijoada's traditional history in Brazil states that it was a "luxury" dish of African slaves in Brazilian farms, as it was prepared with relatively cheap ingredients (beans, rice, collard greens, farofa) and leftovers from salted pork production. Over time, it first became a popular dish among lower classes, and finally the "national dish", offered even by sophisticated restaurants. However, this history is disputed and some experts believe that the Feijoada could actually have been inspired by the French Cassoulet dish, whilest others believe that it may have been the Portuguese dishes from the regions of Estremadura e Trás-os-Montes (where a mixture of beans and pork meat is common) that inpired the feijoada.
Joined: 31 May 2005 {Posts: 66 } Location: South Carolina
Posted: Sat 01 Oct 2005 15:29 Post subject:
I needed to edit and correct the previous information I have given:
So there are usually more mixed-race people all over Latin America than so-called pure-bloods, except in a fewcountries. I was guessing that 8% are blacks (because of the majorities and sizable percentages in Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Cuba, Guyana, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico), 17% are whites (because of the majority in Argentina, Uraguay and the sizable percentages in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica), 20% are Indians, 2% are Asians, East Indians, and Pacific
Islanders, and 53% are mixed-race (mestizos, mulattos, zambos, Asian-mixes, triracial mixes, etc). I have noticed that mixed-race individuals are majority or sizeable minority populations in nearly every country in Latin America, especially Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Chile. I am just estimating. Are Jamaicans, Haitians, Surinamese, Belizians, and Guyanans considered Latin Americans even though their official languages are neither Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese? No one has even answered this question. Argentina is considered a Latin country, though at least half don't even speak Spanish or don't have Spanish origin. Many are of Irish, German, or French in origin yet all Argentinians are Latinos. Some people consider Jamaica and Haiti a part of Latin America; others don't.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Sat 01 Oct 2005 19:36 Post subject: About Latin America
Hi,
gera2561 wrote:
I needed to edit and correct the previous information I have given:
I would like to help
Quote:
So there are usually more mixed-race people all over Latin America than so-called pure-bloods, except in a fewcountries.
I would say that every country has large amount of mixed peoples. What varies are the relative sizes of each original group and its mixtures.
Quote:
I was guessing that 8% are blacks (because of the majorities and sizable percentages in Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Cuba, Guyana, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico), 17% are whites (because of the majority in Argentina, Uraguay and the sizable percentages in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica), 20% are Indians, 2% are Asians, East Indians, and Pacific
Islanders, and 53% are mixed-race (mestizos, mulattos, zambos, Asian-mixes, triracial mixes, etc).
In general your numbers are correct. However Europeans proportion in the genetic pool is a lot larger than that. In order of magnitude in Latin America the most numerous group were the Europeans, then the Indians and then the Blacks, today mixtures are more numerous. However this is not a definite rule because the kind of mixtures change from country to country.
As an example, Cuba is half white and half mullato. Chile is mainly light mestizo with about 30% Native and 70% European ascendency. Now, if you see a white from Cuba you'll notice they are is usually "whiter" than the average Chilean. So things are relative.
Quote:
I have noticed that mixed-race individuals are majority or sizeable minority populations in nearly every country in Latin America, especially Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Chile.
I
In Argentina, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and in southern Brazil, considered "white" countries, there is also a certain degree of admixture with Native Americans. Mestizos are very ubiquous. (A lot more that mulattoes for instance). The mixture between certain Natives and European usually can "pass" as Europeans without further notice. Mestizos has always entered the "white" society without much trouble. In a way they are like "Eurasians" in the U.S.. People that are not very much discriminated and that tend to identify with the European.
Quote:
I am just estimating. Are Jamaicans, Haitians, Surinamese, Belizians, and Guyanans considered Latin Americans even though their official languages are neither Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese?
Brazilians are not Hispanics, but they are Latinos. But not only that, they are Iberian descendents like the Hispanics. So they share with us most of the pattern of the culture. The attitude is distinct though. Brazilians are more liberal, tolerant and happy buch of people than Hispanics. Brazilians are positive, Hispanics depressed, etc. Brazilians and Hispanics not only speak very similar languages but even share the same jokes and sayings !
Haitians are considered Latin Americans because they speak French (a Latin Language). But many people believe they really are different from us. They have a culture that has anything to do with Latin America. Also Haiti is a lot poorer than the poorest Hispanic country so maybe there is some discrimination because of that.
Besides, I will be sincere to say the only feeling that produced Haiti to us is an intense pain because of its misfortune. In Haiti in this moment there are troops from Latin America and there is a Chilean governor. They are just trying to contribute Haiti to get back in their feet. Haitian people deserve it.
The rest of those nations are considered part of the West Indies. They are not part of Latin America. That does not mean West Indians are not consider good neighbours. The relations between the Hispanic and non-Hispanic are fine. West Indians nations are very small though, so our countries don't see thet represent a menace, therefore colaboration is possible and is very real.
Quote:
No one has even answered this question. Argentina is considered a Latin country, though at least half don't even speak Spanish or don't have Spanish origin.
That's wrong. If you don't speak Spanish in Argentina you'd be in a BIG trouble. 99% of Argentinean speak Spanish and I am only excluding the persons that are less than a year old
Quote:
Many are of Irish, German, or French in origin yet all Argentinians are Latinos.
Although in Argentina and in Brazil they are more common, you will find very easily, in any country of Latin America, people who is of Irish, German or French descendt.
Take my case. My "European" ancestry is Spanish, French and Italian. My ancestors carry last names like Vega, Martinez, Jamett, Rocualt, Rocco, etc. This case is not extrange but the norm. Most people in Latin America has at least one European ancestors, and many a lot more than one.
Yes. There are lots of Europeans in Latin America. Walking in the street one find many people that look European side by side with some people that do not. And they don't notice the difference.
I preffer to use the term European than white, because not all the Europeans meet the racist standards of the word "white".
Quote:
Some people consider Jamaica and Haiti a part of Latin America; others don't.
Jamaica is an interesting place and its music infuence is important. Their culture though is completely different from ours. They speak English and we Spanish. They are Protestants we are Catholics. They are mainly descendents of Black slaves and we are mainly descentents of Spanish pioneers. They have an history asociated with England and we used to belong to the Spanish Empire. And those Empires: England and Spain, were like the dog and the cat. So, definitely we are not the same peoples. However, that does not mean we can't be friends.
The case of Haiti is similar. There is a cultural barrier between them and us. Some people preffer the use of the world Iberian America instead of Latin America because it excludes Haiti.
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Thu 10 Nov 2005 15:53 Post subject: Re:
Hello, Omar!
Omar wrote:
If Argentineans were 10% Black they would look like Venezuelans that are 10% Black. They don't.
A ten-percent black admixture in any population wouldn't be enough to alter it phenotypically. I believe Frank said it would take more than 20% black admixture to even begin to make a person or population have visible signs of African ancestry. I recall having read that in some British cities in the 1500's to 1800's, there were sections that were more than 10 percent black, and today, after centuries of intermarriage, there is absolutely no trace of these blacks, other than in the DNA, where L sequences have been found.
There is an HLA study that suggests a significant portion of the ancestry of the Greeks is sub-Saharan / Ethiopian, yet no visible sign of it is present. People don't realize how quickly a phenotypical characteristic of a certain population can vanish when that population is absorbed into a much more numerous population that differs physically.
None of this, of course, means that some Argentines should be considered black, as this is stupid and silly. Even the 56% Amerindian mtDNA found in Argentina doesn't affect the physical characteristics. Most people would agree that Argentines are southern European in appearance, generally speaking - so they are white.
Even though most Chileans are 30% Amerindian and 70% White, most Chileans to me look southern European, and not Indian-admixed.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Sat 12 Nov 2005 05:32 Post subject: Phenotypes
William wrote:
...There is an HLA study that suggests a significant portion of the ancestry of the Greeks is sub-Saharan / Ethiopian, yet no visible sign of it is present. People don't realize how quickly a phenotypical characteristic of a certain population can vanish when that population is absorbed into a much more numerous population that differs physically.
None of this, of course, means that some Argentines should be considered black, as this is stupid and silly. Even the 56% Amerindian mtDNA found in Argentina doesn't affect the physical characteristics. Most people would agree that Argentines are southern European in appearance, generally speaking - so they are white.
Even though most Chileans are 30% Amerindian and 70% White, most Chileans to me look southern European, and not Indian-admixed.
Hi,
Well, in Chile it is quite easy to see people that have aspect of Native and also European. Actually one observe all the phenotypes between these two groups.
I don't believe in the absortion theory at all, at least the numbers are very big, 1 in 1000 for example. Otherwise, when we talk about 25%-75% or similar relations, after mixing one observe a Gauss distribution of phenotypes, with lots of people in the "avarage" and less people in the extremes.
That's is what one observes in every country of Latin America.
But mixtures vary according to the proportions of the original ethnic groups. And also the aspect vary quite a lot. To the point that every single population of Latin America look different from all the others. At least to us is quite obvious.
Finally one though. In the west people usually speak about four races like if they were very standard. They say people is red, white, black and yellow. But that does not happens in reality because:
(1) People of the same "race" form sub-groups which can be very different between them. In the case of Native Americans one could distinguish dozens of different races. From the tall and pale Patagonians to the small and dark brown Guatemalans; for the people addapted to high altitudes in Peru, to the ones of the Amazon, etc. In Africans happens the same, and one can find lots of physical differences between them.
So, when people speak of a mestizo, for example, the result of a mixture of a Guatemalan native and a Andalucian would be very different if the parents are a Dutch and a Patagon.
(2) Mixings are sensible to the proportions. A person 20% A and 80% B would look quite different from the reverse proportion.
You can't compare the admixture of natives and Europeans when you had a huge population of natives, and a constant influx of Europeans. But go to the sierra of Peru and you will meet people that look pure indigenous, but they have both African and Spanish ancestry. The influx was to small to really make a dent, they were dissipated into the population, and all that is left is traditions of the peoples, with masks describing them and what not.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Sun 13 Nov 2005 04:39 Post subject: Natives of the
Salsassin wrote:
You can't compare the admixture of natives and Europeans when you had a huge population of natives, and a constant influx of Europeans. But go to the sierra of Peru and you will meet people that look pure indigenous, but they have both African and Spanish ancestry. The influx was to small to really make a dent, they were dissipated into the population, and all that is left is traditions of the peoples, with masks describing them and what not.
Hi,
Look, I am Latin American as well as you are. I notice at first sight when a person is really Native American or when is Mestizo (Native-European) or Sambo (Native-Black) or European.
Every day I see Peruvians near downtown Santiago (Chile), so I notice who of them is Native, White, Mestizo or Mullato as well. I lived 5 years in Saskatchewan Canada, one of the places in North America that has the larger Native group as a proportion of the Population. I have lived most of my life in Chile and I know my people well.
So, when I say that in a country like mine, with a proportion 75% European and 25% Native American, one find every single phenotype between pure Native to pure European, I know what I am saying.
Yes. In Peru there is a large population of pure Natives, but only a small percentage of them are either Mulattoes or Mestizos of Native culture. Natives make about half the population of Peru; the other Half is mainly Mestizos with a small percentage of pure Whites and Mulattoes.
However, what I was pointing out was that smaller groups are not really absorved but that the mixing is just a change of the frecuencies in phenotypes in the population.
Finally, pure Natives are not an uniform people. They don't look the same at all. Chilean Natives, for example, have medium tone cooper skin and a slightely Asian aspect. They are strong and relatively tall people. Women are usually very attractive.
Natives of other places can be very different in aspect. Some are small, same are tall. Some groups are dark skinned others are light skin. Same are thin and others are fat. Some have hooked nose other straigh. Some have narrow shaped nose and thin lips others wide nose and thick lips, some like the Natives of Bolivia are addapted to high altitude, etc. And all of them are pure Native.
You very well know that a Native of the Sierra is quite different from the Native of the Amazon. Don't you?
Posted: Sun 13 Nov 2005 21:52 Post subject: Re: Natives of the
oevega wrote:
Look, I am Latin American as well as you are. I notice at first sight when a person is really Native American or when is Mestizo (Native-European) or Sambo (Native-Black) or European.
if this were true then you wouldn't have been surprised by some of the studues and their admixture level. Eyeballers all ways think their abilities are higher than they are.
Quote:
So, when I say that in a country like mine, with a proportion 75% European and 25% Native American, one find every single phenotype between pure Native to pure European, I know what I am saying.
Which does not mean you are able to recognize all those that are mixed or not. it just means that you are familiar with a variety of mixed looks. Not all mixed people look mixed. And as times go by, endogamous groups tend to adopt looks non existent before.
Quote:
Yes. In Peru there is a large population of pure Natives, but only a small percentage of them are either Mulattoes or Mestizos of Native culture. Natives make about half the population of Peru; the other Half is mainly Mestizos with a small percentage of pure Whites and Mulattoes.
Your point? You think chile gives you a better experience? LOL. I lived in Chile for a year, In Santiago, Temuco, and Vinha. Sorry, nothing there that would make your eyeballing powers any better.
Quote:
However, what I was pointing out was that smaller groups are not really absorved but that the mixing is just a change of the frecuencies in phenotypes in the population.
If the frequency of a look is rare and rarely partners up with another look of the prior group, it becomes accepted and thus absorbed.
Quote:
Finally, pure Natives are not an uniform people. They don't look the same at all. Chilean Natives, for example, have medium tone cooper skin and a slightely Asian aspect. They are strong and relatively tall people. Women are usually very attractive.
And your point is? And it depends on if you are speaking of Mapuche or Aymara. or even the Indians or the extreme south.
Quote:
Natives of other places can be very different in aspect. Some are small, same are tall. Some groups are dark skinned others are light skin. Same are thin and others are fat. Some have hooked nose other straigh. Some have narrow shaped nose and thin lips others wide nose and thick lips, some like the Natives of Bolivia are addapted to high altitude, etc. And all of them are pure Native.
Again, your point? it is that variability that also will hide admixture of a smaller population.
Quote:
You very well know that a Native of the Sierra is quite different from the Native of the Amazon. Don't you?
I've lived among both. Yes i am well aware of that.
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Mon 14 Nov 2005 16:46 Post subject:
Quote:
I don't believe in the absortion theory at all, at least the numbers are very big, 1 in 1000 for example. Otherwise, when we talk about 25%-75% or similar relations, after mixing one observe a Gauss distribution of phenotypes, with lots of people in the "avarage" and less people in the extremes.
If, as you say, the Chilean people are mostly 75% European to 25% Native, wouldn't that shift the Bell Curve towards the European side? I know about 15 Chileans, and they all look very European indeed. I don't profess to know more about them than you, a native Chilean, but you yourself said the average Chilean wouldn't look out of place in southern Europe.
I'm not sure what you meant by your first sentence. Do you mean that only if the absorption rate is 1 to 1000, will there be true absorption with the minority phenotype vanishing? It certainly need not be that large a ratio. In various European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy [including Sicily and Sardinia], France, Holland, Britain, Greece [ancient], and even Germany and Scandinavia), African admixture occurred, and sub-Saharan DNA has been found, at higher rates than 1 to 1000. Yet one will not find any "Negroid" phenotypes in the native populations of these lands (excluded, of course, are recent immigrants). White Brazilians type with significant sub-Saharan and native mtDNA, yet they are still visibly white. Argentines, who are visibly white, type with significant Native and some sub-Saharan DNA.
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