5 Comments

This matches my much less scientific observations of Santiago. As you move west in the city, the people get taller, whiter, and prettier, and the neighborhoods get cleaner, richer, and nicer. Moving around the country, Santiago is generally much more developed than the hinterlands, which are also much less European.

I suspect that basic pattern obtains throughout Latin America.

Expand full comment
author

Yeah. What we find in these studies is that because the economy is sometimes based heavily on natural resources, the wealth and European ancestry patterns don't align always so well, because sometimes a very Amerindian area has a big ore mine or something and it's very wealthy as a result. I would guess a lot of the Europeans are still mainly doing farming, which does not result in so much wealth or other development as their intelligence would allow. I don't speak the languages (yet, I am learning Spanish), so I can't say if these observations are totally true or not.

Expand full comment

I'm Chilean, and I can testify your assertions, but the European heritage is growing browner by the day in the West areas. There's still a good bunch of Criollos (Ethnically European Chileans) in the country side but under brownification as well. I live in a very mixed area and I can testify that the whiter the family the better the home. Still due to the mixing many brown castizos give birth to very European looking kids but their behaviour is heavily influenced by their environment and they're easily get a mixed spouse thus giving birth to brownish offspring.

Expand full comment

I'm convinced that dynamic is why the Aryans ultimately imposed a formal caste system in India. The alternative is gradual absorption by the larger local population.

Expand full comment

Exactly, but it was very late at that point, the more South you travel the worst the mixing. But you can still find a lot of mostly unmixed Aryans in Northernmost India. Same North-to- South clinal of skin pigmentation can be spotted on Korea and Japan.

Expand full comment