Why Spaniards Should Not Be Called White Europeans

Spanish people have been the target of many controversies lately for playing roles of brown people, since they are considered by some as “White Europeans”. However, this is not an accurate statement and this is why.

Spain, like many other countries, has been both the colonizer and the colonized. The territory currently known as Spain and Portugal has suffered many invasions in the past; by the Greeks, by the Romans, (even briefly by Napoleon) but most largely by the Muslim-ruled empire known as al-Andalus, that was there for eight centuries leaving not just a huge imprint in the Spanish language, astronomy, music, literature, science and agronomy, but also a huge genetic impact in the Spanish and Portuguese people too.

Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, al-Andalus was a beacon of learning, and the city of Córdoba, the largest in Europe, became one of the leading cultural and economic centers. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, which also became a major educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

In terms of DNA, the most recent study about the African mix in the Iberian populations (Portugal and Spain) done in April 2013 by Botigué using data of more than 2,000 individuals, found that Spain and Portugal have significantly higher levels of north African heritage than their northern European neighbors.

So let’s make it clear, the fact that Spanish people don’t have Indigenous American blood doesn’t make them “White” either. The term “White European” refers mainly to the North Germanic ethnic groups in Europe as Iceland, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

That is why I can’t help but raise my eyebrow when Penelope Cruz is called a white European and Salma Hayek is considered a Brown Latina. The fact that one was born in Spain and the other in Mexico doesn’t make one “whiter” than the other. You can argue they are culturally different, but not racially.

To read more about this fascinating topic, check this article.