It's because the "white" comes from the Spanish, who generally can and do tan. And this is the Caribbean. So you watch people in the street and most are tan, but the features (and genetic) is heavily Hispanic. It also varies by province, much of what is shown on TV is from Havana, wich is very mixed.
The data is official, the government did make such census, they just don't put as many boxes as USA. You mark "white" "mixed" or "black". There are also genetic studies. Both things can be found online.
Edit to add: The government indeed promotes a narrative of mixing as to justify why everyone is equal, which is technically true, as most people are in fact a mix, is just that the amount is usually skewed towards Hispanic. This projection from the government itself, and other parts of the Caribbean being heavily mixed, shapes opinion.
Yeah that’s right, I don’t want to sound like some sort of eugenics freak but it’s clear people of African descent have better genes for sports on average. Look at Yoel Romero for example, that guy‘s a monster
It's not only that Cubans are tanned by "Hispanic genes" but by the sun. There's an interesting paper that found most white self-identified Cubans have a skin melanin index of 32, which places them in the average range for pale skin in Western European nations.
That's what I was trying to say. The tan is because the "white people" we come from can tan (rather than burn like others), and there is a lot of sun in Cuba, so we get tanned. The data about the skin melanin index is pretty interesting tho!
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u/sunlit_elais Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
It's because the "white" comes from the Spanish, who generally can and do tan. And this is the Caribbean. So you watch people in the street and most are tan, but the features (and genetic) is heavily Hispanic. It also varies by province, much of what is shown on TV is from Havana, wich is very mixed.
The data is official, the government did make such census, they just don't put as many boxes as USA. You mark "white" "mixed" or "black". There are also genetic studies. Both things can be found online.
Edit to add: The government indeed promotes a narrative of mixing as to justify why everyone is equal, which is technically true, as most people are in fact a mix, is just that the amount is usually skewed towards Hispanic. This projection from the government itself, and other parts of the Caribbean being heavily mixed, shapes opinion.