I thought it went rather well just as it stood, using the neglected “to want” (=to be in need of necessities) instead of the auxiliary “want to” (= desire, wish, choose).
Tell me BG, in your area, which I understand to have a large hispanic population, how do you distinguish other hispanics from Mexicans and Central Americans by sight alone?
Mexicans and Central Americans (those I can spot as such, at least) mostly look like Indians. Cubans don’t; neither do Puerto Ricans or other Caribbean Islanders. (The indigenous population of the Caribbean was almost totally exterminated by war, enslavement and disease within a few decades of the Spanish colonization, and practically everybody there today is descended from white settlers, black slaves, East Indian contract workers, or a mix.) I haven’t met any Colombians, Venezuelans, or any from further south as yet, AFAIK. We also have a lot of Haitians around here – you can spot them by their distinctive not-quite-French accent (Haitian Creole is the most widely spoken language in Miami-Dade after English and Spanish), and almost all of them are black.
A couple of months ago there was a nationwide protest and work-strike by immigrants to protest proposed crackdown policies – you may remember it. The Quiznos where I intended to eat lunch that day was closed, as were a lot of local businesses. A crowd of (I would assume) immigrants staged a march around and around City Hall (which is right next to the library, where I work); most of them looked like Indians and they were waving Mexican flags and U.S. flags and no other flags.
So would you be able to distinguish a non-indigenous Mexican from another hispanic ?
A) Just to point out that my figures are based on memory from an INEGI study. I am mestizo and I am considered average in my region, Northern Mexico, specifically, Tamaulipas, and I am 5’8".
B) My figure was only mean to provide another view based BG’s title for the OP is
and
That is, if this group of Mexicans that live in his community are around 5’4" to 5’5" then he is talking about a subset of the Mexican population that is short for the national Mexican average of 5’8".
If by “non-indigenous” you mean “white,” I probably couldn’t tell such from a Cuban.
I certainly don’t disagree with that figure for a national average. There well could be regional differences due to differences in the original (and present) indigenous populations.
As mentioned previously, the Indian populations of North America (US and Canada) were among the tallest in the world, on average. It is quite possible that the Indian populations of northern Mexico were/are similar to those of the US and Canada in height.
Local populations may also be taller on average where there is a greater percentage of European or African ancestry. (This seems to me to be the case in Panama.)
Based on my personal experience in the region, the populations of southern Mexico (Chiapas) and Central America are quite short. That is certainly so in Panama, where I have spent a lot of time in Indian areas and regions where most of the population is of mostly Indian ancestry. In my 20s I did quite a bit of traveling on third-class trains and buses in Chiapas and Guatemala, where the boarding system is generally to make a mad rush for the doors as soon as the vehicle arrives. I recall thinking how fortunate it was that, at 5’10", my relatively gigantic size allowed me to part the crowds as if I were Shaquille O’Neal and usually get a seat.
I am feeling frustration reading this thread. It would appear that someone is offended and trying to pin perhaps unintended racism on the OP.
Diet and healthcare. I lived in small (poor) towns of coastal and central Mexico for many years, with variable amounts of “indigenous” (Native American) background; poor people were always shorter than the middle class, and at family reunions, the people who had done well and moved into the city would have taller kids, even when both parents were short. It’s not uncommon to see a family picture where Mom and Dad are a couple of inches taller than Grandma and Grandpa, and the teenage kids tower over all of them.
Note that although the Native Americans were thought to be quite tall by the first wave of Europeans, the European explorers were themselves only around 5 foot 5. Here’s a nice paper that looks at average height from a number of eras / societies (PDF file): home.uchicago.edu/~cboix/bones.pdf
JRB
I’d also suppose it was diet-related, as I’ve had one experience of seeing a pronounced generational difference. At a Conjunto Music Festival 13 years ago in San Antonio, the older Mexican folks were small (Yay! at my height of 5’3", I could be at a concert and actually See!). The men were a bit taller, women my height or smaller. The kids, though, were much taller, and heavier.
So, diet, though I wonder why people, pre-modern diet, are taller than others given a normal routine of hard work raising, or hunting, their own food. Why would Native North Americans(who now with a modern American high-fat and sugar diet have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes) originally be taller than Native people of Mexico, Central, and South America? Why are the Masai people of Africa taller than Bushmen? Is it higher protein consumption than vegetable consumption? I’d suppose they are equally active in lifestyle.
I’ve been to Sweden, a cold climate, and noticed a great deal of long-legged blond kids, quite thin, and have been around Tibetans, another cold clime people, yay, again, short like me. Both must have had centuries of adaptation and food storage for winter, but quite different physical profiles.
I did some searching around the web, but no real matches.
I’ll add, being always the shortest person in the class as a kid, not soooo short, now, at 5’ 3" and a quarter, that short stature has advantages. It’s a lower maintenance body, calorie-wise, and takes less toll on the heart to pump blood . You can sleep most anywhere, on trains, planes, buses, couches…plus, you learn a lot about leverage in order to get things done.
As I’ve already mentioned, although diet may have something to do with it, this is only true within limits. Height difference between human populations have more to do with genetics than nutrition, at least for differences of more than a few inches. Although I don’t doubt that JR Brown and ellelle may have observed generational differences, the younger generation is never going to be as tall on average as people of mainly European or African ancestry, given identical nutrition in the two groups.
Here’s a somewhat relevant and fascinating recent NYT article on our growing stature. They attribute a lot of the increase in size and health to fetal nutrition.
Actually, I was wondering if what I’ve noticed is a sign that Mexico is still so poor that its poorest people still aren’t getting enough to eat.
But from what I’ve read here, I infer that those I’ve noticed as “Mexican” probably are from a Mexican subpopulation that is shorter genetically. Which doesn’t mean they’re not desperately poor at home (why else did they leave?), nor that better nutrition might not only increase their height but improve their health in general.
FTR, I really hope Obrador wins this disputed election in the end, and I really believe it will be the best thing for the people if he does. But I’m not optimistic he’ll win.
I think BG is talking about Guatemalans. Mestizo-Mexicans seem to have as much variation as Caucasians.
Unfortunately the indigenous have suffered since Hernán Cortés waded ashore.
INEGI, for census purposes, determines the indigenous population by the number of people above 5 years of age who speak an indigenous language.
*Los indígenas para fines del INEGI, se registran según “el número de personas mayores de cinco años que hablen lengua indígena” *
And this is what INEGI has to say about malnutrition amongst indigenous youth (bolding mine):
Las cifras del INEGI indican que “56% de los niños indígenas del país padece desnutrición”…”al menos 690,000 menores de 4 años padecen graves problemas de desnutrición y estatura”…. “se estima que la población total indígena es de 10.3 millones (INEGI, 2003).
So the “official” government estimates for very young indignous are “690,000 suffer serious problems of malnutrition and stature”.
So 0.69 million out of 10.3 million OF “Indigenous” ethnicity are suffering from malnutrition, according to INEGI estimates. That’s about 6.7%.
If I may offer this summary to help clarify what I think has been said here:
Mexico, like the U.S. and Canada (and Brazil, Argentina, etc.), is something of a melting pot in terms of having a wide array of ethnic groups together comprising its population. Mexico’s population of Native American Indians and persons of mixed part-Indian ancestry is substantially higher than the U.S. or even Canada. While the Indian and mestizo ethnic groups vary in build, those who tend to be relatively short mesomorphs are very common among that part of the population that seeks employment in the U.S. (whether by legal or illegal immigration or merely as seasonal workers doesn’t matter for this discussion). Hence there is a phenotypical stereotype of “the short, stocky Mexican” – which is not representative of the varied ethnic population of Mexico as a whole, but does correspond passably well to a large proportion (though not all) of the “Mexican immigrant” population in the U.S. Poor nutrition may play a small but proportionately insignificant part in that body build; ethnic ancestry plays a much larger part.
(Any of these discussions always reminds me of people I’ve known who do not fit the “ethnic stereotype” for their ancestry – like the blonde, blue-eyed mother and teenage son I used to know in my college days, both of pure northern Italian ancestry. In the D.F. it would probably not be at all difficult to find people of almost any ethnic group you could locate in NYC or LA – but we’re looking at one small self-selected sub-population among Mexicans here.)
Actually the quote from INEGI states that 56% of the indigenous duffer from malnutrition and 690,000 of those 4 years or younger sugger from serious malnutrition.
On several occasions when my family and I have visited the US, we have aroused some curiousity when we speak amongst ourselves. We are all taller than average and fair skinned with varied eye color. When asked from where we are the last thing people expect to hear is Mexico.
Right. Mea culpa; I skimmed and misread the statistic. So you would put a much higher focus on the likelihood of diet as a contributing factor to the height issue?
But recall that even a decade ago it was common knowledge that the Japanese were tiny and always would be. As of 2004 the average height of 17 year old Japanese boys was 170.8 cm (a touch over 5’7"; “Japan’s Education at a Glance 2005”, chart II-2-1), and Japan’s average may pass the US average in a few more decades. Before that the Duch, who are now one of the tallest groups in the world (original academic paper - requires subscription; entertaining tidbit in the New Yorker - free), were considered irredeemably short. I don’t deny that there are genetic differences in maximum height between populations, but changes in diet and healthcare have had, and continue to have, an enormous effect. Unless both populations are living under the same environmental conditions, I don’t think you can say much about differences in “genetic” height.
JRB
As an aside, If I’m not mistaken, most of the Italian emigrants to the USA were from Sicily and south Italy, who are darker than northern Italians. A good friend of mine is Italian/Polish on her father’s side, but my friend gets her dark good looks from her Cherokee mother, not her blonde northern Italian grandmother!