> I haven't read a good explanation for why it is so. Iberians bred with the people they conquered. The Spanish in particular practiced an intentional policy o

> I haven't read a good explanation for why it is so. Iberians bred with the people they conquered. The Spanish in particular practiced an intentional policy of breeding a caste of illegitimate mixed-race offspring that would mediate between the Spaniards proper and the aboriginals they had enslaved. In the Spanish colonies, there emerged a project to “Mejorar La Raza” (literally: to better the race) by encouraging breeding with those of a fairer complexion than oneself. I suspect (though have never confirmed) that this attitude was primarily fostered to encourage women to more readily breed with Iberian men, but in the present day the attitude is quite prevalent among both Latino men and Latina women; Latinos fetishize white features, which are associated with being not only high-status and wealthy, but also simply beautiful in their own right. The Americans largely arrived after small pox had substantially reduced the native population, and subsequently followed a comparatively genocidal path of historical development. They did not tend to breed with the natives they encountered, so they have a far lower proportion of aboriginal ancestry. At some point between the late 1800s and early 1900s, they developed a romantic appreciation for Native Americans, which later leads to the common trope of every American family claiming to have a Cherokee great great grandmother on their mother’s side. Since the 2000s, the common trope is that all the growth in these tribes has been from white-passing people looking to cash in on affirmative action; this is not an undeserved stereotype.