Why do some Mexicans look Asian?

i'll be receiving comments on my youtube channel asking if i'm vietnamese or asian when i was in vietnam i had a ton of questions by vietnamese people asking if at least one of my parents was vietnamese they were very shocked when i told them that actually i was latina and some of them tried to convince me i had vietnamese parents and in some way that caused an identity crisis in me and i started to wonder will i be asian [Music] it's the opposite in mexico though a lot of mexicans would say i have an indigenous appearance which is true and well i started to think more and more about my asian appearance and why some people say i look asian [Music] but it's not only me a lot of people here in mexico look asian as well so for sure if they go to asia they will be asked the same question that i was asked and probably mexicans living in asia are asked this question as well in this country there are loads of people with an incredible ethnic variety from indigenous people to very white people of course we can understand the inheritance the spaniards left a hundred years ago but why do some of us location well stick around and i'll tell you all the information i found about this topic everything started when the first settlers arrived to the americas there were people from asia that had cleared their very strength a ton of thousands of years ago that's why the more indigenous a person is the more remarkable the asian features are not only in mexico but all around the american continent this could be the first reason i was born in a very small city town in mexico and it's clear that my spanish features are minimal but this isn't the first reason there could be more reason that honestly i wasn't aware of them before i think the things i just researched weren't taught me at school i suppose that history extends beyond what a textbook might provide and if you know more information about this please let me know in the comments people out there have asked me if i'm vietnamese but they also have asked me if i am from the philippines and yeah philippines and mexicans look alike there are some studies that show that around one third of the people living in guerrero the pacific coastal state of mexico had 10 asian ancient ancestry this number is significantly high they were related to people from the philippines and some of them from indonesia this is because spain had conquered the philippines and mexico and they found one of the most important commercial routes which was manila acapulco veracruz and finally caddis this was very functional for around two and a half centuries the spanish brought filipino people as slaves or prisoners to help them with its strength and the same way with mexicans so the spanish took some mexicans to the philippines with the same purpose that's why you've probably heard that mexicans and filipinos get along very well we have similar cultures religion and even the spanish language was one of the official languages until 1987. before continuing don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell so you'll be the first person to watch my video once it's released i make these videos because i enjoy creating content as usual i've got a small channel and if you like my work and if you want to support this channel if i encourage me creating more and more videos please become a patreon if not i really appreciate that you are watching this video i've got my social media i've got my instagram and facebook here so let's continue when the mexican war of independence started mexican rebels were sent to the philippines as a way of punishment to serve sentences but it seems this wasn't a good plan because some stories say that the mexican rebels in the philippines encouraged this country to be independent as well that's what i read please let me know in the comments if you have any other information or if you have more information i'd be very glad to read your comments and well there were a lot of filipino people here but unfortunately most of them lost their identity as they were all recorded as chinos which in english means chinese so i don't know if this is a reason but everything clicked on my head in mexico we have a very common nickname which is chino chinese this could be either because a person has a curly hair or because they look asian actually i've been called chinita and now that i'm thinking about more nicknames i've been also called corianita which means little korean and just to clarify putting nicknames according to once person features it's just a playful way to express our feelings towards others believe it or not this isn't racist here in mexico well this is the second reason but this is an end here there are two more reasons that are related to japanese people and chinese people my nan has told me that i had a japanese ancestor for me this was super weird because i'm from a very small city in the center of mexico so having japanese blood is uncommon i think so i never knew what happened with that side of the family unfortunately but when i made this video i found very interesting information about japanese people settled in the center of mexico which is area where i'm from three or four decades before pearl harbor there were a lot of japanese people living in the united states and around 6 000 people living in mexico at that time japan was a thriving empire roosevelt government saw the japanese people living in the united states as a threat when the second war was declared the united states put the japanese people in internment camps the united states also sent some japanese to mexico roosevelt government asked mexico to keep the japanese people away from the northern border so mexico government put them in the center of the country so they could be easily monitored the united states government also requested more latin american countries to put japanese people in internment camps so if you wondered why there are a large community of japanese people in peru and brazil well mexico was following our northern neighbor requirements that meant that japanese people that were living here were suspects or being spies i didn't know that they needed to report every movement to the government then the mexican congress modified some laws such as the penal goals and they created the crime of espionage so children from japanese immigrants that couldn't prove that they were born here in mexico were considered enemies this is crazy i didn't know this after this the situation was a little bit worse because soon this became persecution of those who had asian features so the children from japanese people that were born in here in mexico didn't even know about their roots because their parents wanted them to keep safe i can't believe it this was very traumatic for japanese people at that time living here and slowly they lost their customs religion language and even some of them changed their last name they were silent for decades about what happened without letting their children and grandchildren knowing about this so my nan told me that my granddad's granddad changed his last name because it was very difficult to pronounce but now that i know this i wonder was this the real reason although we can still see people in mexico current japanese last name of course but this is something i ignored if you are mexican and if you have japanese ancestors and if you know their story i'd love to hear that what happened in that situation and as i said at the beginning of the video there was another culture that probably left inheritance and this happened in the north of mexico at the end of the 19th century there was a large immigration of chinese people to the united states to work in the construction of railways at the end of this construction the united states issued a law because they didn't longer need them this coincided with the development of mexicali in the state of baja california the city required labor as a mexican at that time weren't enough to do the job for this reason from 1910 to 1920 the entry of asian people was facilitated and well i was very surprised for all this information as you can see there are loads of factors that make us mexican look asian if you're mexican let me know what do you think about this if you have a asian ancestry ancestry and tell me your story i haven't taken a dns yet as i said it wasn't important to me until very recently so i hope to take it soon and i'll let you know what happened i don't know how to describe physically a mexican person because all of us are totally different you can easily tell when you walk around the streets in mexico that's why when i when i had this first experience in vietnam when people there were saying that i looked asian or vietnamese this was quite a surprising experience because i haven't thought about how a person should look in mexico we have a mix of cultures spanish african asian indigenous all these makes gabe's our own identity well let me know what you think i'm gonna leave all the links below in the description where i read all this information i hope you find it interesting this video was a little bit different about i enjoyed making this video i hope you enjoyed it as well and thank you very much my name is karen i'm mexican and i'm making videos about things that i like basically well see you in the next video don't forget to subscribe [Music]

Channel: La Karencita

Views: 774,160

Keywords: mythbusting, mexicans look asian, true mexico, mexican ethnicity, asian latino, filipino, vietnamese, japanese, mexican features, mexico, tangerine travels, serge & tana, kinnetic kennons, iryna fedchenko, mexicans, mexican people, life in mexico, life in mexico 2021, asian boss latinoamerica, what race are mexicans, mexican dna results, mexican dna test myheritage, mexican american dna test

Id: kcIC8E6i6iQ

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/alllie]

After the US expelled Chinese, Japanese a lot of them moved to Mexico. Also a lot of Phillipinos were brought to Mexico by the Spanish. And originally native Americans mostly immigrated to the Americas from Asia.