Well, I’m a Canadian-Spanish guy in my early 20s. My family is Spanish for generations and my DNA test came back 98.5% European (92.3% Spanish).
However, I’m on the darker side for a European (dark hair and olive‑ish skin). Quite often people say I “don’t look Spanish/European” and guess totally different backgrounds. It starts to make me feel like my appearance doesn’t match who I actually am.
I’m curious about your take: how common are dark‑skinned native Europeans (not naturalized citizens or mixed ancestry, but actual ethnic Europeans with darker features)? How does your community see them? Have you seen situations where this happens or doesn’t? Just want to know what you guys think!
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I’m not “European” but the most obvious measure of this is whether you live here, speak the language, and/or have the passport.
Someone could have been born in Spain to Korean immigrants and I will consider them more “European” than someone whose DNA claims they’re 95% “European” but lived their whole lives in North America.
So I’m not really following what your question is asking.
have you ever been to Spain or the Europe outside of Spain? It’s a continent, not Hitlers fever dream of blond and blue eyed people.
Europeans don’t really speak about white people or black people. That’s not really a thing outside of North America.
South Europeans are darker, that’s typical for them because there is more sun. That doesn’t make them any less European than Irish or Swedish people.
Jeez, bro. All this measuring of skulls, 50 shades of skin and thorough genetic measurements and ANCESTRY are just a cringe American thing. Nobody cares about it here since fall of Third Reich.
Italian and Spanish (and generally Mediterranian Europeans) tend to be at least slightly darker. No one really cares, if you speak the language.
Where do people say you do not look European? In Europe, or in Canada?
My partner is very dark-skinned, with wavy black hair (from southern Spain). He also has a strange accent that’s not from the area, so it doesn’t help (too much TV as a kid, I guess). Many people think his parents are from Morocco 🫠 despite having names and surnames from the region; it’s because a dark-skinned father and mother got together and had even darker-skinned children.
I live in the South of France so people with your complexion are quite common here, honestly it’s more North Americans being really weird about who’s White or not to be honest.
There’s no “European” ethnicity.
There’s no real “European” identity
We see eachother as someone from xyz place, nation, group, or just as people. Also, native European is certainly not a very useful phrase, because most of us can easily trace our ancestry to someone who conducted a very effective population replacement against a former “native” European.
They’re pretty common in southern europe obviously, and they’re also prevalent in the north (sami population for example). That was a shocker for me, I’m a white South African with a skin type 3 and I always thought my being darker than the Dutch, Germans and English had to do with southern european and black african influence. Then I (25% Finnish ancestry) went to Finland and these people had my colouring!
No problem. I am considered Spanish and that’s it. If there is some kind of bias or prejudice, is because of my culture, not my skin.
We don’t care about that much in Europe to us it’s more important what your cultural practices are. If you speak Spanish, have or are living there and participating in Spanish culture you are Spanish. If you don’t you’re not Spanish.
A lot of Europeans get uncomfortable with the gene thing it reminds us of racial stereotyping.
Define ‘native’. The Iberian peninsula has seen Moors rule its land for a period of 700 years, but that was 500 years ago by now. Does that make the people who stuck around ‘native’? I’d argue it would, but if you’re arguing based on 10.000 years ago it’s a different discussion altogether.
Not dark-skinned (I’m white as snow) but in some places i get treated as trash just because i’m portuguese (looking at you, France)
Wtf is this question? There are all kinds of different looking people among every ethnicity. There are light skin toned spanish people with blue eyes, there are spanish people with darker tones and spanish with general european looks who could come from any country.
We don’t assume someone is not european just because they are not fair skinned.
Besides why do yo guys in North America forget about the sun? If you take someone from Sicily and put them in Iceland they gonna get more pale. If you take someone from Iceland and relocate them to Sicily they are gonna be darker
I have a Hungarian friend who has darker skin, did a dna test from the better ones and it came back as 100% European. Europeans are diverse and skin colour is not important here
I’m struggling with the idea that someone with dark hair and olive skin doesn’t look Spanish. This is like the complete stereotype.
Some are lighter some are darker.
We are all European. There is no “hierarchy”
The history of this continent is one of trade, migration and wars for thousands of years. Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Jews, Mongols, Egyptians, Persians, Turks, Tartars …etc. have all mixed with what you perceive as native Europeans. Genetics are mixed. It’s a tangled web that can’t be undone.
no, we don’t see them as less European; they are southern European, and we would call them white, as any other European.
Only in the US can we see people have the weird take that Italians, Iberic people or Greeks aren’t “white”. Meanwhile, in Europe, they were always seen as such and as part of our cultural group.
People in this thread are being obtuse and making us seem less racist than we really are. It’s just more about assumed cultural group, and colour is only a factor in what culture people assume you are part of. If someone is southern european but passes as north african, it definitely happens that people will assume they’re north african and tell them things like “get back to your own country” and they might get discriminated against. Same ofc happens to people who are actually (north) african. Here in Northern Europe, Eastern europeans are also often discriminated against, which is, again not a skincolour-thing, but a cultural group thing. It’s certainly not as prevalent as in the US, though.
> However, I’m on the darker side for a European (dark hair and olive‑ish skin). Quite often people say I “don’t look Spanish/European” and guess totally different backgrounds.
Are those people Canadians who have never been to Europe or who? Europe has different common phenotypes in different regions, but certainly dark hair with olive skin sounds like the stereotypical Spanish person. Antonio Banderas, Rafael Nadal, Javier Bardem, Raul Gonzalez, they’re all my idea of a typical looking Spanish man.
If you’re dark-skinned you’re going to be assumed as a foreigner by default. Likely as a non-European as well, it depends on the complexion, at least not from this region. That’s not to mean it’s anyhow negative, you’re just going to be assumed as not from here.
My buddy who’s 100% Polish with darker complexion keeps hearing “you speak Polish so well”. He says it’s nice to hear compliments about things otherwise taken for granted.
In Italy I’ve been called pale and ghost-like, I doubt there is prejudice against people with darker features.
Northen Italians and Southern Italians don’t hate each other because of skin color, they hate each other because of culture