I have noticed that Cubans appear to be Spanish (except for los negros) and not meztisos (mixed Spanish and indian) like Mexicans. I assume that the original indian population in Cuba all died after the Spanish arrived. Is that Cruz’s fault?
The Indians in Cuba that didn’t die under Spanish hands were pretty much absorbed by interbreeding with those
Spaniards, just like Indians in the Americas and some the black slaves that were brought there. Spaniards come in varying shades-always have depending on what area of Spain they came from.
Cubans are mostly of mixed ethnicity, just like those of us here in the SW. How much European coloring we have is just a matter of genetics-like most of my family, I’m medium light-some of us are darker, some lighter, and like several others, I have red hair. My Basque antecedents have lived in the SW since the late 1700’s, and we are certainly meztizos. Most of us speak Spanish as a second language. The Cuban Americans I know are no different, except that the Spanish dialect they speak in Florida is rather different from the one we speak here...
Wiki has the Cuban people being 73% white, 14.5% black and 12% mestizo. The Cuban middle class which fled here is probably whiter than a sampling of those who stayed in Cuba.