23 and BS

If you are unfortunate enough to watch television, you have no doubt seen ads for a company that will analyze your DNA and tell you where your ancestors come from.

A sample ad consists of a woman saying, "I used to think I was Hispanic. But when I got my results back, I discovered that I'm everything! I have ancestors from all over the world." A pie chart displays behind her showing percentages of ancestry from various places. "Now I know I'm not Hispanic after all. When they ask my ethnicity, I check 'other'."

Whoa. Talk about people unclear on the concept. She is the very paradigm of Hispanic, which means people who come from the Spanish speaking countries of the Americas. The current population of Latin America consists of the descendants of indigenous Americans, Spanish settlers, imported African slaves in some places, Africans who escaped from slavery, and lesser numbers of settlers from all over the world. The George Washington of Chile was named Bernardo O'Higgins. Italians, Germans and Jews went to Argentina in large numbers, especially around the time of WWII. A key concept in Mexican nationalism is "la raza," the "new race" that emerged from the mingling of peoples. The point is they all wound up speaking Spanish and adopting the nationalities and cultures of the places where they found themselves.

Of course some people in Latin America have a narrower set of ancestors -- some are entirely indigenous, others European -- but mixed ancestry is pretty much the norm.

Equally bizarre, although perhaps less obviously so, is the guy (I might have this exactly backwards but it doesn't matter) who says "We always thought we were Italian. We ate spaghetti and sang Santa Lucia. But it turns out I'm German!" Now he's wearing leiderhosen and drinking Lowenbrau. Listen up, this is not complicated. Over the course of history, people sometimes moved from Germany to Italy. Once they did so, they started speaking Italian and eating spaghetti, and maybe changed their name from Braun to Bruno. After a couple of generations they forgot all about Germany. Then some of their descendants moved to the U.S. and considered themselves Italian-Americans. Which they were.

This company is selling a bizarre, fraudulent and frankly dangerous racialized concept of ethno-national identity. Our ethnic identity is not encoded in our genes, it is a product of our history -- the cultural milieu in which we grew up. And to believe otherwise is to buy into the scientifically bogus concept of race which has caused global catastrophe. So getting this DNA analysis may satisfy your idle curiosity, but beyond that, it doesn't mean anything at all.