Its not from a anthropology forum neither lifetime racists meeting, its real-life experience. I had a talk with a girl from Venezuela couple of days ago and I mentioned to her- in Venezuela you have some American Indian blood, then so you may be partially Indian (she looks quite exotic and I would say metizo, like chavez but she is pretty) I meant it as a compliment, and she said, to my astonishment "no we dont have indian blood we are spanish, its in Mexico and Puerto Rico they have some but not us". I insisted a bit, partially surprised, partially trying to ensure her that I perceive this blood as something cool and exotic, but she repeatedly said that- none, they have nothing to do with Indians. A few months ago I talked to one Philipino and he told me that Philippinos are not Asians but Spaniards.It was quite funny, as the guy looks quite typical Philippino. Both of them dont look like antroforums writers, its just like "streetwise" knowledge, and I started to wonder why they said that. I have to mention that I know lots of foreigners from various parts of the world and never heard that before (however I dont rather ask antro-questions, these were some unique cases). I wonder what could be the case. I considered that one may be, people from other continents want to feel welcome and at home in Europe and they stress their connections to Europe, which I understand as we all want to feel "part of something" and I would do that (and I do that presently in different way), but what stroke me it was not the admittance of connectiong but exageration. Come on, dont they have mirrors, the girls is visibly Latin-American and the guy is full Asian. (I could send pic privately if someone wants to see them very much but I dont want to post them here, it would be unfair). O the other hand I talked to a guy from Bangladesh and I mentioned to him that his language is indo-european and belongs to european family and that he may be closer genetically to me that it seems, and he was quite surprised and seemed to never heard it before. I thought then about another option- Is it former Spanish colonies which feel this strong ties to Spain then and want to stress this connection? Third option would be that they believe that it is really the case, that Venezuelans or Philipinnos are descendants of Spaniards not Indians (maybe colonial education was lying about this over centuries and it stayed like this? maybe it was kind of latinisation of them, which remained)and fourth option would be sense of inferiority of local blood ans superiority of spanish blood, which is more widespread than I expected, but I dont really want to believe that.