This research examines sociocultural and biological variation in Hispanic people in New Mexico, a state known for its unique history of early Spanish colonization and continuing immigration from Latin America. The multidisciplinary team is collecting data on ethnicity, genetics, morphology, and health from a diverse cross-section of the New Mexican public and using these data to examine how people construct ethnicity, the sociocultural and biological correlates of ethnicity, and the social causes of economic inequality and health disparity. The project redresses limitations of previous research on race and ethnicity, including: 1) reliance on static US Census categories that do not fully capture how people think about ethnicity, 2) the assumption that people from a particular ethnic group are culturally and biologically homogeneous, 3) reliance on indirect or inadequate measures of sociocultural and biological variation, 4) the assumption that ethnic groups are stable in space and time, 5) the uncritical use of ethnicity as a proxy for genetic ancestry, and 6) the failure to employ a biocultural and evolutionary perspective.
The project provides training for several Hispanic undergraduate and graduate students. The public health policy implications of findings will be explored with faculty from the UNM Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies and the Institute for Race and Social Justice. Results will be communicated to the public via a web-based exhibit and by a panel exhibit that will travel throughout the state. The research will generate a comparative database from other US Hispanic groups that can be used by social scientists and medical health professionals. The results will be presented by the investigators and their students in leading scientific journals and at professional meetings.
