On paper, [Jews only make up less than 1% of Mexico's religious demographic](https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Mexico/jewish/). Mexico's recently elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, happens to be Jewish herself! This has to be an incredible coincidence, right? Well, unbeknownst to most people in "these circles", this is more common thank you'd think!
To escape Catholic conversion, Jews disproportionately migrated away from Iberia to South America. Although some were caught by Inquisitors, many more successfully lived their lives under the radar and mixed with the local populations. Today, [recent studies estimate that 25% of Latin Americans can trace back more than 5% of their genetics to the Eastern Mediterraian](https://web.archive.org/web/20250524095746/https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/dna-reveals-the-hidden-jewish-ancestry-of-latin-americans/578509/). These populations didn't stop at South America either, since some of them made their way into the United States! [10-15% of men in New Mexico/southern Texas/northern Mexico have a Y chromosome linking them to the Middle East](https://web.archive.org/web/20250524095747/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-05-na-heritage5-story.html).
Even though I haven't explicitly identified either of these groups as Jewish, I think it's clear what kind of picture this paints. Today, [20% of Spain's population has Jewish ancestry](https://web.archive.org/web/20220429213837/https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/one-fifth-of-spaniards-have-jewish-ancestry-study-reveals). Many of these people have either converted or forgotten about where they came from. You can form your own conclusions about how those genetics might impact their character, but now you know the real odds the next time a PROUD LATINX shows off their Jewish heritage!