Questioning the “Melting Pot”: Analysis of Alu Inserts in Three Population Samples from Uruguay

Abstract

Questioning the “Melting Pot”:Analysis of Alu Inserts in Three Population Samples from Uruguay Pedro C. Hidalgo, Patricia Mut, Elizabeth Ackermann, Gonzalo Figueiro, and Monica Sans abstract The way that immigrants integrate into recipient societies has been discussed for decades, mainly from the perspective of the social sciences. Uruguay, as other American countries, received different waves of European immigrants, although the details of the process of assimilation, when it did occur, are unclear. In this study we used genetic markers to understand the process experienced by the Basques, one of the major migration waves that populated Uruguay, and their relation to other immigrants, as well as to Native American and African descendants. For this purpose, we analyzed the allele frequencies of 10 ALU loci (A25, ACE, APOA1, B65, D1, F13B, PV92, TPA25, HS2.43, and HS4.65) in three samples from Uruguay (two of Basque descendants, one of non-Basque descendants) from two locations: Montevideo and Trinidad. No departure from Hardy-Weinberg expectations was observed, with the exceptions of the APOA1 and D1 loci in the non-Basque descendants’ samples. Our data show that the major genetic contribution in the three samples comes from Europe (78–88%), with minor African (10–15%) and Native American (0–10%) contributions. Genetic distances reveal that Basque descendants from Trinidad cluster with Europeans, whereas both Montevideo samples cluster together and are separate from other populations, showing two different types of integration, related to the general characteristics of each regional population. key words Admixture, Gene Diversity, Population structure, Alu Insertion Polymorphisms According to the 2011 national census, Uruguay has a population of 3,286,314 inhabitants, 1,319,108 of them living in the capital city, Montevideo (INE 2012). The present population is the consequence of various processes, several of them shared with other Latin American countries. However, some differences make the Uruguayan population unique, such as the variety of European source populations and the lack of Native American–descendant and African-descendant communities. In general terms, it is possible to recognize several origins for European migratory waves, most of them occurring during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that originate with the Iberians (mostly from the Canary Islands but also several Basque locations and Portugal) that occupied the region during colonial times (Pi Hugarte and Vidart 1969). The first wave of immigrants (1825–1842) came during the early times of Uruguayan independence and includes 40,000–45,000 individuals, mostly French Basques. More Basques came in a second wave (1842–1876), in this case mainly from Spain (Barrán and Nahum 1990; Marenales Rossi and Luzuriaga 1990). [End Page 83] These two “foundational” waves were composed mostly of males (81.8% vs. 18.2% females). A third, “forced” wave occurred during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and also included several Basques (Arocena and Aguiar 2007). It should be emphasized that during the nineteenth century, migrants to Uruguay were mostly of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian origin, whereas during the twentieth century origins diversified, adding several thousands of Armenians; Jews from Western Europe, Central Europe, and the Middle East; Russians; Swiss; and others (Vidart and Pi Hugarte 1969). In 1908 the proportion of foreigners in the population was approximately 18%, decreasing to 8% in 1963 and to a present-day minimum of 3% (INE 2012). The process of assimilation, when it did occur, is unclear, and the coexistence in a common social space, shared by the immigrants and other ethnic groups (Africans, Natives, and their descendants), does not necessary imply a “melting pot,” a model inspired in by Israel Zangwill’s 1907 play about immigrants in the United States of America in which immigrants quickly amalgamated with the receiver population. This model is opposed to “cultural pluralism,” in which ethnic groups retained some individuality. According to Yinger (1985), the process of assimilation includes four threads: structural, cultural, psychological, and biological (amalgamation). Amalgamation, which results in the gene pools being indistinguishable, depends on the characteristics of both the migrants and the recipients, and various barriers that can restrain the process (linguistic, religious, or “racial”) have been observed. However, in general terms, coexistence of different groups does not occur under conditions of equality. Nowadays in Uruguay, Native American...