re: Are Spaniards white?

A large part of the ruling class in most of those countries are very light complected. Mexico being a perfect example. There's still quite a bit of Spanish ancestry in those places and it's used as a status symbol in some cases. Lighter skin is seen as more desirable in a lot of places because of that. Similar to what you'll see within the Black and Indian (India) communities. Lighter skin is seen as more desirable from a socio economic standpoint & more attractive from a potential partner perspective because of the perceived benefits that comes along with being lighter skinned.. hence a big reason why lighter skin people will get picked on by darker skin people in some cases.. there's a lot of jealousy that's been passed down through the generations. I can't think of a more prevalent example than in the Black community here in the U.S where being light skinned (Yellow/Red Bone) is seen as highly attractive on both men and women from the opposite sexes perspective. Obviously that's not always the case, but there's enough of a stereotype there that it's worked it's way into pop culture and society.

I say that as somebody with first hand experience. I am hispanic with white looking skin, Very tan but not quite brown.. more Olive, and non traditional "Mexican/Central American" features. I was picked on by most of my friends who were Moreno (Dark skin/Dark hair) only to have them tell me later on that it was because they had wished they were lighter at times.

It's a strange dynamic. The lighter skinned people always seem to want to be darker so that they don't stand out as much and the darker skinned people many times wished that they were lighter.

But to answer your comment, I agree with you. Places like Mexico City and other international cities in South and Central America do have quite a bit of Blondes, red heads, blue/green eyes, etc. They are there and in some places in numbers in their enclaves, but even then, they are the exception and not the rule from a broader perspective.

Argentina has more European ancestry (And most of it is within the last 200 years so it's still relatively recent) than any other South Ametican country if I'm not mistaken so that's not surprising. I believe millions of them have quite a bit of Russian, German and Italian ancestors from the not so distant past.