All of my life I have gotten the same question: are your eyes real? “No, they’re fake,” I would like to say. However, I do understand why people do think that way. I’m a Hispanic woman and it really is uncommon for us to have lighter colored eyes.
I have a mix of green and hazel eyes. I got my eyes from my father. My mom has brown eyes but I guess my dad’s genes were extra dominant (yay.) Both of my parents are El Salvadorian so there definitely isn’t any caucasian in my blood. Sometimes people will even ask me if I’m mixed with something because of my fair skin and eyes. I get it, but sometimes it can be a little insulting. I’m 100 percent Latina people!
It’s honestly embarrassing to me when people think I’m wearing colored contacts. I do wear contacts because I’m naturally almost blind, but they’re prescription. I always have to say “Yes, I’m wearing contacts, but they’re not colored.” Then people will ask “Are you sure?”
In middle school, people didn’t believe I really had green eyes. I would literally sit there in the middle of class and take out one of my contacts so people could see that with or without them, my eyes were really green.
It would shock people once they saw the truth. It’s pretty funny to me that a majority of people don’t think that races other than Caucasians can have a different eye color than brown. One of my best friends is 100 percent African-American and her eyes are hazel! Most of my cousins from my father’s side were also lucky enough to get the green eye gene.
It is true that the greatest variation in eye color is seen in people of European descent. However, other races can definitely have different eye colors other than brown.
According to statistics, the most common eye color is brown. The second most common eye colors are blue and gray. The rarest eye color is green. To sum it up, a person’s eye color really just depends on gene combination, not race.
Check out this cool infographic that explains how eye color is developed: