 If Native Americans originally descended from a cave in Yunnan, China, does that mean that the first Americans were Chinese? Let's talk about it. Welcome everybody to the hot pop boys David and Andrew here. What's the scientific breakthrough this week? Current biology magazine released a scientific study that links the DNA of modern-day Native Americans to a group of people who used to live in the caves of Yunnan, China. The red deer caves here is a photo depiction of what they looked like. All right so what is new about this information that is on top of the fact that you know Native Americans cross the Bering Strait? Well basically it just says that there's a third group of people not just Siberians not just Central Asians but people from essentially modern day Southeast Asia because you know the red deer caves at borders Myanmar and Laos Vietnam they're the ones that became Native Americans. Man let's talk about this David I think there's a lot of identity questions that come into play but also it's just kind of like funny information. So let's talk about this right now if you guys are interested by this please hit that like button and turn on your notification bells. David what are like the main reactions that people had on the internet like the different groups? Okay we had to go first to the Native American subreddit. Basically they were like kind of rolling their eyes like oh great they're just another thing to sort of like take us away from who we are because you know when the white man came and like killed us all or took our land they were kind of like saying oh well you guys never really belonged here anyway. Right and then now people are like joking about like oh what are they gonna like call us Chinese now? Right or just guess what the Chinese are gonna claim us I don't want to be Chinese I'm Native American and by the way I don't think this study invalidates their identity I totally think they should feel free and they rightfully should identify as Native American. What are like some European like British responses? Some people are like you know I think this is like quite you know normal knowledge to me I think we've known this for like a hundred years if you look at the Chinese and you look at a Native American they look quite similar. And I think it's pretty funny because British people they're more familiar with like Europeans migrating different places than even Americans are. Yeah because Americans are always like centraled around like oh America's like the center of the world but then British are like well you know you guys came from us don't forget. Yeah but then white Americans and obviously I'm sure there's a range of responses but one was like hey man I don't give a damn they could have came straight from Beijing 10 years ago we came over here we won this is our land. Meanies man what about like kind of maybe Chinese people or maybe particularly people from Yunnan they might be feeling like kind of like oh that's kind of cool like hey we got roots to the Native Americans to North America what's up. Yeah I mean I think that Chinese people probably in the scientific community are just glad they made a big discovery but people in Yunnan like you said they're really excited to see this link and I can see why because Andrew a lot of the people who live in the mountains of Yunnan right now that are sort of these like tribal mountain people they still have native customs and a lot of things that visually are similar to the Native Americans. Yeah I mean especially if you count like Taiwan and then like you're talking about indigenous cultures from around the world especially when it comes to kind of like people who are linked to Asia a lot of the culture is still kind of similar yeah at least the old traditional like clothing that they wear. And it's really weird it goes along like latitudes so for example if you look at ancient Siberians and then you look at Alaskans it's really similar and then you go one notch level lower and maybe like First Nations and Central Asians you know what I mean there's more of a linkage and then you kind of just go all the way down because obviously if the migration pattern went all the way down through Mexico all the way down into Peru and South America that's like all one like link of like one or three groups of people. Right so I mean I guess you know should this affect how people feel because we're talking about 14,000 years ago human migration generations upon generations people probably didn't know why they were migrating or I don't know if they knew where they were going because they went through Siberia which was super cold and then they could have just stopped and set up shop in California which would have been great too but they kept going all the way down. I know but everybody just wouldn't want to stop in Santa Barbara or San Diego. Yeah yeah but like what does this stuff matter or who doesn't matter to? Okay in a modern day geopolitical sense it doesn't matter because most people in America don't even study history they look at life between like 50 to 100 years max. Right so as far as like America goes it doesn't matter and not only that like we said unfortunately you know the Native Americans I guess like they were on the losing end of the battle with the Europeans for America by a long shot so I guess even if they did descend like we said you know it's back to that like that white guys I don't care if they came from Indonesia Borneo y'all know nothing we came and we won we won the game. Damn that's messed up right but that's how like sort of some people see it and I would say this for me my major takeaways are a couple things one it made me consider the ancient link between sort of like your you know ancient Austronesian costumes, Zhuang Dai people and Native Americans some of the totem poles look the same really like striking. Okay it's interesting. Number two it made me think about the link between Asians and Latinos not only in an ancient sense like I just said but also a modern sense because even though Latinos nowadays are probably a lot of them are I guess heavily mixed with like Spanish blood from Spain you know especially the indigenous ones I'm like oh man we all like kind of came went through the same situations political identities developed in the 60s 70s 80s 90s so there's a lot of modern day shared history as well and then it kind of made me think about like the collaborations that we have between Native Americans and Asians like oh you mean like the modern day ones yeah the modern day one for example the movie wind talkers about Navajo Indians helping the Americans fight against the Japanese but there's a lot of really good scenes in there one of them you know some of the white soldiers they don't trust the Navajo people because they're like they just look like nips to me they look like Japanese to me and then remember the Navajo guys like I do look just like them yeah well because they did they do location yeah the movie and then obviously that was directed by John Wu who's Chinese um oh Andrew Disney Pocahontas looks like a Filipino abg yeah I mean the way they draw for sure I mean I'm not saying Disney is always the most accurate but Pocahontas look very Asian her eyes were kind of like yeah I yeah I heard that there was uh some debate in Disney of whether which tribe they should make her look like because different Native American tribes look more or less Asian obviously the more further south you go maybe the less well what is the best current collaboration right now oh for sure the casino yeah because the government sort of like I guess I don't know if they really do but they kind of feel bad about taking the indigenous people's land so they give them the casinos but then the main people who pump money into the casinos and work at the casinos are actually Asians yeah man specifically probably vietes or Chinese vietes dude we didn't grow up too far from the spot called the muckershoe reservation and in the reservation one you can buy firecrackers and you can go to the casinos Andrew if Chinese vietes are the main people at the casinos and Yunnan China is sort of in this Chinese viet zone where it's like kind of like tough to say it's 5050 you know what I'm saying man Vietnamese were the first Americans yo I mean that's a new theory that's a new theory right there I will say this Andrew if we put some fur around your head you could look like a little Inuit boy specifically from like Alaska and yo in some of our Southeast Asian friends Andrew if you put like a feather headdress around Richie's head he could look like a Cherokee yeah now for me jokes aside for a second uh for me that was what all do yeah I mean hey these are some funny theories by the way uh with uh taking that aside though I think that ultimately if something from like 14 10 000 years ago uh even affects your identity today then ultimately how far are you going to take it back because we take it back a hundred thousand years ago we're all from East Africa so I'm saying like of course we're all African if you want to go back that far so how far do you want to go back 50 years 500 years 5000 years you name it it's up to you obviously I think this type of information affects different people differently I think a lot of people won't care because and I think that's generally the right answer to um but also most people don't even care what happened 150 years ago let alone 15 000 years ago let alone 150 000 years ago 150 years ago if you have a picture of it I don't know it matters a little bit more your ancestor was a Neanderthal my answer was a denivin the denivins and the Neanderthals they had beef or did were they homies yeah but by the way I I don't think anybody out there it actually thinks Native Americans are Chinese obviously because guys but there was a funny joke when they were like oh so what is China going to go claim America as its ancestral land that was a funny thought I think it does bring up some interesting questions because I remember there was a Sherman Alexi who was a really famous Native American poet from Seattle Seattle's actually a Native American term named after chief Seattle guys not every part of America had as of a contentious relationship with the Native Americans as like other places other places I think they just wanted to like eliminate them in other places they're like trying to find a piece you know that's like more how Seattle is um so I just feel like it's interesting because it does bring up some deeper issues of identity because if a white person who's Anglo looks at a Native American who's been here for 15 000 years and goes hey go back to where you came from isn't that crazy because maybe they think they're Asian or they think they're Mexican yeah in 2022 that would be like insane right because they've been here yeah I mean uh you guys let us know in the comments down below what you think um about all this is this information relevant is it not uh what would you do with it oh one last collaboration now this is maybe not as much Native Americans but more indigenous Central Americans and Asians is uh restaurants yo they'd be working together in the restaurants oh that's a good point yeah yeah they make a lot of good food between those two collaborating together probably not the tallest groups of people either no maybe not the tallest groups yeah I mean what was the thing that motivated them man I want to know what motivated them to make this crazy like bell curve arc well first of all no single person actually saw that travel because they all died along the way but something must have driven them because at any point I would say those ancient mammoths and buffaloes must have been delicious hey man hey you know for me I always knew that growing up in a white black binary America you know especially back in the the 90s I always picked the third option which was Native American like when we're playing with cowboys and Indians I'm not trying to be stereotypical I would always pick the Indians because they looked like me most of the white kids would pick the cowboys because they were like blonde but I did have one friend called Jordan I'll just call him Jordan I don't want to say his last name but he used to um always be on with me on team Indians and he ended up marrying an ethnic girl wow so it kind of goes to show Jordan he was down since kindergarten you were down yeah man I mean I think that I'm looking forward to more collaborations between indigenous Americans of all types and Asians coming up I mean I think there's a lot I think culturally we also do like relate in the sense like you know a very family base and stuff like that so shout out to smoke signals and I always remember this I'll end on this Andrew I always remember we in Seattle we get a lot of like Native American like coaching and I remember this guy we were watching this like Cherokee poet and I always remember their language sounded so cool to me because it was like dude I went on a field trip to Tillicum Village and Tillicum Village you had to take a small little boat ride there and it was for a field trip and I had the best salmon roasted on cedar and that's that was like one of my favorite salmon dishes I ever had of all time and it was at a Native American museum all right guys all right everybody thank you so much for watching again let us know in the comments down below what you think does this information matter to you does it not is it interesting oh shout out to the muckershoot yes and we are the hot pot boys until next time we out peace oh and last but not least I cannot forget both undersized basketball players but with a love for the game