White Latin American
Encyclopedia
White Latin Americans are the people of Latin America
who are white
in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country. In some countries such as Ecuador being white is socially desirable, because it is associated with high socio-economic status. The colonial rule in Latin America kept strict track of the blood purity of its subjects, considering Christian (i.e. European) blood to be purest. This has meant that in contrast to racial policies in the U.S. which have generally encouraged segregation, Latin American countries have often had miscegenation, since even small amounts of European ancestry could entail significant upwards social mobility.
Throughout Latin America people who are White identify with heritage from European settlers arriving in the Americas throughout the colonial and post-independence periods. Many of the earliest settlers were Spanish
and Portuguese
, and after independence, Italians
have led numerically among the millions of immigrants. The Spaniards and Portuguese round out the top three. Notably large immigration occurred as well by Germans
, Poles
, Irish
, British
, French
, Russians
, Belgians
, Dutch
, Scandinavians
, Ukrainians
, Croats
, Swiss, Greeks
and other Europeans. In at least some countries, the white population also includes Middle East
erners/Southwest Asia
ns. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese
, Palestinian
, and Syria
n origin, but there are Armenians
, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans
are Ashkenazi
), and others.
Composing about 33% or 36% of the population according to some sources, White Latin Americans
constitute the largest racial-ethnic group in the region. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article. According to a survey conducted by consultant Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven different countries of the region, a 34% of the interviewée identified themselves as "White".
and blue-eyed/green-eyed white Latin American and white Hispanic and Latino American
actors and actresses in telenovela
s relative to non-white Latin Americans and non-white Hispanic and Latino Americans. European-looking actors are mostly given characters of upper class
and upper-middle class
status, while non-white Latin American actors portray lower-class people.
specialist in race concepts of Latin America "...racial categories and racial ideologies are not simply those that elaborate social constructions on the basis of phenotypical variation or ideas about innate difference but those that do so using the particular aspects of phenotypical variation that were worked into vital signifiers of difference during European colonial encounters with others." In many parts of Latin America being white is connected more to socio-economic status than to specific phenotypic traits - and it is often said that in Latin America "Money Whitens" Also within Latin America there is variation in how racial boundaries have been defined. In Argentina, for example, the notion of mixture has been downplayed resulting in the country having no real Mestizo
group, whereas in countries like Mexico
and Brazil
the notion of mixedness has been fundamental for nation-building, resulting in a large group of Mestizos' being considered neither fully "white" nor fully non-white.
For these reasons the distinction between "white" and "mixed", and between "mixed" and "black" or "indigenous" is largely subjective and situational meaning that any attempt to quantify racial categories into discrete categories is fraught with problems.
settled in their American colonies during the colonial period
. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitans establishee in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form the metropoli arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.
In the particular case of Spaniards, it seems to be a fact -though estimates vary- that immigration of conquistadores and colonists towards the New World was scanty during all the colonial period, which would explain the admixture (mestizaje) that took place in this region. Some estimates state that less than 200,000 Spaniards arrived in the Americas during the period 1509-1790. On the other hand, M. Mönier assessed that 437,669 Peninsulares settled in the Spanish American possessions
between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain
by the time -Sefardic Jews, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico
and Peru
became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries in the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo
or Mulatto
, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desireable. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina
, Uruguay
and Brazil
. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 12 million immigrants arrived in South America
, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil
welcomed 4.4 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many Latin Americans have who have Native American
and/or sub-Saharan Africa
n and/or, rarely, East Asian
ancestry have also White ancestry. The casta
classification of colonial Latin America defined a person of mixed European/Native American
ancestry, or Mestizo
ancestry. A castizo
was someone whose mother was European and his father a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).
As it happened in Spain, persons of Jewish or Moorish ancestry up to several generations, were not allowed to enroll at the service of the Spanish Army or the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonies. All applicants to both institutions and their spouses had to obtain a Limpieza de sangre
certificate in the same way as those in the Peninsula did, that proved that they had no Jewish or Moorish ancestors. However, being a medieval concept that targeted exclusively those religious groups, it was never an issue among the native population in the colonies of the Spanish Empire, that by law allowed people from all racial groups to join the Army, with the only prerequisite of embracing the Catholic faith. One notable example was that of Francisco Menendez
, a freed black military officer of the Spanish Army during the 18th century at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose fort in St. Augustine, Florida.
Although historically both Colonial
and Imperial Brazil had institutionalized discrimination against citizens which were deemed as people of color, contrary to the common sense in its population, it never had a casta classification like that of Hispanic America. White Brazilian people in the social status equivalent to the Hispanic criollo could have less than 80% of European (overwhelmingly Portuguese, seldom Spanish and much rarely other European ethnicities) ancestry. Aside some Amerindian and Black African descent which is knowly widespread among White populations in Brazil among all social classes in its five geographic regions
since historically early times (c. 16th to 17th centuries), Moorish, Jewish, Arab and Romani
mixed ancestry were also less significant to social status there than in Hispanic America.
It does not mean that social prestige of "fully non-whites" (people of color which are not mulattoes, mestizos, zambos, pardos, etc. in short, multiracial Brazilians
, with Caucasian features i.e. Black Africans, Amerindians, their direct descendants and "westernized" Brazilians with wholly or almost fully non-Caucasian phenotypes, which also would be >70% European in their ancestry, since genes that form racial phenotypes are distributed random among the descendants of intermixing couples) and people with knowable non-European ancestry was equal, comparable or even acceptable among Brazilians elites, but that in Portuguese America, people were less concerned with ancestry and Limpeza de Sangue than its Hispanic neighbours.
, with 95.3 million whites out of 191.9 million total Brazilians, or 49.7% of the total population. Argentina
has the second largest white population, and Mexico
has the third largest. In terms of percentage of the total population, Argentina and Uruguay
have the largest white populations, with roughly 90% of their respective populations self-identified as White. Depending on the definition of "Latin America", the smallest White population is either in Honduras
, with only 1% White, approximately 75,000 people, or in Haiti
. Guatemala's census groups both Whites and Mestizos (people of mixed White and Native American
ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of White Guatemalans is undetermined.
Some other sources place the percentage of whites at 5.1%, or about 649,000 people.
, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian
settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.
White Nicaraguans make up 17%, just over one million, of the Nicaraguan population. The majority of White Nicaraguans are of Spanish, German, Italian], Portuguese, Belgian and French ancestry. In the 19th century Nicaragua experienced several waves of immigration, primarily from Europe. In particular, families from Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium immigrated to Nicaragua, mostly to the departments in the Central and Pacific region. As a result, the northern cities of Estelí
, Jinotega
, and Matagalpa
have significant fourth generation Germans. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels, and banks. The Jews of Nicaragua are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews
from Eastern Europe.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguan
s, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.
immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
in the 1860s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Palestine also made Mexico their home. In the 20th century, White Americans, Canadians], Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, and immigrants from other Eastern European countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
, also settled in Mexico.
The northern regions of Mexico, such as the states of Sonora
, Chihuahua and Nuevo León
, and particularly the city of Monterrey
, hold the greatest European genetic admixture, with roughly 50–61% European admixture among the regional population.
The only time that the Mexican Government has asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage was in the 1921 census. 10% of the population answered that they were white. The Distrito Federal, in the Mexico City
area, had the largest total of whites (206,514 of the 1.4 million nationwide), followed by Chihuahua (145,926), Sonora (115,151), Veracruz
(114,150), and Mexico state (88,660), while in terms of percentage, the white population was most prominent in Sonora (41.85%), Chihuahua (36.33%), Baja California Sur
(33.40%), Tabasco
(27.56%), and Distrito Federal (22.79%).
in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most white Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German
, Italian and Russian descent. During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Canarians
, Catalans
, Andalusians
, Castilians
, and Galicians
emigrated to Cuba. Also, one significant ethnic influx is derived from various Middle Eastern nations. Many Jews have also immigrated there, some of them Sephardic. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist regime took power
.
White people in Dominican Republic represent 16% of the total population, with the vast majority being of Spanish descent. Notable other ancestries includes French, Italian, Lebanese, German, and Portuguese. Most Dominicans have European Spanish ancestry along with African and Taino.
The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of increasing the white population, or "whitening
" the racial composition of the country by rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. He also welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s as part of this plan. The country's German minority is the largest in the Caribbean.
Some notable White Dominicans include Juan Luis Guerra
, 2003 Miss Universe Amelia Vega
, Miss Dominican Republic 2010 Eva Arias
, world known fashion designer Oscar De La Renta
, singer and television presenter Charytín Goyco, former Dominican president Hipólito Mejía
, and painter Guillo Pérez.
make up about 5%. Most of the white Haitians are descendants of French settlers, although most French left following the Haitian Revolution
of 1791–1804, which resulted in Saint-Domingue
's independence as the Republic of Haiti. The white community had numbered 32,000 in 1789. There are also white Haitians that are descendants of Irish, Danes, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Poles, Portuguese, Russians and Syrians. The country has also small numbers of Haitians of Spanish descent, who are the descendants of the first settlers on the whole of Hispaniola
before French rule came to Haiti.
White people in Martinique
represent 5% of the population, as Martinique
is an overseas French
department, most whites are French.
. For the first time in fifty years, the 2000 United States Census asked people to define their race. One hundred years later, the total has risen to 80.5% (3,064,862), less than one percent more than reported in 1950.
From the beginning of the twentieth century American observers remarked on the "surprising preponderance of the white race" on the island. One travel writer called Puerto Rico "the whitest of the Antilles". In a widely distributed piece, a geologist, wrote that the island was "notable among the West Indian group for the reason that its preponderant population is of the white race." In a more academic book he reiterated that "Porto Rico, at least, has not become Africanized
.
During the 19th century, hundreds of Corsica
n, French
, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia
, Asturias
, Galicia, the Balearic Islands
, Andalusia
, and the Canary Islands
) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish
, Scots, Germans
, Italians, and thousands of others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. After the United States took possession of Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War
, an influx of Jews
and White American
s began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco
’s rule in Spain.
Most of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy
and Brittany
.
Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) does not conduct ethnic/racial censuses, so no official data exist on the precise amount or percentage of White Argentines today. Nevertheless, most of the sources consulted provide estimates for the White Euro-descended population in the country of 83.2%
, 85%, or even up to 86.4% of the total population. These percentages would rise up to 86.1%, 87.8% or 89.7% if the Non-European Caucasian groups (Jews and Arabs) are also counted. Summing up, These percentages would result in an estimated population of 34-36 million White people in Argentina. The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated; either it counts both White and Mestizo population all together, or it is the result of the successful campaign implemented by Argentina's ruling elite in the early 20th century to present "a White country". In the survey conducted by Cohesión Social mentioned in the introduction, 63% of the Argentinian interviewed identified themselves as "White". Other articles state that 75%-80% of Argentina's population might be White.
White Argentines may live in any part of the country, but their concentration is greater especially in the central-eastern region called Pampas, the southern region called Patagonia
, and in the central-western region called Cuyo
.Their concentration is smaller in the north-eastern region called Litoral
and much lesser in the north-western provinces of Salta
, Jujuy
, Tucumán
, Catamarca
, La Rioja
and Santiago del Estero
, This is because these provinces were the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo
people) before the immigratory wave of 1857-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least.During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia
, Perú
and Paraguay
, the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires
, and the provinces of Salta
and Jujuy
has significantly decreased as well.
White population residing in Argentina is mostly descendant of immigrants arrived from Europe
and the Middle East
between the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, and in smaller proportion from Spaniards of the colonial period. Out of the total estimation of 437,669 Spaniards who settled in the American Spanish colonies
during the period 1506-1650 made by M. Möner, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman estimated that a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares established in the Río de la Plata region. The colonial censuses conducted after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata showed that the proportion of Spaniards and Criollo
s was very significant in the cities and surrounding countryside, but not so much in the rural areas. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy
Juan José de Vértiz
in Buenos Aires
revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos
numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo
in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba
(city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
In 1822, a census was conducted in the city of Buenos Aires
; it showed that the city had then 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were White (about 72.2%). Of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations. This figure differs substantially with an estimate by Italo-Argentine sociologist José Ingenieros
, which stated that in 1826 the Argentine territory was populated by 630,000 people, of whom only 13,000 were White; if this figures were correct, Whites comprised a mere 1.66% of the total. According to historian John W. White's estimate, those percentages had barely changed by 1852; out of a total 785,000 inhabitants, a 22,000 were White -a 2,8%- divided in 15,000 Criollos and 7,000 Europeans. In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero
granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza
, Santa Fe
. During the 1860s and 1870s, Presidents Bartolomé Mitre
, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda
implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina.
Data provided by Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (National Bureau of Migrations) states that the country received a total 6,611,000 European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940. The main immigrant group were the 2,970,000 Italians
arrived in the period (44.9% of the total); initially they came from Piedmont
, Veneto
and Lombardy
, and later from Campania
, Calabria
and Sicily
. The second group in importance were the Spaniards, some 2,080,000 (31.4% of the total); They were mostly Galicians and Basques, but also Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalonians
and Andalucians). In smaller but significant numbers arrived Frenchmen from Occitania
(239,000, 3.6% of the total) and Polish
(180,000 – 2.7%). From the Russian Empire
came some 177,000 people (2.6%); they were not only ethnic Russians
, but also Ukrainians
, Belarussians, Volga Germans, Lithuanians
, etc. From the Ottoman Empire
the contributors were mainly Armenians
and Arabs (mostly from Lebanon
and Syria
), some 174,000 in all (2.6%). Very closely in numbers come the immigrants from the German Empire
, some 152,000 (2.2%). From the Austro-Hungarian Empire came 111,000 people (1.6%), among them Austríans
, Hungarians
, Croatians
, Bosniaks, Serbs
, Rutenians and Montenegrins
. Among the 75,000 British
immigrants there were many people from England
and Wales
, but mosto f them were Irish people
who were escaping the Potato famine
or the British rule. Other minor groups were the Portuguese (65,000), the Slavic
s from ex-Yugoslavia
(48,000), the Suiss
(44,000), the Belgians
(26,000), the Danes
(18,000), the White American
s (12.000), the Dutch
(10,000), and the Swedish
(7,000). Even colonishts from Australia
, and Boers from South Africa
can be found in the Argentine immigration records.
The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews
), and about 15-20% from Sephardic groups from Syria
. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
In the 1910s, when the immigration rate reached its peak, more than 30% of Argentina’s population was born in Europe, and over half of Buenos Aires
city’s population was born abroad. According to the 1914 National Census, the 80% out of a total population of 7.903.662 people were either Europeans, or their children and grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (the descendants of the residing population previous to the immigratory wave), about a third were White. Put down in numbers, that meant that an 86.6% or about 6.8 million people residing in Argentina were White. European immigration continued accounting for over half the population growth of the nation during the 1920s, and in smaller waves after the Second World War. Many Europeans migrated in Argentina after the great conflict, escaping hunger and destruction. According to the Argentine records, 392.603 people from the Old World entered the country in the 1940s. In the following decade, the flow diminished because the Marshall Plan
improved Europe’s economy, and emigration was not such a necessity; even then, immigratory records state that between 1951 and 1970 other 256,252 Europeans entered Argentina. From the 1960s onwards, when it comprised 76.1% of the total, increasing immigration from the northern bordering countries (Bolivia
, Peru
and Paraguay
) has significantly increased the process of Mestizaje in certain areas of Argentina, especially the Greater Buenos Aires
. This is mainly because the aforementioned countries have Amerindian and Mestizo
majorities.
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union
and its allies, the governments of Western Europe
were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe
and Russia
. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World
- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 526 were Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians
, Moldovans, and Poles, and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning.
Beyond all the changes that this massive immigratory wave brought about in Argentina's demography and ethnic composition, it must not be forgotten the great influence that all these European immigrants and their descendants have exerted –even nowadays- on Argentine culture: The Spanish language
variety spoken in most of Argentina, the Rioplatense Spanish
, has entonation patterns heavily influenced by the southern dialects of the Italian language
, especially the Napolitan dialect. Almost all the sports practiced nowadays in Argentina were brought by European immigrants (particularly the British), such as football, rugby, golf, tennis, cycling, car racing, etc. Great glories of the Argentine sport, as Juan Manuel Fangio
or Nicolino Locche
had direct European ancestry.
Regarding music, tango genre appeared partly due to Italian and Spanish influence, and the top artists of the genre had French (Carlos Gardel
), Italian (Astor Piazzolla
) or Basque ancestry (Roberto Goyeneche
). Inside the folklore genre, the most Europe-influenced rhythm is the chamamé, with important musicians such as Chango Spasiuk
–with Ukrainian ancestry- or Soledad Pastorutti
–with Italian ancestry-. Among the best singer-songwriters of the Argentine rock
we may find plenty of Euro-descendants: Charly García
, Fito Páez
, León Gieco
, Pappo
, Andres Calamaro
, Alejandro Lerner
, David Lebón, Litto Nebbia
and Gustavo Cerati
, among many others.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated that up to 40% of the Argentinians who can be considered phenotypically White may have partial Amerindian or Black African
ancestry. The first study on the matter was conducted by genetist Daniel Corach, from University of Buenos Aires
in 2005. The results of this study in which DNA
from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor. Nevertheless, the study clarified that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French
scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European
, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.
The most recent study on the matter was conducted by another team led by Daniel Corach in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: The analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA
analysis showed again a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, a 53.7% -though a little lower than the 56% of the 2005 study-, a little higher 44.3% of European contribution, and only 2% African contribution. The study of 24 Autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.6%, against 17.3% of Ameridian and 4.1% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".
s, which consist of families of unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists
and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
, as well as Italians
, Americans, Basques, Lebanese, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.
Furthermore, some demographers estimate that a 15% of the self-declared White Brazilians have certain degree of African and Amerindian ancestry, for which -if the US one drop rule was applied- they could be classified as "Pardos".
White Brazilian population is spread all over the national territory, but it is concentrated in the four southernmost states, where a 79,6% of the population self-identify as White.
The states with more White people are: Santa Catarina
(85,7%), Rio Grande do Sul
(81,4%), Paraná
(71,3%) y São Paulo
(70.4%). Other four states have significant proportions of Whites; and they are: Rio de Janeiro
(55,8%), Mato Grosso do Sul
(51,6%), Minas Gerais
(44,2%) y Goiás
(40,1%).
By the time Brazil became independent, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had already left for Brazil, most of them male colonial settlers from Portugal. Rich immigrants, who established the first sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco
and Bahia
, and, on the other hand, banished New Christian
s and Gypsies fleeing from religious persecution were among the early settlers. In the 18th century, an estimated 600,000 Portuguese arrived, including wealthier immigrants, as well as poor peasants attracted by the Brazil Gold Rush
that was going on in Minas Gerais
.
After its independence, declared by emperor Pedro II in 1822, Brazil
began several campaigns to attract European immigrants, shaped by a manifest policy of Branqueamento (Whitening). During the 19th century the slave labour force was gradually replaced by European immigrants, especially Italians. This happened particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of slave traffic in the Atlantic Ocean
and the growth of coffee
plantations in São Paulo
region. European immigration had its momentum peak between mid-19th century and mid-20th century, when nearly five million Europeans migrated to Brazil
, most of themItalians, Portuguese
, German
s, Spaniards, Pole
s, Lithuanian
s, and Ukrainian
s. Between 1877 and 1903, 1,927,992 inmigrantes entered Brazil
, an average of 71.000 people per year. The process reached it peak in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was caracterized by an intense arrival of Italians (58.5%) and a lower income of Portuguese
(20%).
After the First World War, Portuguese became once more the main immigrant group, and Italians fell to third place. The Spanish
immigrants rose to the second place because of the poverty that was affecting millions of rural workers; Germans
occupy the fourth place in the list; they arrived especially during the Weimar Republic
, due to poverty
and unemployment
caused by the First World War. .
White Latin Americans are the people of Latin America
who are white
in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country. In some countries such as Ecuador being white is socially desirable, because it is associated with high socio-economic status. The colonial rule in Latin America kept strict track of the blood purity of its subjects, considering Christian (i.e. European) blood to be purest. This has meant that in contrast to racial policies in the U.S. which have generally encouraged segregation, Latin American countries have often had miscegenation, since even small amounts of European ancestry could entail significant upwards social mobility.
Throughout Latin America people who are White identify with heritage from European settlers arriving in the Americas throughout the colonial and post-independence periods. Many of the earliest settlers were Spanish
and Portuguese
, and after independence, Italians
have led numerically among the millions of immigrants. The Spaniards and Portuguese round out the top three. Notably large immigration occurred as well by Germans
, Poles
, Irish
, British
, French
, Russians
, Belgians
, Dutch
, Scandinavians
, Ukrainians
, Croats
, Swiss, Greeks
and other Europeans. In at least some countries, the white population also includes Middle East
erners/Southwest Asia
ns. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese
, Palestinian
, and Syria
n origin, but there are Armenians
, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans
are Ashkenazi
), and others.
Composing about 33% or 36% of the population according to some sources,http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/pdf/128/12891701.pdf White Latin Americans
constitute the largest racial-ethnic group in the region. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article. According to a survey conducted by consultant Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven different countries of the region, a 34% of the interviewée identified themselves as "White".
and blue-eyed/green-eyed white Latin American and white Hispanic and Latino American
actors and actresses in telenovela
s relative to non-white Latin Americans and non-white Hispanic and Latino Americans.The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TVBlonde, Blue-Eyed Euro-Cute Latinos on Spanish TVWhat are Telenovelas? – Hispanic CultureRacial Bias Charged On Spanish-Language TVBlack ElectorateSkin tone consciousness in Asian and Latin American populationsDifferences Between American and Castilian SpanishPOV - Corpus Film Description European-looking actors are mostly given characters of upper class
and upper-middle class
status, while non-white Latin American actors portray lower-class people.
specialist in race concepts of Latin America "...racial categories and racial ideologies are not simply those that elaborate social constructions on the basis of phenotypical variation or ideas about innate difference but those that do so using the particular aspects of phenotypical variation that were worked into vital signifiers of difference during European colonial encounters with others."Wade, Peter. 1997. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. Critical Studies On Latin America. Pluto Press p. 15 In many parts of Latin America being white is connected more to socio-economic status than to specific phenotypic traits - and it is often said that in Latin America "Money Whitens"Levine-Rasky, Cynthia. 2002. "Working through whiteness: international perspectives. SUNY Press ( p. 73) ""Money whitens" If any phrase encapsulates the association of whiteness and the modern in Latin America, this is it. It is a cliché formulated and reformulated throughout the region, a truism dependant upon the social experience that wealth is associated with whiteness, and that in obtaining the former one may become aligned with the latter (and vice versa)"." Also within Latin America there is variation in how racial boundaries have been defined. In Argentina, for example, the notion of mixture has been downplayed resulting in the country having no real Mestizo
group, whereas in countries like Mexico
and Brazil
the notion of mixedness has been fundamental for nation-building, resulting in a large group of Mestizos' being considered neither fully "white" nor fully non-white.
For these reasons the distinction between "white" and "mixed", and between "mixed" and "black" or "indigenous" is largely subjective and situational meaning that any attempt to quantify racial categories into discrete categories is fraught with problems.
settled in their American colonies during the colonial period
. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitans establishee in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form the metropoli arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.Presença portuguesa: de Colonizadores a Imigrantes. Text taken from the book Brasil: 500 Anos de Povoamento IBGE, 3º Capítulo "Presença portuguesa: de colonizadores a imigrantes" written by Renato Pinto Venâncio. Retrieved 26-11-2007.
In the particular case of Spaniards, it seems to be a fact -though estimates vary- that immigration of conquistadores and colonists towards the New World was scanty during all the colonial period, which would explain the admixture (mestizaje) that took place in this region. Some estimates state that less than 200,000 Spaniards arrived in the Americas during the period 1509-1790. On the other hand, M. Mönier assessed that 437,669 Peninsulares settled in the Spanish American possessions
between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain
by the time -Sefardic Jews, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico
and Peru
became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries in the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo
or Mulatto
, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desireable.Whiteness in Latin America: Measurement and Meaning in National Censuses (1850-1950) written by Mara Loveman. Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Vol. 95-2, 2009. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina
, Uruguay
and Brazil
. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 12 million immigrants arrived in South America
, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil
welcomed 4.4 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many Latin Americans have who have Native American
and/or sub-Saharan Africa
n and/or, rarely, East Asian
ancestry have also White ancestry. The casta
classification of colonial Latin America defined a person of mixed European/Native American
ancestry, or Mestizo
ancestry. A castizo
was someone whose mother was European and his father a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).
As it happened in Spain, persons of Jewish or Moorish ancestry up to several generations, were not allowed to enroll at the service of the Spanish Army or the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonies. All applicants to both institutions and their spouses had to obtain a Limpieza de sangre
certificate in the same way as those in the Peninsula did, that proved that they had no Jewish or Moorish ancestors. However, being a medieval concept that targeted exclusively those religious groups, it was never an issue among the native population in the colonies of the Spanish Empire, that by law allowed people from all racial groups to join the Army, with the only prerequisite of embracing the Catholic faith. One notable example was that of Francisco Menendez
, a freed black military officer of the Spanish Army during the 18th century at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose fort in St. Augustine, Florida.
Although historically both Colonial
and Imperial Brazil had institutionalized discrimination against citizens which were deemed as people of color, contrary to the common sense in its population, it never had a casta classification like that of Hispanic America. White Brazilian people in the social status equivalent to the Hispanic criollo could have less than 80% of European (overwhelmingly Portuguese, seldom Spanish and much rarely other European ethnicities) ancestry. Aside some Amerindian and Black African descent which is knowly widespread among White populations in Brazil among all social classes in its five geographic regions
since historically early times (c. 16th to 17th centuries), Moorish, Jewish, Arab and Romani
mixed ancestry were also less significant to social status there than in Hispanic America.
It does not mean that social prestige of "fully non-whites" (people of color which are not mulattoes, mestizos, zambos, pardos, etc. in short, multiracial Brazilians
, with Caucasian features i.e. Black Africans, Amerindians, their direct descendants and "westernized" Brazilians with wholly or almost fully non-Caucasian phenotypes, which also would be >70% European in their ancestry, since genes that form racial phenotypes are distributed random among the descendants of intermixing couples) and people with knowable non-European ancestry was equal, comparable or even acceptable among Brazilians elites, but that in Portuguese America, people were less concerned with ancestry and Limpeza de Sangue than its Hispanic neighbours.
, with 95.3 million whites out of 191.9 million total Brazilians, or 49.7% of the total population. Argentina
has the second largest white population, and Mexico
has the third largest. In terms of percentage of the total population, Argentina and Uruguay
have the largest white populations, with roughly 90% of their respective populations self-identified as White. Depending on the definition of "Latin America", the smallest White population is either in Honduras
, with only 1% White, approximately 75,000 people, or in Haiti
. Guatemala's census groups both Whites and Mestizos (people of mixed White and Native American
ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of White Guatemalans is undetermined.
Some other sources place the percentage of whites at 5.1%, or about 649,000 people.
, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian
settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.
White Nicaraguans make up 17%, just over one million, of the Nicaraguan population. The majority of White Nicaraguans are of Spanish, German, Italian], Portuguese, Belgian and French ancestry. In the 19th century Nicaragua experienced several waves of immigration, primarily from Europe. In particular, families from Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium immigrated to Nicaragua, mostly to the departments in the Central and Pacific region. As a result, the northern cities of Estelí
, Jinotega
, and Matagalpa
have significant fourth generation Germans. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels, and banks. The Jews of Nicaragua are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews
from Eastern Europe.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguan
s, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.
immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
in the 1860s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Palestine also made Mexico their home. In the 20th century, White Americans, Canadians], Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, and immigrants from other Eastern European countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
, also settled in Mexico.
The northern regions of Mexico, such as the states of Sonora
, Chihuahua and Nuevo León
, and particularly the city of Monterrey
, hold the greatest European genetic admixture, with roughly 50–61% European admixture among the regional population.Supporting Information Silva-Zolezzi et al. 10.1073/pnas.0903045106
The only time that the Mexican Government has asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage was in the 1921 census.RACIAL CLASSIFICATIONS IN JALISCO AND THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC – 1921 CENSUS 10% of the population answered that they were white. The Distrito Federal, in the Mexico City
area, had the largest total of whites (206,514 of the 1.4 million nationwide), followed by Chihuahua (145,926), Sonora (115,151), Veracruz
(114,150), and Mexico state (88,660), while in terms of percentage, the white population was most prominent in Sonora (41.85%), Chihuahua (36.33%), Baja California Sur
(33.40%), Tabasco
(27.56%), and Distrito Federal (22.79%).
in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most white Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German
, Italian and Russian descent. (from Cuban Genealogy Center) During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Canarians
, Catalans
, Andalusians
, Castilians
, and Galicians
emigrated to Cuba. Also, one significant ethnic influx is derived from various Middle Eastern nations. Many Jews have also immigrated there, some of them Sephardic. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist regime took power
.
White people in Dominican Republic represent 16% of the total population, with the vast majority being of Spanish descent. Notable other ancestries includes French, Italian, Lebanese, German, and Portuguese. Most Dominicans have European Spanish ancestry along with African and Taino.
The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of increasing the white population, or "whitening
" the racial composition of the country by rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. He also welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s as part of this plan. The country's German minority is the largest in the Caribbean.http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Laender/DominikanischeRepublik.html
Some notable White Dominicans include Juan Luis Guerra
, 2003 Miss Universe Amelia Vega
, Miss Dominican Republic 2010 Eva Arias
, world known fashion designer Oscar De La Renta
, singer and television presenter Charytín Goyco, former Dominican president Hipólito Mejía
, and painter Guillo Pérez.
make up about 5%.CIA World Factbook : Haiti. Most of the white Haitians are descendants of French settlers, although most French left following the Haitian Revolution
of 1791–1804, which resulted in Saint-Domingue
's independence as the Republic of Haiti. The white community had numbered 32,000 in 1789. There are also white Haitians that are descendants of Irish, Danes, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Poles, Portuguese, Russians and Syrians. The country has also small numbers of Haitians of Spanish descent, who are the descendants of the first settlers on the whole of Hispaniola
before French rule came to Haiti.
White people in Martinique
represent 5% of the population, as Martinique
is an overseas French
department, most whites are French.
Martinique: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA
. For the first time in fifty years, the 2000 United States Census asked people to define their race. One hundred years later, the total has risen to 80.5% (3,064,862), less than one percent more than reported in 1950.Puerto Rico's History on race
From the beginning of the twentieth century American observers remarked on the "surprising preponderance of the white race" on the island. One travel writer called Puerto Rico "the whitest of the Antilles". In a widely distributed piece, a geologist, wrote that the island was "notable among the West Indian group for the reason that its preponderant population is of the white race." In a more academic book he reiterated that "Porto Rico, at least, has not become Africanized
.Representation of racial identity among Puerto Ricans and in the u.s. mainland
During the 19th century, hundreds of Corsica
n, French
, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia
, Asturias
, Galicia, the Balearic Islands
, Andalusia
, and the Canary Islands
) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish
, Scots, Germans
, Italians, and thousands of others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. After the United States took possession of Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War
, an influx of Jews
and White American
s began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco
’s rule in Spain.
Most of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy
and Brittany
.Fact Sheet on St. Barthélemy
Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) does not conduct ethnic/racial censuses, so no official data exist on the precise amount or percentage of White Argentines today. Nevertheless, most of the sources consulted provide estimates for the White Euro-descended population in the country of 83.2%
, 85%, or even up to 86.4% of the total population. These percentages would rise up to 86.1%, 87.8% or 89.7% if the Non-European Caucasian groups (Jews and Arabs) are also counted. Summing up, These percentages would result in an estimated population of 34-36 million White people in Argentina. The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated; either it counts both White and Mestizo population all together, or it is the result of the successful campaign implemented by Argentina's ruling elite in the early 20th century to present "a White country". In the survey conducted by Cohesión Social mentioned in the introduction, 63% of the Argentinian interviewed identified themselves as "White". Other articles state that 75%-80% of Argentina's population might be White.
White Argentines may live in any part of the country, but their concentration is greater especially in the central-eastern region called Pampas, the southern region called Patagonia
, and in the central-western region called Cuyo
.Their concentration is smaller in the north-eastern region called Litoral
and much lesser in the north-western provinces of Salta
, Jujuy
, Tucumán
, Catamarca
, La Rioja
and Santiago del Estero
, This is because these provinces were the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo
people) before the immigratory wave of 1857-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least.Los hombres barbados en la América precolombina: razas indígenas americanas. Escrito por Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso. página 10. Editorial Kier. Buenos Aires, 1997.During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia
, Perú
and Paraguay
, the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires
, and the provinces of Salta
and Jujuy
has significantly decreased as well.
White population residing in Argentina is mostly descendant of immigrants arrived from Europe
and the Middle East
between the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, and in smaller proportion from Spaniards of the colonial period. Out of the total estimation of 437,669 Spaniards who settled in the American Spanish colonies
during the period 1506-1650 made by M. Möner, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman estimated that a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares established in the Río de la Plata region. The colonial censuses conducted after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata showed that the proportion of Spaniards and Criollo
s was very significant in the cities and surrounding countryside, but not so much in the rural areas. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy
Juan José de Vértiz
in Buenos Aires
revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos
numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo
in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba
(city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
In 1822, a census was conducted in the city of Buenos Aires
; it showed that the city had then 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were White (about 72.2%). Of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations.Argentina 200 Años. Vol. 9 1820-1830. Editor José Alemán. Arte Gráfico Editorial Argentino. Buenos Aires. 2010. This figure differs substantially with an estimate by Italo-Argentine sociologist José Ingenieros
, which stated that in 1826 the Argentine territory was populated by 630,000 people, of whom only 13,000 were White; if this figures were correct, Whites comprised a mere 1.66% of the total.Argentina en marcha, Volumen 1. Comisión Nacional de Cooperación Intelectual. 1947.
“Para 1826 se admiten 630.000 almas, así repartidas, según Ingenieros: Blancos extranjeros 5.000, Blancos argentinos 8.000, Indios 132.000, Mestizos 400.000, Negros…”
According to historian John W. White's estimate, those percentages had barely changed by 1852; out of a total 785,000 inhabitants, a 22,000 were White -a 2,8%- divided in 15,000 Criollos and 7,000 Europeans.Argentina, the Life Story of a Nation. escrito por John W. White, Viking Press (1942), página 124. Citado en World's Great Men of Colour escrito por Joel Augustus Rogers y John Henrik Clarke, editorial Touchstone (1996), página 191. In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero
granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza
, Santa Fe
. During the 1860s and 1870s, Presidents Bartolomé Mitre
, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda
implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina.
Data provided by Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (National Bureau of Migrations) states that the country received a total 6,611,000 European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940.Yale immigration study The main immigrant group were the 2,970,000 Italians
arrived in the period (44.9% of the total); initially they came from Piedmont
, Veneto
and Lombardy
, and later from Campania
, Calabria
and Sicily
.Federaciones Regionales. The second group in importance were the Spaniards, some 2,080,000 (31.4% of the total); They were mostly Galicians and Basques, but also Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalonians
and Andalucians). In smaller but significant numbers arrived Frenchmen from Occitania
(239,000, 3.6% of the total) and Polish
(180,000 – 2.7%). From the Russian Empire
came some 177,000 people (2.6%); they were not only ethnic Russians
, but also Ukrainians
, Belarussians, Volga Germans, Lithuanians
, etc. From the Ottoman Empire
the contributors were mainly Armenians
and Arabs (mostly from Lebanon
and Syria
), some 174,000 in all (2.6%). Very closely in numbers come the immigrants from the German Empire
, some 152,000 (2.2%). From the Austro-Hungarian Empire came 111,000 people (1.6%), among them Austríans
, Hungarians
, Croatians
, Bosniaks, Serbs
, Rutenians and Montenegrins
. Among the 75,000 British
immigrants there were many people from England
and Wales
, but mosto f them were Irish people
who were escaping the Potato famine
or the British rule. Other minor groups were the Portuguese (65,000), the Slavic
s from ex-Yugoslavia
(48,000), the Suiss
(44,000), the Belgians
(26,000), the Danes
(18,000), the White American
s (12.000), the Dutch
(10,000), and the Swedish
(7,000). Even colonishts from Australia
, and Boers from South Africa
can be found in the Argentine immigration records.
The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews
), and about 15-20% from Sephardic groups from Syria
. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
In the 1910s, when the immigration rate reached its peak, more than 30% of Argentina’s population was born in Europe, and over half of Buenos Aires
city’s population was born abroad. According to the 1914 National Census, the 80% out of a total population of 7.903.662 people were either Europeans, or their children and grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (the descendants of the residing population previous to the immigratory wave), about a third were White. Put down in numbers, that meant that an 86.6% or about 6.8 million people residing in Argentina were White.History of Argentina, de Ricardo.Levene. University of North Carolina Press, 1937. European immigration continued accounting for over half the population growth of the nation during the 1920s, and in smaller waves after the Second World War. Many Europeans migrated in Argentina after the great conflict, escaping hunger and destruction. According to the Argentine records, 392.603 people from the Old World entered the country in the 1940s. In the following decade, the flow diminished because the Marshall Plan
improved Europe’s economy, and emigration was not such a necessity; even then, immigratory records state that between 1951 and 1970 other 256,252 Europeans entered Argentina. From the 1960s onwards, when it comprised 76.1% of the total, increasing immigration from the northern bordering countries (Bolivia
, Peru
and Paraguay
)Inmigración, Cambio Demográfico y Desarrollo Industrial en la Argentina. Alfredo Lattes y Ruth Sautu. Cuaderno Nº 5 del CENEP (1978). Citado en Argentina: 1516-1982 From Spanish Colonisation to the Falklands War by David Rock. University of California Press, 1987. ISBN 0-520-05189-0 has significantly increased the process of Mestizaje in certain areas of Argentina, especially the Greater Buenos Aires
. This is mainly because the aforementioned countries have Amerindian and Mestizo
majorities.
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union
and its allies, the governments of Western Europe
were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe
and Russia
. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World
- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 526 were Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians
, Moldovans, and Poles, and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport.Recent Migration from Central and Eastern Europe to Argentina, a Special Treatment? (Spanish) by María José Marcogliese. Revista Argentina de Sociología, 2003. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning.Ukrainians, Russians and Armenians, from professionals to security guardians. (Spanish) by Florencia Tateossian. Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2001.
Beyond all the changes that this massive immigratory wave brought about in Argentina's demography and ethnic composition, it must not be forgotten the great influence that all these European immigrants and their descendants have exerted –even nowadays- on Argentine culture: The Spanish language
variety spoken in most of Argentina, the Rioplatense Spanish
, has entonation patterns heavily influenced by the southern dialects of the Italian language
, especially the Napolitan dialect.Napolitans and porteños, united by the accent. Diario La Nación. Almost all the sports practiced nowadays in Argentina were brought by European immigrants (particularly the British), such as football,History of a Might House. (Spanish) Diario Clarín, Buenos Aires, 21 Febrero 2003. rugby, golf,Welcome Argentina: Golf tennis, cycling, car racing, etc. Great glories of the Argentine sport, as Juan Manuel Fangio
F1 Fanatics: Juan Manuel Fangio or Nicolino Locche
Locche. El último amague. Diario Clarín, 8 September 2005. had direct European ancestry.
Regarding music, tango genre appeared partly due to Italian and Spanish influence,Comienzos del Tango. por Jorge Gutman. De Norte a Sur (Noticiero Online). Año 21, Nº 241. Septiembre 2001. and the top artists of the genre had French (Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel: Síntesis de su vida y trayectoria. por Pablo Taboada. Todo Tango.), Italian (Astor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla Associazione musicale culturale Domenico Sarro (Italiano)) or Basque ancestry (Roberto Goyeneche
El Tango y los Vascos.). Inside the folklore genre, the most Europe-influenced rhythm is the chamamé,Historia de la Música folclórica de Argentina with important musicians such as Chango Spasiuk
–with Ukrainian ancestryChango Spasiuk Estación Tierra.- or Soledad Pastorutti
–with Italian ancestry-. Among the best singer-songwriters of the Argentine rock
we may find plenty of Euro-descendants: Charly García
, Fito Páez
, León Gieco
, Pappo
, Andres Calamaro
, Alejandro Lerner
, David Lebón, Litto Nebbia
and Gustavo Cerati
, among many others.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated that up to 40% of the Argentinians who can be considered phenotypically White may have partial Amerindian or Black African
ancestry. The first study on the matter was conducted by genetist Daniel Corach, from University of Buenos Aires
in 2005. The results of this study in which DNA
from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor.Estructura genética de la Argentina, Impacto de contribuciones genéticas - Ministerio de Educación de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Nación. (Spanish) Nevertheless, the study clarified that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French
scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European
, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.Mezcla génica en una muestra poblacional de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Avena, Sergio A., Goicochea, Alicia S., Rey, Jorge et al. (2006). Medicina (Buenos Aires), mar./abr. 2006, vol.66, no.2, p.113-118. ISSN 0025-7680.
The most recent study on the matter was conducted by another team led by Daniel Corach in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: The analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA
analysis showed again a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, a 53.7% -though a little lower than the 56% of the 2005 study-, a little higher 44.3% of European contribution, and only 2% African contribution. The study of 24 Autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.6%, against 17.3% of Ameridian and 4.1% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".Inferring Continental Ancestry of Argentineans from Autosomal, Y-Chromosomal and Mitochondrial DNA by Daniel Corach, Oscar Lao, Cecilia Bobillo, Kristiaan Van Der Gaag, Sofia Zuniga, Mark Vermeulen, Kate Van Duijn, Miriam Goedbloed, Peter M. Vallone, Walther Parson, Peter De Knijff, Manfred Kayser. First published on-line: 15 Dec 2009. Annals of Human Genetics;
Volume 74, Issue 1, pages 65-76, January 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.2009.00556.x © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/University College London.How Argentina Became White. Magazine Discover: Science, Technology and the Future.
s, which consist of families of unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists
and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
, as well as Italians
, Americans, Basques, Lebanese, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.
Furthermore, some demographers estimate that a 15% of the self-declared White Brazilians have certain degree of African and Amerindian ancestry, for which -if the US one drop rule was applied- they could be classified as "Pardos".Blacks in Brazil: the myth and the reality. by Charles Whitaker. Ebony Magazine, 1991.
White Brazilian population is spread all over the national territory, but it is concentrated in the four southernmost states, where a 79,6% of the population self-identify as White.
The states with more White people are: Santa Catarina
(85,7%), Rio Grande do Sul
(81,4%), Paraná
(71,3%) y São Paulo
(70.4%). Other four states have significant proportions of Whites; and they are: Rio de Janeiro
(55,8%), Mato Grosso do Sul
(51,6%), Minas Gerais
(44,2%) y Goiás
(40,1%).http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/tabela/protabl.asp?c=262&i=P&nome=on¬arodape=on&tab=262&unit=0&pov=1&opc1=1&poc2=1&OpcTipoNivt=1&opn1=0&nivt=0&orc86=3&poc1=1&orp=6&qtu3=27&opv=1&poc86=1&sec1=0&opc2=1&pop=1&opn2=0&orv=2&orc2=5&qtu2=5&sev=1000093&opc86=1&sec2=0&opp=1&opn3=1&sec86=2776&ascendente=on&sep=17795&orn=1&qtu7=9&orc1=4&qtu1=1&cabec=on&pon=1&OpcCara=44&proc=1&opn7=0&decm=99IBGE. PNAD 2009. População residente, por cor ou raça, situação e sexo]
By the time Brazil became independent, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had already left for Brazil, most of them male colonial settlers from Portugal.The Phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages Rich immigrants, who established the first sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco
and Bahia
, and, on the other hand, banished New Christian
s and Gypsies fleeing from religious persecution were among the early settlers. In the 18th century, an estimated 600,000 Portuguese arrived, including wealthier immigrants, as well as poor peasants attracted by the Brazil Gold Rush
that was going on in Minas Gerais
.Século XVIII
After its independence, declared by emperor Pedro II in 1822, Brazil
began several campaigns to attract European immigrants, shaped by a manifest policy of Branqueamento (Whitening). During the 19th century the slave labour force was gradually replaced by European immigrants, especially Italians. This happened particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of slave traffic in the Atlantic Ocean
and the growth of coffee
plantations in São Paulo
region.Fim da escravidão gera medidas de apoio a imigração no Brasil – 16/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil.Café atrai imigrante europeu para o Brasil – 22/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil. European immigration had its momentum peak between mid-19th century and mid-20th century, when nearly five million Europeans migrated to Brazil
, most of themItalians, Portuguese
, German
s, Spaniards, Pole
s, Lithuanian
s, and Ukrainian
s. Between 1877 and 1903, 1,927,992 inmigrantes entered Brazil
, an average of 71.000 people per year. The process reached it peak in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was caracterized by an intense arrival of Italians (58.5%) and a lower income of Portuguese
(20%).
After the First World War, Portuguese became once more the main immigrant group, and Italians fell to third place. The Spanish
immigrants rose to the second place because of the poverty that was affecting millions of rural workers; IBGE espanhóis Germans
occupy the fourth place in the list; they arrived especially during the Weimar Republic
, due to poverty
and unemployment
caused by the First World War. .
White Latin Americans are the people of Latin America
who are white
in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country. In some countries such as Ecuador being white is socially desirable, because it is associated with high socio-economic status. The colonial rule in Latin America kept strict track of the blood purity of its subjects, considering Christian (i.e. European) blood to be purest. This has meant that in contrast to racial policies in the U.S. which have generally encouraged segregation, Latin American countries have often had miscegenation, since even small amounts of European ancestry could entail significant upwards social mobility.
Throughout Latin America people who are White identify with heritage from European settlers arriving in the Americas throughout the colonial and post-independence periods. Many of the earliest settlers were Spanish
and Portuguese
, and after independence, Italians
have led numerically among the millions of immigrants. The Spaniards and Portuguese round out the top three. Notably large immigration occurred as well by Germans
, Poles
, Irish
, British
, French
, Russians
, Belgians
, Dutch
, Scandinavians
, Ukrainians
, Croats
, Swiss, Greeks
and other Europeans. In at least some countries, the white population also includes Middle East
erners/Southwest Asia
ns. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese
, Palestinian
, and Syria
n origin, but there are Armenians
, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans
are Ashkenazi
), and others.
Composing about 33% or 36% of the population according to some sources,http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/pdf/128/12891701.pdf White Latin Americans
constitute the largest racial-ethnic group in the region. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article. According to a survey conducted by consultant Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven different countries of the region, a 34% of the interviewée identified themselves as "White".
and blue-eyed/green-eyed white Latin American and white Hispanic and Latino American
actors and actresses in telenovela
s relative to non-white Latin Americans and non-white Hispanic and Latino Americans.The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TVBlonde, Blue-Eyed Euro-Cute Latinos on Spanish TVWhat are Telenovelas? – Hispanic CultureRacial Bias Charged On Spanish-Language TVBlack ElectorateSkin tone consciousness in Asian and Latin American populationsDifferences Between American and Castilian SpanishPOV - Corpus Film Description European-looking actors are mostly given characters of upper class
and upper-middle class
status, while non-white Latin American actors portray lower-class people.
specialist in race concepts of Latin America "...racial categories and racial ideologies are not simply those that elaborate social constructions on the basis of phenotypical variation or ideas about innate difference but those that do so using the particular aspects of phenotypical variation that were worked into vital signifiers of difference during European colonial encounters with others."Wade, Peter. 1997. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. Critical Studies On Latin America. Pluto Press p. 15 In many parts of Latin America being white is connected more to socio-economic status than to specific phenotypic traits - and it is often said that in Latin America "Money Whitens"Levine-Rasky, Cynthia. 2002. "Working through whiteness: international perspectives. SUNY Press ( p. 73) ""Money whitens" If any phrase encapsulates the association of whiteness and the modern in Latin America, this is it. It is a cliché formulated and reformulated throughout the region, a truism dependant upon the social experience that wealth is associated with whiteness, and that in obtaining the former one may become aligned with the latter (and vice versa)"." Also within Latin America there is variation in how racial boundaries have been defined. In Argentina, for example, the notion of mixture has been downplayed resulting in the country having no real Mestizo
group, whereas in countries like Mexico
and Brazil
the notion of mixedness has been fundamental for nation-building, resulting in a large group of Mestizos' being considered neither fully "white" nor fully non-white.
For these reasons the distinction between "white" and "mixed", and between "mixed" and "black" or "indigenous" is largely subjective and situational meaning that any attempt to quantify racial categories into discrete categories is fraught with problems.
settled in their American colonies during the colonial period
. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitans establishee in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form the metropoli arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.Presença portuguesa: de Colonizadores a Imigrantes. Text taken from the book Brasil: 500 Anos de Povoamento IBGE, 3º Capítulo "Presença portuguesa: de colonizadores a imigrantes" written by Renato Pinto Venâncio. Retrieved 26-11-2007.
In the particular case of Spaniards, it seems to be a fact -though estimates vary- that immigration of conquistadores and colonists towards the New World was scanty during all the colonial period, which would explain the admixture (mestizaje) that took place in this region. Some estimates state that less than 200,000 Spaniards arrived in the Americas during the period 1509-1790. On the other hand, M. Mönier assessed that 437,669 Peninsulares settled in the Spanish American possessions
between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain
by the time -Sefardic Jews, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico
and Peru
became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries in the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo
or Mulatto
, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desireable.Whiteness in Latin America: Measurement and Meaning in National Censuses (1850-1950) written by Mara Loveman. Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Vol. 95-2, 2009. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina
, Uruguay
and Brazil
. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 12 million immigrants arrived in South America
, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil
welcomed 4.4 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many Latin Americans have who have Native American
and/or sub-Saharan Africa
n and/or, rarely, East Asian
ancestry have also White ancestry. The casta
classification of colonial Latin America defined a person of mixed European/Native American
ancestry, or Mestizo
ancestry. A castizo
was someone whose mother was European and his father a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).
As it happened in Spain, persons of Jewish or Moorish ancestry up to several generations, were not allowed to enroll at the service of the Spanish Army or the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonies. All applicants to both institutions and their spouses had to obtain a Limpieza de sangre
certificate in the same way as those in the Peninsula did, that proved that they had no Jewish or Moorish ancestors. However, being a medieval concept that targeted exclusively those religious groups, it was never an issue among the native population in the colonies of the Spanish Empire, that by law allowed people from all racial groups to join the Army, with the only prerequisite of embracing the Catholic faith. One notable example was that of Francisco Menendez
, a freed black military officer of the Spanish Army during the 18th century at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose fort in St. Augustine, Florida.
Although historically both Colonial
and Imperial Brazil had institutionalized discrimination against citizens which were deemed as people of color, contrary to the common sense in its population, it never had a casta classification like that of Hispanic America. White Brazilian people in the social status equivalent to the Hispanic criollo could have less than 80% of European (overwhelmingly Portuguese, seldom Spanish and much rarely other European ethnicities) ancestry. Aside some Amerindian and Black African descent which is knowly widespread among White populations in Brazil among all social classes in its five geographic regions
since historically early times (c. 16th to 17th centuries), Moorish, Jewish, Arab and Romani
mixed ancestry were also less significant to social status there than in Hispanic America.
It does not mean that social prestige of "fully non-whites" (people of color which are not mulattoes, mestizos, zambos, pardos, etc. in short, multiracial Brazilians
, with Caucasian features i.e. Black Africans, Amerindians, their direct descendants and "westernized" Brazilians with wholly or almost fully non-Caucasian phenotypes, which also would be >70% European in their ancestry, since genes that form racial phenotypes are distributed random among the descendants of intermixing couples) and people with knowable non-European ancestry was equal, comparable or even acceptable among Brazilians elites, but that in Portuguese America, people were less concerned with ancestry and Limpeza de Sangue than its Hispanic neighbours.
, with 95.3 million whites out of 191.9 million total Brazilians, or 49.7% of the total population. Argentina
has the second largest white population, and Mexico
has the third largest. In terms of percentage of the total population, Argentina and Uruguay
have the largest white populations, with roughly 90% of their respective populations self-identified as White. Depending on the definition of "Latin America", the smallest White population is either in Honduras
, with only 1% White, approximately 75,000 people, or in Haiti
. Guatemala's census groups both Whites and Mestizos (people of mixed White and Native American
ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of White Guatemalans is undetermined.
Some other sources place the percentage of whites at 5.1%, or about 649,000 people.
, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian
settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.
White Nicaraguans make up 17%, just over one million, of the Nicaraguan population. The majority of White Nicaraguans are of Spanish, German, Italian], Portuguese, Belgian and French ancestry. In the 19th century Nicaragua experienced several waves of immigration, primarily from Europe. In particular, families from Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium immigrated to Nicaragua, mostly to the departments in the Central and Pacific region. As a result, the northern cities of Estelí
, Jinotega
, and Matagalpa
have significant fourth generation Germans. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels, and banks. The Jews of Nicaragua are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews
from Eastern Europe.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguan
s, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.
immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
in the 1860s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Palestine also made Mexico their home. In the 20th century, White Americans, Canadians], Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, and immigrants from other Eastern European countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
, also settled in Mexico.
The northern regions of Mexico, such as the states of Sonora
, Chihuahua and Nuevo León
, and particularly the city of Monterrey
, hold the greatest European genetic admixture, with roughly 50–61% European admixture among the regional population.Supporting Information Silva-Zolezzi et al. 10.1073/pnas.0903045106
The only time that the Mexican Government has asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage was in the 1921 census.RACIAL CLASSIFICATIONS IN JALISCO AND THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC – 1921 CENSUS 10% of the population answered that they were white. The Distrito Federal, in the Mexico City
area, had the largest total of whites (206,514 of the 1.4 million nationwide), followed by Chihuahua (145,926), Sonora (115,151), Veracruz
(114,150), and Mexico state (88,660), while in terms of percentage, the white population was most prominent in Sonora (41.85%), Chihuahua (36.33%), Baja California Sur
(33.40%), Tabasco
(27.56%), and Distrito Federal (22.79%).
in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most white Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German
, Italian and Russian descent. (from Cuban Genealogy Center) During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Canarians
, Catalans
, Andalusians
, Castilians
, and Galicians
emigrated to Cuba. Also, one significant ethnic influx is derived from various Middle Eastern nations. Many Jews have also immigrated there, some of them Sephardic. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist regime took power
.
White people in Dominican Republic represent 16% of the total population, with the vast majority being of Spanish descent. Notable other ancestries includes French, Italian, Lebanese, German, and Portuguese. Most Dominicans have European Spanish ancestry along with African and Taino.
The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of increasing the white population, or "whitening
" the racial composition of the country by rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. He also welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s as part of this plan. The country's German minority is the largest in the Caribbean.http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Laender/DominikanischeRepublik.html
Some notable White Dominicans include Juan Luis Guerra
, 2003 Miss Universe Amelia Vega
, Miss Dominican Republic 2010 Eva Arias
, world known fashion designer Oscar De La Renta
, singer and television presenter Charytín Goyco, former Dominican president Hipólito Mejía
, and painter Guillo Pérez.
make up about 5%.CIA World Factbook : Haiti. Most of the white Haitians are descendants of French settlers, although most French left following the Haitian Revolution
of 1791–1804, which resulted in Saint-Domingue
's independence as the Republic of Haiti. The white community had numbered 32,000 in 1789. There are also white Haitians that are descendants of Irish, Danes, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Poles, Portuguese, Russians and Syrians. The country has also small numbers of Haitians of Spanish descent, who are the descendants of the first settlers on the whole of Hispaniola
before French rule came to Haiti.
White people in Martinique
represent 5% of the population, as Martinique
is an overseas French
department, most whites are French.
Martinique: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA
. For the first time in fifty years, the 2000 United States Census asked people to define their race. One hundred years later, the total has risen to 80.5% (3,064,862), less than one percent more than reported in 1950.Puerto Rico's History on race
From the beginning of the twentieth century American observers remarked on the "surprising preponderance of the white race" on the island. One travel writer called Puerto Rico "the whitest of the Antilles". In a widely distributed piece, a geologist, wrote that the island was "notable among the West Indian group for the reason that its preponderant population is of the white race." In a more academic book he reiterated that "Porto Rico, at least, has not become Africanized
.Representation of racial identity among Puerto Ricans and in the u.s. mainland
During the 19th century, hundreds of Corsica
n, French
, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia
, Asturias
, Galicia, the Balearic Islands
, Andalusia
, and the Canary Islands
) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish
, Scots, Germans
, Italians, and thousands of others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. After the United States took possession of Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War
, an influx of Jews
and White American
s began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco
’s rule in Spain.
Most of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy
and Brittany
.Fact Sheet on St. Barthélemy
Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) does not conduct ethnic/racial censuses, so no official data exist on the precise amount or percentage of White Argentines today. Nevertheless, most of the sources consulted provide estimates for the White Euro-descended population in the country of 83.2%
, 85%, or even up to 86.4% of the total population. These percentages would rise up to 86.1%, 87.8% or 89.7% if the Non-European Caucasian groups (Jews and Arabs) are also counted. Summing up, These percentages would result in an estimated population of 34-36 million White people in Argentina. The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated; either it counts both White and Mestizo population all together, or it is the result of the successful campaign implemented by Argentina's ruling elite in the early 20th century to present "a White country". In the survey conducted by Cohesión Social mentioned in the introduction, 63% of the Argentinian interviewed identified themselves as "White". Other articles state that 75%-80% of Argentina's population might be White.
White Argentines may live in any part of the country, but their concentration is greater especially in the central-eastern region called Pampas, the southern region called Patagonia
, and in the central-western region called Cuyo
.Their concentration is smaller in the north-eastern region called Litoral
and much lesser in the north-western provinces of Salta
, Jujuy
, Tucumán
, Catamarca
, La Rioja
and Santiago del Estero
, This is because these provinces were the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo
people) before the immigratory wave of 1857-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least.Los hombres barbados en la América precolombina: razas indígenas americanas. Escrito por Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso. página 10. Editorial Kier. Buenos Aires, 1997.During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia
, Perú
and Paraguay
, the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires
, and the provinces of Salta
and Jujuy
has significantly decreased as well.
White population residing in Argentina is mostly descendant of immigrants arrived from Europe
and the Middle East
between the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, and in smaller proportion from Spaniards of the colonial period. Out of the total estimation of 437,669 Spaniards who settled in the American Spanish colonies
during the period 1506-1650 made by M. Möner, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman estimated that a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares established in the Río de la Plata region. The colonial censuses conducted after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata showed that the proportion of Spaniards and Criollo
s was very significant in the cities and surrounding countryside, but not so much in the rural areas. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy
Juan José de Vértiz
in Buenos Aires
revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos
numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo
in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba
(city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
In 1822, a census was conducted in the city of Buenos Aires
; it showed that the city had then 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were White (about 72.2%). Of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations.Argentina 200 Años. Vol. 9 1820-1830. Editor José Alemán. Arte Gráfico Editorial Argentino. Buenos Aires. 2010. This figure differs substantially with an estimate by Italo-Argentine sociologist José Ingenieros
, which stated that in 1826 the Argentine territory was populated by 630,000 people, of whom only 13,000 were White; if this figures were correct, Whites comprised a mere 1.66% of the total.Argentina en marcha, Volumen 1. Comisión Nacional de Cooperación Intelectual. 1947.
“Para 1826 se admiten 630.000 almas, así repartidas, según Ingenieros: Blancos extranjeros 5.000, Blancos argentinos 8.000, Indios 132.000, Mestizos 400.000, Negros…”
According to historian John W. White's estimate, those percentages had barely changed by 1852; out of a total 785,000 inhabitants, a 22,000 were White -a 2,8%- divided in 15,000 Criollos and 7,000 Europeans.Argentina, the Life Story of a Nation. escrito por John W. White, Viking Press (1942), página 124. Citado en World's Great Men of Colour escrito por Joel Augustus Rogers y John Henrik Clarke, editorial Touchstone (1996), página 191. In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero
granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza
, Santa Fe
. During the 1860s and 1870s, Presidents Bartolomé Mitre
, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda
implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina.
Data provided by Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (National Bureau of Migrations) states that the country received a total 6,611,000 European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940.Yale immigration study The main immigrant group were the 2,970,000 Italians
arrived in the period (44.9% of the total); initially they came from Piedmont
, Veneto
and Lombardy
, and later from Campania
, Calabria
and Sicily
.Federaciones Regionales. The second group in importance were the Spaniards, some 2,080,000 (31.4% of the total); They were mostly Galicians and Basques, but also Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalonians
and Andalucians). In smaller but significant numbers arrived Frenchmen from Occitania
(239,000, 3.6% of the total) and Polish
(180,000 – 2.7%). From the Russian Empire
came some 177,000 people (2.6%); they were not only ethnic Russians
, but also Ukrainians
, Belarussians, Volga Germans, Lithuanians
, etc. From the Ottoman Empire
the contributors were mainly Armenians
and Arabs (mostly from Lebanon
and Syria
), some 174,000 in all (2.6%). Very closely in numbers come the immigrants from the German Empire
, some 152,000 (2.2%). From the Austro-Hungarian Empire came 111,000 people (1.6%), among them Austríans
, Hungarians
, Croatians
, Bosniaks, Serbs
, Rutenians and Montenegrins
. Among the 75,000 British
immigrants there were many people from England
and Wales
, but mosto f them were Irish people
who were escaping the Potato famine
or the British rule. Other minor groups were the Portuguese (65,000), the Slavic
s from ex-Yugoslavia
(48,000), the Suiss
(44,000), the Belgians
(26,000), the Danes
(18,000), the White American
s (12.000), the Dutch
(10,000), and the Swedish
(7,000). Even colonishts from Australia
, and Boers from South Africa
can be found in the Argentine immigration records.
The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews
), and about 15-20% from Sephardic groups from Syria
. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
In the 1910s, when the immigration rate reached its peak, more than 30% of Argentina’s population was born in Europe, and over half of Buenos Aires
city’s population was born abroad. According to the 1914 National Census, the 80% out of a total population of 7.903.662 people were either Europeans, or their children and grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (the descendants of the residing population previous to the immigratory wave), about a third were White. Put down in numbers, that meant that an 86.6% or about 6.8 million people residing in Argentina were White.History of Argentina, de Ricardo.Levene. University of North Carolina Press, 1937. European immigration continued accounting for over half the population growth of the nation during the 1920s, and in smaller waves after the Second World War. Many Europeans migrated in Argentina after the great conflict, escaping hunger and destruction. According to the Argentine records, 392.603 people from the Old World entered the country in the 1940s. In the following decade, the flow diminished because the Marshall Plan
improved Europe’s economy, and emigration was not such a necessity; even then, immigratory records state that between 1951 and 1970 other 256,252 Europeans entered Argentina. From the 1960s onwards, when it comprised 76.1% of the total, increasing immigration from the northern bordering countries (Bolivia
, Peru
and Paraguay
)Inmigración, Cambio Demográfico y Desarrollo Industrial en la Argentina. Alfredo Lattes y Ruth Sautu. Cuaderno Nº 5 del CENEP (1978). Citado en Argentina: 1516-1982 From Spanish Colonisation to the Falklands War by David Rock. University of California Press, 1987. ISBN 0-520-05189-0 has significantly increased the process of Mestizaje in certain areas of Argentina, especially the Greater Buenos Aires
. This is mainly because the aforementioned countries have Amerindian and Mestizo
majorities.
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union
and its allies, the governments of Western Europe
were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe
and Russia
. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World
- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 526 were Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians
, Moldovans, and Poles, and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport.Recent Migration from Central and Eastern Europe to Argentina, a Special Treatment? (Spanish) by María José Marcogliese. Revista Argentina de Sociología, 2003. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning.Ukrainians, Russians and Armenians, from professionals to security guardians. (Spanish) by Florencia Tateossian. Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2001.
Beyond all the changes that this massive immigratory wave brought about in Argentina's demography and ethnic composition, it must not be forgotten the great influence that all these European immigrants and their descendants have exerted –even nowadays- on Argentine culture: The Spanish language
variety spoken in most of Argentina, the Rioplatense Spanish
, has entonation patterns heavily influenced by the southern dialects of the Italian language
, especially the Napolitan dialect.Napolitans and porteños, united by the accent. Diario La Nación. Almost all the sports practiced nowadays in Argentina were brought by European immigrants (particularly the British), such as football,History of a Might House. (Spanish) Diario Clarín, Buenos Aires, 21 Febrero 2003. rugby, golf,Welcome Argentina: Golf tennis, cycling, car racing, etc. Great glories of the Argentine sport, as Juan Manuel Fangio
F1 Fanatics: Juan Manuel Fangio or Nicolino Locche
Locche. El último amague. Diario Clarín, 8 September 2005. had direct European ancestry.
Regarding music, tango genre appeared partly due to Italian and Spanish influence,Comienzos del Tango. por Jorge Gutman. De Norte a Sur (Noticiero Online). Año 21, Nº 241. Septiembre 2001. and the top artists of the genre had French (Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel: Síntesis de su vida y trayectoria. por Pablo Taboada. Todo Tango.), Italian (Astor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla Associazione musicale culturale Domenico Sarro (Italiano)) or Basque ancestry (Roberto Goyeneche
El Tango y los Vascos.). Inside the folklore genre, the most Europe-influenced rhythm is the chamamé,Historia de la Música folclórica de Argentina with important musicians such as Chango Spasiuk
–with Ukrainian ancestryChango Spasiuk Estación Tierra.- or Soledad Pastorutti
–with Italian ancestry-. Among the best singer-songwriters of the Argentine rock
we may find plenty of Euro-descendants: Charly García
, Fito Páez
, León Gieco
, Pappo
, Andres Calamaro
, Alejandro Lerner
, David Lebón, Litto Nebbia
and Gustavo Cerati
, among many others.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated that up to 40% of the Argentinians who can be considered phenotypically White may have partial Amerindian or Black African
ancestry. The first study on the matter was conducted by genetist Daniel Corach, from University of Buenos Aires
in 2005. The results of this study in which DNA
from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor.Estructura genética de la Argentina, Impacto de contribuciones genéticas - Ministerio de Educación de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Nación. (Spanish) Nevertheless, the study clarified that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French
scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European
, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.Mezcla génica en una muestra poblacional de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Avena, Sergio A., Goicochea, Alicia S., Rey, Jorge et al. (2006). Medicina (Buenos Aires), mar./abr. 2006, vol.66, no.2, p.113-118. ISSN 0025-7680.
The most recent study on the matter was conducted by another team led by Daniel Corach in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: The analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA
analysis showed again a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, a 53.7% -though a little lower than the 56% of the 2005 study-, a little higher 44.3% of European contribution, and only 2% African contribution. The study of 24 Autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.6%, against 17.3% of Ameridian and 4.1% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".Inferring Continental Ancestry of Argentineans from Autosomal, Y-Chromosomal and Mitochondrial DNA by Daniel Corach, Oscar Lao, Cecilia Bobillo, Kristiaan Van Der Gaag, Sofia Zuniga, Mark Vermeulen, Kate Van Duijn, Miriam Goedbloed, Peter M. Vallone, Walther Parson, Peter De Knijff, Manfred Kayser. First published on-line: 15 Dec 2009. Annals of Human Genetics;
Volume 74, Issue 1, pages 65-76, January 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.2009.00556.x © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/University College London.How Argentina Became White. Magazine Discover: Science, Technology and the Future.
s, which consist of families of unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists
and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
, as well as Italians
, Americans, Basques, Lebanese, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.
Furthermore, some demographers estimate that a 15% of the self-declared White Brazilians have certain degree of African and Amerindian ancestry, for which -if the US one drop rule was applied- they could be classified as "Pardos".Blacks in Brazil: the myth and the reality. by Charles Whitaker. Ebony Magazine, 1991.
White Brazilian population is spread all over the national territory, but it is concentrated in the four southernmost states, where a 79,6% of the population self-identify as White.
The states with more White people are: Santa Catarina
(85,7%), Rio Grande do Sul
(81,4%), Paraná
(71,3%) y São Paulo
(70.4%). Other four states have significant proportions of Whites; and they are: Rio de Janeiro
(55,8%), Mato Grosso do Sul
(51,6%), Minas Gerais
(44,2%) y Goiás
(40,1%).http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/tabela/protabl.asp?c=262&i=P&nome=on¬arodape=on&tab=262&unit=0&pov=1&opc1=1&poc2=1&OpcTipoNivt=1&opn1=0&nivt=0&orc86=3&poc1=1&orp=6&qtu3=27&opv=1&poc86=1&sec1=0&opc2=1&pop=1&opn2=0&orv=2&orc2=5&qtu2=5&sev=1000093&opc86=1&sec2=0&opp=1&opn3=1&sec86=2776&ascendente=on&sep=17795&orn=1&qtu7=9&orc1=4&qtu1=1&cabec=on&pon=1&OpcCara=44&proc=1&opn7=0&decm=99IBGE. PNAD 2009. População residente, por cor ou raça, situação e sexo]
By the time Brazil became independent, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had already left for Brazil, most of them male colonial settlers from Portugal.The Phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages Rich immigrants, who established the first sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco
and Bahia
, and, on the other hand, banished New Christian
s and Gypsies fleeing from religious persecution were among the early settlers. In the 18th century, an estimated 600,000 Portuguese arrived, including wealthier immigrants, as well as poor peasants attracted by the Brazil Gold Rush
that was going on in Minas Gerais
.Século XVIII
After its independence, declared by emperor Pedro II in 1822, Brazil
began several campaigns to attract European immigrants, shaped by a manifest policy of Branqueamento (Whitening). During the 19th century the slave labour force was gradually replaced by European immigrants, especially Italians. This happened particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of slave traffic in the Atlantic Ocean
and the growth of coffee
plantations in São Paulo
region.Fim da escravidão gera medidas de apoio a imigração no Brasil – 16/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil.Café atrai imigrante europeu para o Brasil – 22/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil. European immigration had its momentum peak between mid-19th century and mid-20th century, when nearly five million Europeans migrated to Brazil
, most of themItalians, Portuguese
, German
s, Spaniards, Pole
s, Lithuanian
s, and Ukrainian
s. Between 1877 and 1903, 1,927,992 inmigrantes entered Brazil
, an average of 71.000 people per year. The process reached it peak in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was caracterized by an intense arrival of Italians (58.5%) and a lower income of Portuguese
(20%).
After the First World War, Portuguese became once more the main immigrant group, and Italians fell to third place. The Spanish
immigrants rose to the second place because of the poverty that was affecting millions of rural workers; IBGE espanhóis Germans
occupy the fourth place in the list; they arrived especially during the Weimar Republic
, due to poverty
and unemployment
caused by the First World War. .A assimilação dos imigrantes como questão nacional From 1914 to 1918, the entrance of Europeans of other ethnicities increased; among these were people from Poland
, Russia
and Romania
, who emigrated in the 1920s, probably because of politic persecution. Other peoples migrated from the Middle East
, especially Arabs from what now is Syria
and Lebanon
. . Summarizing, estimates afirm that during the period 1821-1932, Brazil received 4.431.000 European immigrants.
After the end of Second World War, European immigration diminished significantly, though between 1931 and 1963 1.1 million immigrants entered Brazil
, mostly Portuguese
. . Besides, by the mid-1970s, many Portuguese emigrated to Brazil
after the independence of the African colonies: Angola
, Mozambique
and Guinea Bissau; some also migrated from Macao
, because of the dictatorship installed there.Portuguese Immigration (History)Flight from Angola, The Economist, August 16, 1975
A comprehensive genetic study presented by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research found that. on average, 'White' Brazilians have >70% European genomic ancestry, whereas 'black' Brazilians have 37.1% European genomic ancestry. It concluded that "The high ancestral variability observed in Whites and Blacks suggests that each Brazilian has a singular and quite individual proportion of European, African and Amerindian ancestry in his/her mosaic genomes. Thus, the only possible basis to deal with genetic variation in Brazilians is not by considering them as members of colour groups, but on a person-by-person basis, as 190 million human beings, with singular genome and life histories".http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0100-879X2009005000026&script=sci_arttext#Abstract
is white.Bosque Maurel, Joaquín.LA ETAPA IBÉRICA EN EL PASADO DE LA MUNDIALIZACIÓN / GLOBALIZACIÓN (1492 – 1825) "Argentina, como Chile y Uruguay, su población está formada casi exclusivamente por una población blanca procedente del sur de Europa – más del 90 por 100 ... (E. García Zarza, 1992, 19)." Chile's various waves of immigrants consisted of Spanish, Italian, Irish, French
, Greek
, German, English, Scottish, Croat and Palestinian
arrivals.
One of the largest groups in Chile arrived from Spain and the Basque regions in the south of France. Estimates of the number of descendants from Basques in Chile range from 10% (1,600,000) to as high as 27% (4,500,000).vascos Ainara Madariaga:
Autora del estudio "Imaginarios vascos desde Chile La construcción de imaginarios vascos en Chile durante el siglo XX".Basques au Chili.Contacto Interlingüístico e intercultural en el mundo hispano.instituto valenciano de lenguas y culturas. Universitat de València Cita: " Un 20% de la población chilena tiene su origen en el País Vasco". La población chilena con ascendencia vasca bordea entre el 15% y el 20% del total, por lo que es uno de los países con mayor presencia de emigrantes venidos de Euskadi.El 27% de los chilenos son descendientes de emigrantes vascos. DE LOS VASCOS, OÑATI Y LOS ELORZA Waldo Ayarza Elorza. Presencia vasca en Chile.
In 1848 an important and substantial German immigration took place, laying the foundation for the German-Chilean
community. Sponsored by the Chilean government for the colonization of the southern region, the Germans (including German-speaking Swiss, Silesians
, Alsatians
and Austrians
), strongly influenced the cultural and racial composition of the southern provinces of Chile. The Chilean Embassy in Germany estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Chileans are of German origin.German Embassy in Chile.
Note that Israelis, both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of the nation of Israel may be included. Chile is home to a large population of immigrants, mostly Christian, from the Levant
.Arab. Roughly 500,000 Palestinian descendants are believed to reside in Chile.Chile: Palestinian refugees arrive to warm welcome. 500,000 descendientes de primera y segunda generación de palestinos en Chile. Santiago de Chile es un modelo de convivencia palestino-judía.Exiling Palestinians to Chile. Chile tiene la comunidad palestina más grande fuera del mundo árabe, unos 500.000 descendientes.
Other historically significant immigrant groups include: Croatia
whose number of descendants today is estimated to be 380,000 persons, the equivalent of 2.4% of the population. Diaspora Croata..Splitski osnovnoškolci rođeni u Čileu. Other authors claim, on the other hand, that close to 4.6% of the Chilean population must have some Croatian ancestry
.hrvatski. Over 700,000 Chileans may have British (English, Scottish
and Welsh
) origin. 4.5% of Chile's population. Chileans of Greek descent are estimated 90,000 to 120,000. Embajada de Grecia en Chile. Most of them live either in the Santiago
area or in the Antofagasta
area, and Chile is one of the 5 countries with the most descendants of Greeks in the world. Griegos de Chile The descendants of Swiss add 90,00090,000 descendants Swiss in Chile. and it is estimated that about 5% of the Chilean population
has some French ancestry. 5% de los chilenos tiene origen frances 600,000 to 800,000 are descendants of Italians. Other groups of European descendants have followed, but are found in smaller numbers. They did transform the country culturally, economically and politically.
) Colombians are found in notable numbers.
The Colombian Paisa Region
received a strong immigration wave from Spain (Basques, and others from Extremadura
and Andalusia
) during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
White Ecuadorians, mostly criollos, descendants of Spanish colonists and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936—1939 Spanish Civil War, account for 7%, or approximately 960,000, of the Ecuadorian population. Most still hold large amounts of lands, mainly in the northern Sierra, and live in Quito
or Guayaquil
. There is also a large number of white people in Cuenca
, a city in the southern Andes
of Ecuador, due to the arrival of Frenchmen in the area, in order to measure the arc of the Earth. Cuenca, Loja
, and the Galápagos
attracted German immigration during the early 20th century, and the Galápagos also had a small Norwegian fishing community until they were asked to leave.
12% of the population, mostly French.
French Guiana: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA
's policy that no white Spaniards and Europeans may intermarry (they could only marry blacks, mulattoes, mestizos or the native Guaraní) established in 1814, a measure taken to avoid white supremacy being established in Paraguay (De Francia believed that all men were equal as well), it was within little more than one generation that most of the population were of mixed racial origin. The exact percentage of the white Paraguayan population is not known because the Paraguayan census does not include racial or ethnic identification, save for the indigenous population,Paraguayan Census form which reached 1.7% of the country's total in the last census in 2002.II CENSO NACIONAL INDÍGENA DE POBLACIÓN Y VIVIENDAS 2002. Pueblos Indígenas del Paraguay. Resultados Finales Other sources estimate the other groups. The mestizo population is estimated at 95% by the CIA World Factbook, and all other groups at 5%. Thus, Whites and the remaining groups (Asians, Afro-Paraguayans, others, if any) combine for approximately 3.3% of the total population. The majority of whites are of Spanish descent with others being of Italian, German, or of other European descent.
, Chiclayo
, Piura
, and of course the capital Lima
. The only southern city with a significant white population is Arequipa
. To the north Cajamarca
and San Martín Region
are also places with a strong Spanish influence and ethnic presence.
received between the mid-19th Century and the early 20th Century part of the same migratory influx received by Argentina
, though the process started a little earlier. During the period 1850-1900, this country welcomed four waves of European immigrants, mainly Spaniards
, Italians
and Frenchmen
. In smaller numbers also arrived British, Germans
, Swiss
, Russians
, Portuguese
, Poles
, Bulgarians
, Hungarians
, Ukrainians
, Lithuanians
, Estonians
, Dutch
, Belgians
, Croatians
, Lebanese
, Armenians
, Greeks
, Scandinavians
and Irish
. The demographic impact of these immigratory waves was even greater than in Argentina: Uruguay evolved from having 70,000 inhabitants in 1830 to have 450,000 in 1875, and a million inhabitants in 1900; i. e., its population became fourteen times larger... in only 70 years! Between 1840 and 1890, 50%-60% of Montevideo
's population was born abroad, almost all in Europe. The Census conducted in 1860 showed that 35% of the country's population was made up by foreigners, although by the time of the 1908 Census this figure had decreased to 17%.El Nacimiento del Uruguay Moderno en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. (Spanish)
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Uruguay
conducted during 1996-1997 a Continuous Household Survey in 40,000 homes, that included the topic of races in the country. Its results were based on "the explicit statements of the interviewée about the race they consider they belong themselves". These results were extrapolated, and the INE estimated that out of the 2,790,600 inhabitants that Uruguay had at that moment, some 2,602,200 were White (93.2%), some 164,200 (5.9%) were totally or parcially Black, some 12,100 were totally or partially Amerindian (0.4%), and the remaining 12,000 considered themselves Yellow.Encuesta Contínua de Hogares 1996-1997. Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Uruguay. (Spanish)
A new Enhanced National Household Survey conducted in 2006 touched on the topic again, but this time enfazising on "ancestry" and not on "race"; the results revealed a 5.8% more Uruguayans that stated having total or partial Black and/or Amerindian ancestry. This reduction in the percentaje of self-declared "pure Whites" in between surveys could be caused by a phenomenon of the interviewée giving new value to their African heritage, similar to what has happened in Brazil
in the three last censuses. Anyway, it is worth noting that 2,897,525 interviewées declared having only White ancestry (87.4%), 302,460 declared having total or partial Black ancestry (9.1%), 106,368 total o partial Amerindian ancestry (2.9%) and 6,549 total o parcial Yellow ancestry (0,2%).Perfil Demográfico y Socioeconómico de la Población Uruguaya según su Ascendencia Racial. por Marisa Bucheli y Wanda Cabela. Fuente: Encuesta Nacional de Hogares Ampliada 2006. INE. (Spanish) This figure matches external estimates for White population in Uruguay of 87,4% 88%, or 90%.World Reference Desk: Uruguay.
During the last decade many European and American immigrants have entered this country seeking peacefulness and security, and also escaping from pollution and the voracious tax systems in their countries of origin. In 1997, the Uruguayan government granted residence rights to only 200 European/American citizens; in 2008 the number of residence rights granted had increased up to 927.Inmigración norteamericana y europea en Uruguay. (Spanish)
), and from Italy and Portugal, entered the country during and after World War II, attracted by a prosperous, rapidly developing country where educated and skilled immigrants were welcomed.
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
who are white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country. In some countries such as Ecuador being white is socially desirable, because it is associated with high socio-economic status. The colonial rule in Latin America kept strict track of the blood purity of its subjects, considering Christian (i.e. European) blood to be purest. This has meant that in contrast to racial policies in the U.S. which have generally encouraged segregation, Latin American countries have often had miscegenation, since even small amounts of European ancestry could entail significant upwards social mobility.
Throughout Latin America people who are White identify with heritage from European settlers arriving in the Americas throughout the colonial and post-independence periods. Many of the earliest settlers were Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
and Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, and after independence, Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
have led numerically among the millions of immigrants. The Spaniards and Portuguese round out the top three. Notably large immigration occurred as well by Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
, British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
, French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Belgians
Belgians
Belgians are people originating from the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe.-Etymology:Belgians are a relatively "new" people...
, Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, Scandinavians
Scandinavians
Scandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
, Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, Swiss, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and other Europeans. In at least some countries, the white population also includes Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
erners/Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East, which describes a geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than its location within Asia...
ns. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
, and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n origin, but there are Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans
History of the Jews in Latin America
The history of the Jews in Latin America dates, according to some interpretations, back to Christopher Columbus and his first cross-Atlantic voyage on August 3, 1492, when he left Spain and eventually discovered the New World...
are Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), and others.
Composing about 33% or 36% of the population according to some sources, White Latin Americans
Latin Americans
Latin Americans are the citizens of the Latin American countries and dependencies. Latin American countries are multi-ethnic, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. As a result, some Latin Americans don't take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with...
constitute the largest racial-ethnic group in the region. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article. According to a survey conducted by consultant Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven different countries of the region, a 34% of the interviewée identified themselves as "White".
Representation in the media
Latin American media has received criticism for featuring a disproportionate number of blondBlond
Blond or blonde or fair-hair is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color...
and blue-eyed/green-eyed white Latin American and white Hispanic and Latino American
White Hispanic and Latino Americans
White Hispanic and Latino Americans are citizens and residents of the United States who are racially White and ethnically Hispanic or Latino.White American, itself an official U.S...
actors and actresses in telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
s relative to non-white Latin Americans and non-white Hispanic and Latino Americans. European-looking actors are mostly given characters of upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
and upper-middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
status, while non-white Latin American actors portray lower-class people.
Being "White"
Being "White" is a classificatory term that emerges from the tradition of racial classification, a system that developed as Europeans colonized large parts of the world and employed classificatory systems to distinguish themselves from the local inhabitants of those countries. However, while most racial classifications include a concept of being White that is ideologically connected to European heritage and specific phenotypic, biological features associated with European heritage, there is a wide variability about the ways in which they are used to classify people. These differences have to do with the particular historical processes and social contexts in which a given racial classification is used. Since Latin America is characterized by widely differing histories and social contexts, there is also wide variability in the use of the classification "white" throughout Latin America. According to Peter WadePeter Wade
Peter Wade is a British anthropologist who specializes in issues of race and ethnicity in Latin America. Peter Wade is a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. He has written numerous books and articles about the social and historical meanings of race, ethnicity and...
specialist in race concepts of Latin America "...racial categories and racial ideologies are not simply those that elaborate social constructions on the basis of phenotypical variation or ideas about innate difference but those that do so using the particular aspects of phenotypical variation that were worked into vital signifiers of difference during European colonial encounters with others." In many parts of Latin America being white is connected more to socio-economic status than to specific phenotypic traits - and it is often said that in Latin America "Money Whitens" Also within Latin America there is variation in how racial boundaries have been defined. In Argentina, for example, the notion of mixture has been downplayed resulting in the country having no real Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
group, whereas in countries like Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
the notion of mixedness has been fundamental for nation-building, resulting in a large group of Mestizos' being considered neither fully "white" nor fully non-white.
For these reasons the distinction between "white" and "mixed", and between "mixed" and "black" or "indigenous" is largely subjective and situational meaning that any attempt to quantify racial categories into discrete categories is fraught with problems.
History
More than a million Spaniards and PortuguesePortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
settled in their American colonies during the colonial period
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitans establishee in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form the metropoli arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
by the time -Sefardic Jews, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries in the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
or Mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desireable. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 12 million immigrants arrived in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
welcomed 4.4 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
Historical demographic growth
The following chart displays estimates (in thousands) of White, Black/Mulatto, Amerindian and Mestizo population of the subcontinent from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The figures shown for the years between 1650 and 1980 are taken from The Cry of My People. Out of Captivity in Latin America, written by Esther and Mortimer Arias. New York Friendship Press, 1980. Pages 17 and 18. Data belonging to year 2000 are taken from Lizcano's work. Percentages are provided by the editor.| Year | White | Black | Amerindian | Mestizo | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1650 | 138 | 67 | 12,000 | 670 | 12,875 |
| Percentages | 1.1% | 0.5% | 93.2% | 5.2% | 100% |
| 1825 | 4,350 | 4,100 | 8,000 | 6,200 | 22,650 |
| Percentages | 19.2% | 18.1% | 35.3% | 27.3% | 100% |
| 1950 | 72,000 | 13,729 | 14,000 | 61,000 | 160,729 |
| Percentages | 44.8% | 8.5% | 8.7% | 37.9% | 100% |
| 1980 | 150,000 | 27,000 | 30,000 | 140,000 | 347,000 |
| Percentages | 43.2% | 7.7% | 8.6% | 40.3% | 100% |
| 2000 | 181,296 | 119,055 | 46,434 | 152,380 | 502,784 |
| Percentages | 36.1% | 23.6% | 9.2% | 30.3% | 100% |
Admixture
Since the European colonizationColonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many Latin Americans have who have Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and/or sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
n and/or, rarely, East Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
ancestry have also White ancestry. The casta
Casta
Casta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period...
classification of colonial Latin America defined a person of mixed European/Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ancestry, or Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
ancestry. A castizo
Castizo
Castizo is a Spanish word with a general meaning of "pure" or "genuine". The feminine form is castiza. From this meaning it evolved other meanings, such as "typical of an area" and it was also used for one of the colonial Spanish race categories, the castas, that evolved in the seventeenth...
was someone whose mother was European and his father a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).
As it happened in Spain, persons of Jewish or Moorish ancestry up to several generations, were not allowed to enroll at the service of the Spanish Army or the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonies. All applicants to both institutions and their spouses had to obtain a Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre , Limpeza de sangue or Neteja de sang , meaning "cleanliness of blood", played an important role in modern Iberian history....
certificate in the same way as those in the Peninsula did, that proved that they had no Jewish or Moorish ancestors. However, being a medieval concept that targeted exclusively those religious groups, it was never an issue among the native population in the colonies of the Spanish Empire, that by law allowed people from all racial groups to join the Army, with the only prerequisite of embracing the Catholic faith. One notable example was that of Francisco Menendez
Francisco Menendez (creole)
Francisco Menendez was a free black military leader serving the Spanish Crown in 18th century St. Augustine, Florida. He is first traceable as a slave in South Carolina who, like many of his contemporaries, escaped to St. Augustine, Florida...
, a freed black military officer of the Spanish Army during the 18th century at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose fort in St. Augustine, Florida.
Although historically both Colonial
Colonial Brazil
In the history of Brazil, Colonial Brazil, officially the Viceroyalty of Brazil comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to kingdom alongside Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.During the over 300 years...
and Imperial Brazil had institutionalized discrimination against citizens which were deemed as people of color, contrary to the common sense in its population, it never had a casta classification like that of Hispanic America. White Brazilian people in the social status equivalent to the Hispanic criollo could have less than 80% of European (overwhelmingly Portuguese, seldom Spanish and much rarely other European ethnicities) ancestry. Aside some Amerindian and Black African descent which is knowly widespread among White populations in Brazil among all social classes in its five geographic regions
Regions of Brazil
Brazil is divided into five regions by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística . These divisions are composed of states within them.-The five regions:-North Region: *Area: 3,869,637.,9 km²...
since historically early times (c. 16th to 17th centuries), Moorish, Jewish, Arab and Romani
Roma people
The Romani, who are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms, are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent...
mixed ancestry were also less significant to social status there than in Hispanic America.
It does not mean that social prestige of "fully non-whites" (people of color which are not mulattoes, mestizos, zambos, pardos, etc. in short, multiracial Brazilians
Mixed-race Brazilian
Brazilian censuses do not use a "multiracial" category. Instead, the censuses use skin colour categories, with a Pardo one, that may include people of varied "mixed racial" ancestry, but probably also accounts for non-mixed acculturated Amerindians...
, with Caucasian features i.e. Black Africans, Amerindians, their direct descendants and "westernized" Brazilians with wholly or almost fully non-Caucasian phenotypes, which also would be >70% European in their ancestry, since genes that form racial phenotypes are distributed random among the descendants of intermixing couples) and people with knowable non-European ancestry was equal, comparable or even acceptable among Brazilians elites, but that in Portuguese America, people were less concerned with ancestry and Limpeza de Sangue than its Hispanic neighbours.
Populations
In terms of absolute numbers, the largest White population in Latin America is found in BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, with 95.3 million whites out of 191.9 million total Brazilians, or 49.7% of the total population. Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
has the second largest white population, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
has the third largest. In terms of percentage of the total population, Argentina and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
have the largest white populations, with roughly 90% of their respective populations self-identified as White. Depending on the definition of "Latin America", the smallest White population is either in Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, with only 1% White, approximately 75,000 people, or in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. Guatemala's census groups both Whites and Mestizos (people of mixed White and Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of White Guatemalans is undetermined.
| Country | % local | Population (millions) |
|---|---|---|
 BrazilDemographics of Brazil Brazils population is very diverse, comprising many races and ethnic groups. In general, Brazilians trace their origins from four sources: Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians.... |
49.7 or 53.7 | 93 or 105 |
 ArgentinaDemographics of Argentina This article is about the demographic features of Argentina, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.... |
85 or 97 | 34 or 38 |
 MexicoDemographics of Mexico With a population 112,336,538 in 2010, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, the second-most populous country in Latin America after Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and the second in North America, after the United States. Throughout most of the twentieth century Mexico's... |
9 or 15 or ~17 | 12 or 17 or 19 |
 ChileDemographics of Chile This article is about the demographic features of Chile, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.... |
52.7 or 90 | 8.8 or 16.3 |
 ColombiaDemographics of Colombia This article is about the demographic features of the population of Colombia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
20 or 25 | 8.9 or 11 |
 CubaDemographics of Cuba This article is about the demographic features of the population of Cuba, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
65.1 | 7.3 |
 VenezuelaDemographics of Venezuela The Demographics of Venezuela are the condition and overview of Venezuela's peoples. Demographic topics include basic education, health, and population statistics as well as identified racial and religious affiliations.-Overview:... |
20 | 5.6 |
 PeruDemographics of Peru This article is about the demographic features of the population of Peru, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
15 | 4.4 |
 Costa RicaDemographics of Costa Rica This article is about the demographic features of the population of Costa Rica, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
82 | 3.8 |
 Puerto RicoDemographics of Puerto Rico This article is about the demographic features of the population of Puerto Rico, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
75.8 | 3.1 |
 UruguayDemographics of Uruguay This article is about the demographic features of the population of Uruguay, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.- Origins and Ethnicity :... |
88 | 3 |
 Dominican Republic |
16 | 1.6 |
 BoliviaDemographics of Bolivia This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bolivia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
15 | 1.4 |
 EcuadorDemographics of Ecuador The Ethnography of Ecuador consists of a diverse collection of ethnic groups, almost all related to another group in one way or another. The great majority of Ecuadorans trace their origins to one or more of three geographical sources of Human migrations: the pre-Hispanic indigenous Amerindians who... |
10.4 | 1.4 |
 ParaguayDemographics of Paraguay This article is about the demographic features of the population of Paraguay, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
20 | 1.3 |
 NicaraguaDemographics of Nicaragua This article is about the demographic features of the population of Nicaragua, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
17 | 1 |
Costa Rica
In Costa Rica the estimates of White people slightly vary between 77% and 82%, or about 3.1 – 3.5 million people. Other sources estimate that White Costa Ricans -who simply self identified as "Costa Ricans"- and other European groups comprise a 78.75% of Costa Rica's population, or about 3,652,000 people. A combined ratio of 94% is given for the White and Mestizo populations by the CIA World Factbook. Costa Rican European ancestry is mostly Spanish, though there are significant numbers of Costa Ricans descended from Italian, Greek, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, Lebanese and Polish families, as well as a sizable Jewish community.El Salvador
Of the total Salvadoran population, 12%, or 545,000, is white. They are mostly of Spanish descent.Guatemala
The exact percentage of the white Guatemalan population is not known because the Guatemalan census combines mestizos and whites in one category, where they make up a combined total of 59.4%. Whites are mostly of Spanish descent, but there are also those of German, English, Italian], Scandinavian, and American descent.Some other sources place the percentage of whites at 5.1%, or about 649,000 people.
Honduras
Honduras contains perhaps the smallest percentage of whites in Latin America, with only 1% classified in this group, or up to 75,000 to 150,000 of the total population. Of these, the majority are people of Spanish descent. A white population, especially descendants of Palestinians, is found in the city of San Pedro SulaSan Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula is a city in Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country, in the Valle de Sula , about 60 km south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean. With an estimated population of 638,259 people in the main municipality, and 802,598 in its metro area , it is the second...
, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.
Nicaragua
Estelí
Estelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí is a city and municipality within the Estelí department. It is the third largest city in Nicaragua, an active commercial center in the north and is known as "the Diamond of the Segovias."...
, Jinotega
Jinotega
Jinotega is the capital of Jinotega Department in the north central region of Nicaragua.-About:The capital city of the Department of Jinotega is the City of Jinotega. The Department of Jinotega produces 80% of the nation's coffee. It has a population of about 51,000 living inside a vast valley...
, and Matagalpa
Matagalpa
Matagalpa is a city in Nicaragua, the capital of the department of Matagalpa. The city has a population of 109,100 , while the population of the department is more than 480,000. Matagalpa is Nicaragua's fifth largest city and one of its most commercially active outside of Managua...
have significant fourth generation Germans. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels, and banks. The Jews of Nicaragua are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
from Eastern Europe.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguan
Palestinian Nicaraguan
Palestinian Nicaraguan are Nicaraguans of Palestinian ancestry who were born in or have immigrated to Nicaragua...
s, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.
Panama
White Panamanians form 10%, with the Spanish being the majority. Other ancestries includes Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Portuguese, Polish and Russian.Mexico
White people in Mexico are an estimated 9%, 15%, or about 17% of Mexico's population, i.e. around 12, 17, or 19 million people. The majority of them are of Spanish descent. However, many other non-IberianIberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
Second Mexican Empire
The Second Mexican Empire was the name of Mexico under the regime established from 1864 to 1867. It was created by Napoleon III of France, who attempted to use the Mexican adventure to recapture some of the grandeur of earlier Napoleonic times...
in the 1860s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Palestine also made Mexico their home. In the 20th century, White Americans, Canadians], Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, and immigrants from other Eastern European countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, also settled in Mexico.
The northern regions of Mexico, such as the states of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
, Chihuahua and Nuevo León
Nuevo León
Nuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...
, and particularly the city of Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
, hold the greatest European genetic admixture, with roughly 50–61% European admixture among the regional population.
The only time that the Mexican Government has asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage was in the 1921 census. 10% of the population answered that they were white. The Distrito Federal, in the Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
area, had the largest total of whites (206,514 of the 1.4 million nationwide), followed by Chihuahua (145,926), Sonora (115,151), Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
(114,150), and Mexico state (88,660), while in terms of percentage, the white population was most prominent in Sonora (41.85%), Chihuahua (36.33%), Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur , is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state on October 8, 1974, the area was known as the South Territory of Baja California. It has an area of , or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises...
(33.40%), Tabasco
Tabasco
Tabasco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa....
(27.56%), and Distrito Federal (22.79%).
Cuba
White people in Cuba make up about 70% of the total Cuban population, with the majority being of diverse Spanish descent. However, after the mass exodus resulting from the Cuban RevolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most white Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German
German Cuban
A German Cuban refers to Cubans of German ethnicity, or who are German-born immigrants to Cuba.-Notable people:* Steven Bauer, actor * Cameron Diaz, American actress...
, Italian and Russian descent. During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Canarians
Canarian people
The Canarians are an ethnic group living in the archipelago of the Canary Islands , near the coast of Western Africa...
, Catalans
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
, Andalusians
Andalusian people
The Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
, Castilians
Castilian people
The Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
, and Galicians
Galician people
The Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
emigrated to Cuba. Also, one significant ethnic influx is derived from various Middle Eastern nations. Many Jews have also immigrated there, some of them Sephardic. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist regime took power
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
.
Dominican Republic
The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of increasing the white population, or "whitening
Racial whitening
Racial Whitening or "Whitening" is an ideology that was widely accepted in Brazil between 1889 and 1914, as the solution to the "Negro problem." Supporters of the Whitening ideology believed that the Negro race would advance culturally and genetically, or even disappear totally, within several...
" the racial composition of the country by rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. He also welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s as part of this plan. The country's German minority is the largest in the Caribbean.
Some notable White Dominicans include Juan Luis Guerra
Juan Luis Guerra
Juan Luis Guerra is a singer, songwriter and producer from the Dominican Republic who has sold over 30 million records, and won numerous awards including 12 Latin Grammy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Latin Billboard Music Awards...
, 2003 Miss Universe Amelia Vega
Amelia Vega
Amelia Vega Polanco became the first and only Dominican woman to be named Miss Universe, in 2003. At the age of 18, she was the youngest winner since 1994....
, Miss Dominican Republic 2010 Eva Arias
Eva Arias
-External links:*...
, world known fashion designer Oscar De La Renta
Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta is one of the world's leading fashion designers. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1973.-Career:...
, singer and television presenter Charytín Goyco, former Dominican president Hipólito Mejía
Hipólito Mejía
Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez is a Dominican politician and former President of the Dominican Republic...
, and painter Guillo Pérez.
Haiti
The Mulatto and the White population of HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
make up about 5%. Most of the white Haitians are descendants of French settlers, although most French left following the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
of 1791–1804, which resulted in Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
's independence as the Republic of Haiti. The white community had numbered 32,000 in 1789. There are also white Haitians that are descendants of Irish, Danes, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Poles, Portuguese, Russians and Syrians. The country has also small numbers of Haitians of Spanish descent, who are the descendants of the first settlers on the whole of Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
before French rule came to Haiti.
Martinique
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include MartiniqueWhite people in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
represent 5% of the population, as Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
is an overseas French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
department, most whites are French.
Puerto Rico
White Puerto Ricans of European, mostly Spanish descent, are said to comprise the majority with 75.8% of the population identifying as white. In the year 1899, one year after the U.S invaded and took control of the island, 61.8% of people identified as WhiteWhite people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
. For the first time in fifty years, the 2000 United States Census asked people to define their race. One hundred years later, the total has risen to 80.5% (3,064,862), less than one percent more than reported in 1950.
From the beginning of the twentieth century American observers remarked on the "surprising preponderance of the white race" on the island. One travel writer called Puerto Rico "the whitest of the Antilles". In a widely distributed piece, a geologist, wrote that the island was "notable among the West Indian group for the reason that its preponderant population is of the white race." In a more academic book he reiterated that "Porto Rico, at least, has not become Africanized
Africanization
Africanization or Africanisation has been applied in various contexts, notably in naming and in the composition of staff.-Africanization of names:...
.
During the 19th century, hundreds of Corsica
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of various economic and political changes in the mid-19th century Europe; among those factors were the social-economic changes which came about in Europe as a result of the Second Industrial Revolution, political discontent and widespread...
n, French
French immigration to Puerto Rico
The French immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of the economic and political situations which occurred in various places such as Louisiana , Saint-Domingue and in Europe....
, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Asturias
Asturias
The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...
, Galicia, the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
, Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, and the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish
Irish immigration to Puerto Rico
From the 16th to the 19th century, there was considerable Irish immigration to Puerto Rico, for a number of reasons. During the 16th century many Irishmen, who were known as "Wild Geese," fled the English Army and joined the Spanish Army. Some of these men were stationed in Puerto Rico and...
, Scots, Germans
German immigration to Puerto Rico
German immigration to Puerto Rico increased when German businessmen immigrated to Puerto Rico during the early part of the 19th century. However, it was the economic and political situation in Europe during the early 19th century plus, the fact that the Spanish Crown issued the Royal Decree of...
, Italians, and thousands of others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
The Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 is a legal order approved by the Spanish Crown in the early half of the 19th century to encourage Spaniards and later Europeans of non-Spanish origin to settle and populate the colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico....
), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. After the United States took possession of Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, an influx of Jews
Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico
The Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage...
and White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
s began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
’s rule in Spain.
Saint Barthélemy
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include Saint BarthélemyMost of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
and Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
.
Argentina
, 85%, or even up to 86.4% of the total population. These percentages would rise up to 86.1%, 87.8% or 89.7% if the Non-European Caucasian groups (Jews and Arabs) are also counted. Summing up, These percentages would result in an estimated population of 34-36 million White people in Argentina. The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated; either it counts both White and Mestizo population all together, or it is the result of the successful campaign implemented by Argentina's ruling elite in the early 20th century to present "a White country". In the survey conducted by Cohesión Social mentioned in the introduction, 63% of the Argentinian interviewed identified themselves as "White". Other articles state that 75%-80% of Argentina's population might be White.
White Argentines may live in any part of the country, but their concentration is greater especially in the central-eastern region called Pampas, the southern region called Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...
, and in the central-western region called Cuyo
Cuyo (Argentina)
Cuyo is the name given to the wine-producing, mountainous area of central-west Argentina. Historically it comprised the provinces of San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza. The term New Cuyo is a modern one, which indicates both Cuyo proper and the province of La Rioja...
.Their concentration is smaller in the north-eastern region called Litoral
Mesopotamia, Argentina
La Mesopotamia, Región Mesopotámica is the humid and verdant area of north-east Argentina, comprising the provinces of Misiones, Entre Ríos and Corrientes. The region called Litoral consists of the Mesopotamia and the provinces of Chaco, Formosa and Santa Fe...
and much lesser in the north-western provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
, Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
, Tucumán
Tucumán Province
Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...
, Catamarca
Catamarca Province
Catamarca is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province has a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km². Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are : Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, and La Rioja...
, La Rioja
La Rioja Province (Argentina)
La Rioja is a one of the provinces of Argentina and is located in the west of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Catamarca, Córdoba, San Luis and San Juan.-History:...
and Santiago del Estero
Santiago del Estero Province
Santiago del Estero is a province of Argentina, located in the north of the country. Neighbouring provinces are from the north clockwise Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca and Tucumán.-History:...
, This is because these provinces were the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
people) before the immigratory wave of 1857-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least.During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Perú
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...
, and the provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
and Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
has significantly decreased as well.
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
between the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, and in smaller proportion from Spaniards of the colonial period. Out of the total estimation of 437,669 Spaniards who settled in the American Spanish colonies
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
during the period 1506-1650 made by M. Möner, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman estimated that a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares established in the Río de la Plata region. The colonial censuses conducted after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata showed that the proportion of Spaniards and Criollo
Criollo
Criollo is a Spanish term that may refer to:-Groups of people and animals:* Criollo people, a caste in the Spanish race-based colonial caste system* Criollo horse, a South American horse breed...
s was very significant in the cities and surrounding countryside, but not so much in the rural areas. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
Juan José de Vértiz
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo was a Spanish colonial politician born in New Spain, and Viceroy of the Río de la Plata.-Biography:...
in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo
Cuyo (Argentina)
Cuyo is the name given to the wine-producing, mountainous area of central-west Argentina. Historically it comprised the provinces of San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza. The term New Cuyo is a modern one, which indicates both Cuyo proper and the province of La Rioja...
in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
(city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
In 1822, a census was conducted in the city of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
; it showed that the city had then 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were White (about 72.2%). Of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations. This figure differs substantially with an estimate by Italo-Argentine sociologist José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros was an Argentine physician, pharmaceutic, positivist philosopher and essayist.He was born Giuseppe Ingegneri in Palermo , and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in 1900...
, which stated that in 1826 the Argentine territory was populated by 630,000 people, of whom only 13,000 were White; if this figures were correct, Whites comprised a mere 1.66% of the total. According to historian John W. White's estimate, those percentages had barely changed by 1852; out of a total 785,000 inhabitants, a 22,000 were White -a 2,8%- divided in 15,000 Criollos and 7,000 Europeans. In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero
Baradero
Baradero is the oldest town of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, being founded in 1615. It is the head town of the Baradero Partido.It is located on the bank of the Baradero River which is a tributary of the Paraná River.-External links:...
granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza
Esperanza, Santa Fe
Esperanza is a city in the center of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It has about 36,000 inhabitants as of the and it is the head town of the Las Colonias Department....
, Santa Fe
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
. During the 1860s and 1870s, Presidents Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre Martínez was an Argentine statesman, military figure, and author. He was the President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868.-Life and times:...
, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva was an Argentine politician and journalist, and president of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education reform, leading to Argentina's economic growth...
implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina.
Data provided by Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (National Bureau of Migrations) states that the country received a total 6,611,000 European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940. The main immigrant group were the 2,970,000 Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
arrived in the period (44.9% of the total); initially they came from Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
and Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, and later from Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. The second group in importance were the Spaniards, some 2,080,000 (31.4% of the total); They were mostly Galicians and Basques, but also Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalonians
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
and Andalucians). In smaller but significant numbers arrived Frenchmen from Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
(239,000, 3.6% of the total) and Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(180,000 – 2.7%). From the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
came some 177,000 people (2.6%); they were not only ethnic Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, but also Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Belarussians, Volga Germans, Lithuanians
Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
, etc. From the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
the contributors were mainly Armenians
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
and Arabs (mostly from Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
), some 174,000 in all (2.6%). Very closely in numbers come the immigrants from the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, some 152,000 (2.2%). From the Austro-Hungarian Empire came 111,000 people (1.6%), among them Austríans
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Hungarians
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Croatians
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Bosniaks, Serbs
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Rutenians and Montenegrins
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
. Among the 75,000 British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
immigrants there were many people from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, but mosto f them were Irish people
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
who were escaping the Potato famine
Potato famine
Potato famine may refer to:* Great Famine , the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1852* Highland Potato Famine, a major agrarian crisis in the Scottish Highlands from 1846 to 1857...
or the British rule. Other minor groups were the Portuguese (65,000), the Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
s from ex-Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
(48,000), the Suiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(44,000), the Belgians
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
(26,000), the Danes
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
(18,000), the White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
s (12.000), the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(10,000), and the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
(7,000). Even colonishts from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and Boers from South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
can be found in the Argentine immigration records.
The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), and about 15-20% from Sephardic groups from Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
In the 1910s, when the immigration rate reached its peak, more than 30% of Argentina’s population was born in Europe, and over half of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
city’s population was born abroad. According to the 1914 National Census, the 80% out of a total population of 7.903.662 people were either Europeans, or their children and grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (the descendants of the residing population previous to the immigratory wave), about a third were White. Put down in numbers, that meant that an 86.6% or about 6.8 million people residing in Argentina were White. European immigration continued accounting for over half the population growth of the nation during the 1920s, and in smaller waves after the Second World War. Many Europeans migrated in Argentina after the great conflict, escaping hunger and destruction. According to the Argentine records, 392.603 people from the Old World entered the country in the 1940s. In the following decade, the flow diminished because the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
improved Europe’s economy, and emigration was not such a necessity; even then, immigratory records state that between 1951 and 1970 other 256,252 Europeans entered Argentina. From the 1960s onwards, when it comprised 76.1% of the total, increasing immigration from the northern bordering countries (Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
) has significantly increased the process of Mestizaje in certain areas of Argentina, especially the Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...
. This is mainly because the aforementioned countries have Amerindian and Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
majorities.
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its allies, the governments of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 526 were Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians
Georgian people
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
, Moldovans, and Poles, and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning.
Beyond all the changes that this massive immigratory wave brought about in Argentina's demography and ethnic composition, it must not be forgotten the great influence that all these European immigrants and their descendants have exerted –even nowadays- on Argentine culture: The Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
variety spoken in most of Argentina, the Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish or River Plate Spanish is a dialectal variant of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin of Argentina and Uruguay, and also in Rio Grande do Sul, although features of the dialect are shared with the varieties of Spanish spoken...
, has entonation patterns heavily influenced by the southern dialects of the Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, especially the Napolitan dialect. Almost all the sports practiced nowadays in Argentina were brought by European immigrants (particularly the British), such as football, rugby, golf, tennis, cycling, car racing, etc. Great glories of the Argentine sport, as Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio , nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro , was a racing car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing...
or Nicolino Locche
Nicolino Locche
Nicolino Locche was an Argentine boxer from Tunuyán, Mendoza. He was of Italian origin, with his ancestors coming from Sardinia...
had direct European ancestry.
Regarding music, tango genre appeared partly due to Italian and Spanish influence, and the top artists of the genre had French (Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was born in Toulouse, France, although he never acknowledged his birthplace publicly, and there are still claims of his birth in Uruguay. He lived in Argentina from the age of two...
), Italian (Astor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
) or Basque ancestry (Roberto Goyeneche
Roberto Goyeneche
Roberto Goyeneche was an Argentine tango singer of Basque descent, who epitomized the archetype of 1950s Buenos Aires' bohemian life, and became a living legend in the local music scene.He was known as El Polaco due to his blond hair, and thinness, like the Polish immigrants of the time...
). Inside the folklore genre, the most Europe-influenced rhythm is the chamamé, with important musicians such as Chango Spasiuk
Chango Spasiuk
Horacio "Chango" Spasiuk is an Argentine chamamé musician and accordion player.Of Ukrainian grandparents, El Chango had a strong Polka music influence from his early days; Eastern European musical influences were also already present in the chamamé music of the region...
–with Ukrainian ancestry- or Soledad Pastorutti
Soledad Pastorutti
Soledad "La Sole" Pastorutti is an Argentine folk singer, who brought the genre to the younger generations at the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st....
–with Italian ancestry-. Among the best singer-songwriters of the Argentine rock
Argentine rock
Argentine rock , is composed or made by Argentine bands or artists, in the Spanish language. For nearly half a century it has been a major popular genre, and it is considered part of the popular music tradition of Argentina alongside Argentine Tango, and Argentine folk music.The moment when...
we may find plenty of Euro-descendants: Charly García
Charly García
Charly García is a singer-songwriter, pianist and keyboardist from Argentina with a long career in rock music, forming successful groups such as Sui Generis and Serú Girán, cult status groups like La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros, and as a solo musician.-Early years:Charly García was the eldest son in...
, Fito Páez
Fito Páez
Rodolfo "Fito" Páez Ávalos is an Argentine popular rock and roll pianist, lyricist, Spanish language singer and film director.-Early career:...
, León Gieco
León Gieco
Raúl Alberto Antonio Gieco, better known as León Gieco is a pop-folk music composer and interpreter. He is known for mixing popular folkloric genres with Argentine rock, and for lyrics with social and political connotations...
, Pappo
Pappo
-, 1968:-, 1969:# # # # # # # # # -Rock de la mujer perdida, 1970:...
, Andres Calamaro
Andrés Calamaro
Andrés Calamaro , is an Argentine musician, composer and Latin Grammy winner. His former band Los Rodríguez was a major success in Spain in the 1990s. He became one of the main icons of the Argentine rock in the last two decades and has sold over 1.3 million copies.-Abuelos de la Nada:Calamaro was...
, Alejandro Lerner
Alejandro Lerner
Alejandro Federico Lerner is an Argentine musician and singer-songwriter. He has written and sang countless songs including several hits, and his fame and recognition spread all over South America....
, David Lebón, Litto Nebbia
Litto Nebbia
Litto Nebbia is a singer, songwriter and producer prominent in the development of Argentine rock.-Life and work:Félix Francisco Nebbia was born in Rosario to Martha and Félix Nebbia, in 1948. His parents were struggling musicians, though during his early teens, Litto left secondary school to join...
and Gustavo Cerati
Gustavo Cerati
Gustavo Adrián Cerati Clark is an Argentine rock musician, singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. He was the frontman, lead vocalist, lead guitarist and lead songwriter of the Argentine rock band Soda Stereo, one of the most influential bands of latin rock music. In the early 90s, with...
, among many others.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated that up to 40% of the Argentinians who can be considered phenotypically White may have partial Amerindian or Black African
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
ancestry. The first study on the matter was conducted by genetist Daniel Corach, from University of Buenos Aires
University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 4 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos...
in 2005. The results of this study in which DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor. Nevertheless, the study clarified that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.
The most recent study on the matter was conducted by another team led by Daniel Corach in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: The analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
analysis showed again a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, a 53.7% -though a little lower than the 56% of the 2005 study-, a little higher 44.3% of European contribution, and only 2% African contribution. The study of 24 Autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.6%, against 17.3% of Ameridian and 4.1% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".
Bolivia
White people in Bolivia make up 15% of the nation's population, or up to 1.4 million. The white population consists mostly of criolloCriollo (people)
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
s, which consist of families of unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists
History of Bolivia
This is the history of Bolivia. See also the history of Latin America and the history of the Americas.Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America...
and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano S.A. was an airline serving as flag carrier of Bolivia. It operated domestic and international flights, aiming at passenger as well as cargo transport. LAB was active for more than 80 years, having been based in Cochabamba most of the time, with Cochabamba Airport being an...
, as well as Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
, Americans, Basques, Lebanese, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.
Brazil
Brazil is one of the few countries in Latin America that includes racial categories in its censuses: Branco (White), Preto (Black), Pardo (Brown, multiracial), Amarelo (Yellow) and Indígena (Amerindian); categorization is made by sel-identification. Taking into account the data provided by the last National Household Survey conducted in 2008, Brazil would possess the most numerous White population in Latin America, given that a 48,43% -92 million people- of Brazilians self-declared "Brancos". Comparing this survey with previous censuses, a slow but constant decrease in the percentages of self-identified White Brazilians can be noticed: in the 2000 Census it was 53.7%; but in the 2006 Household Survey it was 49.9% and in the last 2008 survey it diminished even more, down to current 48.4%. Some analists consider that this decreasing is due to the fact that more Brazilians reappreciate their African ancestry and then they re-classify themselves as "Pardos".White Brazilian population is spread all over the national territory, but it is concentrated in the four southernmost states, where a 79,6% of the population self-identify as White.
The states with more White people are: Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina is the name of several places :-Places:Brazil*Santa Catarina , one of that country's federal states...
(85,7%), Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
(81,4%), Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
(71,3%) y São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
(70.4%). Other four states have significant proportions of Whites; and they are: Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro (state)
Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
(55,8%), Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
(51,6%), Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
(44,2%) y Goiás
Goiás
Goiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...
(40,1%).
By the time Brazil became independent, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had already left for Brazil, most of them male colonial settlers from Portugal. Rich immigrants, who established the first sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
and Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
, and, on the other hand, banished New Christian
New Christian
New Christian was a term used to refer to Iberian Jews and Muslims who converted to Roman Catholicism, and their known baptized descendants. The term was introduced by the Old Christians of Iberia who wanted to distinguish themselves from the conversos...
s and Gypsies fleeing from religious persecution were among the early settlers. In the 18th century, an estimated 600,000 Portuguese arrived, including wealthier immigrants, as well as poor peasants attracted by the Brazil Gold Rush
Brazil Gold Rush
The Brazil Gold Rush was a gold rush that started in the 1690s, in the then-Portuguese colony, now the nation of Brazil. The rush opened up the major gold-producing area of Ouro Preto , then the aptly named Vila Rica .The rush began when bandeirantes discovered large gold deposits in the mountains...
that was going on in Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
.
After its independence, declared by emperor Pedro II in 1822, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
began several campaigns to attract European immigrants, shaped by a manifest policy of Branqueamento (Whitening). During the 19th century the slave labour force was gradually replaced by European immigrants, especially Italians. This happened particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of slave traffic in the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and the growth of coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
plantations in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
region. European immigration had its momentum peak between mid-19th century and mid-20th century, when nearly five million Europeans migrated to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, most of themItalians, Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
s, Spaniards, Pole
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
s, Lithuanian
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:* Lithuanian cuisine* Anything related to Lithuania* Anything related to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania* The Lithuanian people* The Lithuanian language...
s, and Ukrainian
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine* The Ukrainians, people from Ukraine or of Ukrainian descent.* Something relating to Ukrainian culture....
s. Between 1877 and 1903, 1,927,992 inmigrantes entered Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, an average of 71.000 people per year. The process reached it peak in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was caracterized by an intense arrival of Italians (58.5%) and a lower income of Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(20%).
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
immigrants rose to the second place because of the poverty that was affecting millions of rural workers; Germans
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupy the fourth place in the list; they arrived especially during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, due to poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
caused by the First World War. .
White Latin Americans are the people of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
who are white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country. In some countries such as Ecuador being white is socially desirable, because it is associated with high socio-economic status. The colonial rule in Latin America kept strict track of the blood purity of its subjects, considering Christian (i.e. European) blood to be purest. This has meant that in contrast to racial policies in the U.S. which have generally encouraged segregation, Latin American countries have often had miscegenation, since even small amounts of European ancestry could entail significant upwards social mobility.
Throughout Latin America people who are White identify with heritage from European settlers arriving in the Americas throughout the colonial and post-independence periods. Many of the earliest settlers were Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
and Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, and after independence, Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
have led numerically among the millions of immigrants. The Spaniards and Portuguese round out the top three. Notably large immigration occurred as well by Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
, British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
, French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Belgians
Belgians
Belgians are people originating from the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe.-Etymology:Belgians are a relatively "new" people...
, Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, Scandinavians
Scandinavians
Scandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
, Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, Swiss, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and other Europeans. In at least some countries, the white population also includes Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
erners/Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East, which describes a geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than its location within Asia...
ns. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
, and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n origin, but there are Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans
History of the Jews in Latin America
The history of the Jews in Latin America dates, according to some interpretations, back to Christopher Columbus and his first cross-Atlantic voyage on August 3, 1492, when he left Spain and eventually discovered the New World...
are Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), and others.
Composing about 33% or 36% of the population according to some sources,http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/pdf/128/12891701.pdf White Latin Americans
Latin Americans
Latin Americans are the citizens of the Latin American countries and dependencies. Latin American countries are multi-ethnic, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. As a result, some Latin Americans don't take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with...
constitute the largest racial-ethnic group in the region. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article. According to a survey conducted by consultant Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven different countries of the region, a 34% of the interviewée identified themselves as "White".
Representation in the media
Latin American media has received criticism for featuring a disproportionate number of blondBlond
Blond or blonde or fair-hair is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color...
and blue-eyed/green-eyed white Latin American and white Hispanic and Latino American
White Hispanic and Latino Americans
White Hispanic and Latino Americans are citizens and residents of the United States who are racially White and ethnically Hispanic or Latino.White American, itself an official U.S...
actors and actresses in telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
s relative to non-white Latin Americans and non-white Hispanic and Latino Americans.The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TVBlonde, Blue-Eyed Euro-Cute Latinos on Spanish TVWhat are Telenovelas? – Hispanic CultureRacial Bias Charged On Spanish-Language TVBlack ElectorateSkin tone consciousness in Asian and Latin American populationsDifferences Between American and Castilian SpanishPOV - Corpus Film Description European-looking actors are mostly given characters of upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
and upper-middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
status, while non-white Latin American actors portray lower-class people.
Being "White"
Being "White" is a classificatory term that emerges from the tradition of racial classification, a system that developed as Europeans colonized large parts of the world and employed classificatory systems to distinguish themselves from the local inhabitants of those countries. However, while most racial classifications include a concept of being White that is ideologically connected to European heritage and specific phenotypic, biological features associated with European heritage, there is a wide variability about the ways in which they are used to classify people. These differences have to do with the particular historical processes and social contexts in which a given racial classification is used. Since Latin America is characterized by widely differing histories and social contexts, there is also wide variability in the use of the classification "white" throughout Latin America. According to Peter WadePeter Wade
Peter Wade is a British anthropologist who specializes in issues of race and ethnicity in Latin America. Peter Wade is a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. He has written numerous books and articles about the social and historical meanings of race, ethnicity and...
specialist in race concepts of Latin America "...racial categories and racial ideologies are not simply those that elaborate social constructions on the basis of phenotypical variation or ideas about innate difference but those that do so using the particular aspects of phenotypical variation that were worked into vital signifiers of difference during European colonial encounters with others."Wade, Peter. 1997. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. Critical Studies On Latin America. Pluto Press p. 15 In many parts of Latin America being white is connected more to socio-economic status than to specific phenotypic traits - and it is often said that in Latin America "Money Whitens"Levine-Rasky, Cynthia. 2002. "Working through whiteness: international perspectives. SUNY Press ( p. 73) ""Money whitens" If any phrase encapsulates the association of whiteness and the modern in Latin America, this is it. It is a cliché formulated and reformulated throughout the region, a truism dependant upon the social experience that wealth is associated with whiteness, and that in obtaining the former one may become aligned with the latter (and vice versa)"." Also within Latin America there is variation in how racial boundaries have been defined. In Argentina, for example, the notion of mixture has been downplayed resulting in the country having no real Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
group, whereas in countries like Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
the notion of mixedness has been fundamental for nation-building, resulting in a large group of Mestizos' being considered neither fully "white" nor fully non-white.
For these reasons the distinction between "white" and "mixed", and between "mixed" and "black" or "indigenous" is largely subjective and situational meaning that any attempt to quantify racial categories into discrete categories is fraught with problems.
History
More than a million Spaniards and PortuguesePortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
settled in their American colonies during the colonial period
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitans establishee in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form the metropoli arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.Presença portuguesa: de Colonizadores a Imigrantes. Text taken from the book Brasil: 500 Anos de Povoamento IBGE, 3º Capítulo "Presença portuguesa: de colonizadores a imigrantes" written by Renato Pinto Venâncio. Retrieved 26-11-2007.
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
by the time -Sefardic Jews, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries in the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
or Mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desireable.Whiteness in Latin America: Measurement and Meaning in National Censuses (1850-1950) written by Mara Loveman. Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Vol. 95-2, 2009. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 12 million immigrants arrived in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
welcomed 4.4 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
Historical demographic growth
The following chart displays estimates (in thousands) of White, Black/Mulatto, Amerindian and Mestizo population of the subcontinent from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The figures shown for the years between 1650 and 1980 are taken from The Cry of My People. Out of Captivity in Latin America, written by Esther and Mortimer Arias. New York Friendship Press, 1980. Pages 17 and 18.The Cry of My People. Out of Captivity in Latin America, escrita por Esther and Mortimer Arias. Editorial New York Friendship Press. 1980. Páginas 17 y 18. Data belonging to year 2000 are taken from Lizcano's work. Percentages are provided by the editor.| Year | White | Black | Amerindian | Mestizo | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1650 | 138 | 67 | 12,000 | 670 | 12,875 |
| Percentages | 1.1% | 0.5% | 93.2% | 5.2% | 100% |
| 1825 | 4,350 | 4,100 | 8,000 | 6,200 | 22,650 |
| Percentages | 19.2% | 18.1% | 35.3% | 27.3% | 100% |
| 1950 | 72,000 | 13,729 | 14,000 | 61,000 | 160,729 |
| Percentages | 44.8% | 8.5% | 8.7% | 37.9% | 100% |
| 1980 | 150,000 | 27,000 | 30,000 | 140,000 | 347,000 |
| Percentages | 43.2% | 7.7% | 8.6% | 40.3% | 100% |
| 2000 | 181,296 | 119,055 | 46,434 | 152,380 | 502,784 |
| Percentages | 36.1% | 23.6% | 9.2% | 30.3% | 100% |
Admixture
Since the European colonizationColonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many Latin Americans have who have Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and/or sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
n and/or, rarely, East Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
ancestry have also White ancestry. The casta
Casta
Casta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period...
classification of colonial Latin America defined a person of mixed European/Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ancestry, or Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
ancestry. A castizo
Castizo
Castizo is a Spanish word with a general meaning of "pure" or "genuine". The feminine form is castiza. From this meaning it evolved other meanings, such as "typical of an area" and it was also used for one of the colonial Spanish race categories, the castas, that evolved in the seventeenth...
was someone whose mother was European and his father a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).
As it happened in Spain, persons of Jewish or Moorish ancestry up to several generations, were not allowed to enroll at the service of the Spanish Army or the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonies. All applicants to both institutions and their spouses had to obtain a Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre , Limpeza de sangue or Neteja de sang , meaning "cleanliness of blood", played an important role in modern Iberian history....
certificate in the same way as those in the Peninsula did, that proved that they had no Jewish or Moorish ancestors. However, being a medieval concept that targeted exclusively those religious groups, it was never an issue among the native population in the colonies of the Spanish Empire, that by law allowed people from all racial groups to join the Army, with the only prerequisite of embracing the Catholic faith. One notable example was that of Francisco Menendez
Francisco Menendez (creole)
Francisco Menendez was a free black military leader serving the Spanish Crown in 18th century St. Augustine, Florida. He is first traceable as a slave in South Carolina who, like many of his contemporaries, escaped to St. Augustine, Florida...
, a freed black military officer of the Spanish Army during the 18th century at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose fort in St. Augustine, Florida.
Although historically both Colonial
Colonial Brazil
In the history of Brazil, Colonial Brazil, officially the Viceroyalty of Brazil comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to kingdom alongside Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.During the over 300 years...
and Imperial Brazil had institutionalized discrimination against citizens which were deemed as people of color, contrary to the common sense in its population, it never had a casta classification like that of Hispanic America. White Brazilian people in the social status equivalent to the Hispanic criollo could have less than 80% of European (overwhelmingly Portuguese, seldom Spanish and much rarely other European ethnicities) ancestry. Aside some Amerindian and Black African descent which is knowly widespread among White populations in Brazil among all social classes in its five geographic regions
Regions of Brazil
Brazil is divided into five regions by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística . These divisions are composed of states within them.-The five regions:-North Region: *Area: 3,869,637.,9 km²...
since historically early times (c. 16th to 17th centuries), Moorish, Jewish, Arab and Romani
Roma people
The Romani, who are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms, are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent...
mixed ancestry were also less significant to social status there than in Hispanic America.
It does not mean that social prestige of "fully non-whites" (people of color which are not mulattoes, mestizos, zambos, pardos, etc. in short, multiracial Brazilians
Mixed-race Brazilian
Brazilian censuses do not use a "multiracial" category. Instead, the censuses use skin colour categories, with a Pardo one, that may include people of varied "mixed racial" ancestry, but probably also accounts for non-mixed acculturated Amerindians...
, with Caucasian features i.e. Black Africans, Amerindians, their direct descendants and "westernized" Brazilians with wholly or almost fully non-Caucasian phenotypes, which also would be >70% European in their ancestry, since genes that form racial phenotypes are distributed random among the descendants of intermixing couples) and people with knowable non-European ancestry was equal, comparable or even acceptable among Brazilians elites, but that in Portuguese America, people were less concerned with ancestry and Limpeza de Sangue than its Hispanic neighbours.
Populations
In terms of absolute numbers, the largest White population in Latin America is found in BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, with 95.3 million whites out of 191.9 million total Brazilians, or 49.7% of the total population. Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
has the second largest white population, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
has the third largest. In terms of percentage of the total population, Argentina and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
have the largest white populations, with roughly 90% of their respective populations self-identified as White. Depending on the definition of "Latin America", the smallest White population is either in Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, with only 1% White, approximately 75,000 people, or in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. Guatemala's census groups both Whites and Mestizos (people of mixed White and Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of White Guatemalans is undetermined.
| Country | % local | Population (millions) |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil Demographics of Brazil Brazils population is very diverse, comprising many races and ethnic groups. In general, Brazilians trace their origins from four sources: Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians.... |
49.7 or 53.7 | 93 or 105 |
| Argentina Demographics of Argentina This article is about the demographic features of Argentina, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.... |
85 or 97 | 34 or 38 |
| Mexico Demographics of Mexico With a population 112,336,538 in 2010, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, the second-most populous country in Latin America after Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and the second in North America, after the United States. Throughout most of the twentieth century Mexico's... |
9 or 15 or ~17 | 12 or 17 or 19 |
| Chile Demographics of Chile This article is about the demographic features of Chile, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.... |
52.7 or 90http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Latin_American#cite_note-104 | 8.8 or 16.3 |
| Colombia Demographics of Colombia This article is about the demographic features of the population of Colombia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
20 or 25 | 8.9 or 11 |
| Cuba Demographics of Cuba This article is about the demographic features of the population of Cuba, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
65.1 | 7.3 |
| Venezuela Demographics of Venezuela The Demographics of Venezuela are the condition and overview of Venezuela's peoples. Demographic topics include basic education, health, and population statistics as well as identified racial and religious affiliations.-Overview:... |
20 | 5.6 |
| Peru Demographics of Peru This article is about the demographic features of the population of Peru, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
15 | 4.4 |
| Costa Rica Demographics of Costa Rica This article is about the demographic features of the population of Costa Rica, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
82 | 3.8 |
| Puerto Rico Demographics of Puerto Rico This article is about the demographic features of the population of Puerto Rico, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
75.8 | 3.1 |
| Uruguay Demographics of Uruguay This article is about the demographic features of the population of Uruguay, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.- Origins and Ethnicity :... |
88 | 3 |
| Dominican Republic |
16 | 1.6 |
| Bolivia Demographics of Bolivia This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bolivia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
15 | 1.4 |
| Ecuador Demographics of Ecuador The Ethnography of Ecuador consists of a diverse collection of ethnic groups, almost all related to another group in one way or another. The great majority of Ecuadorans trace their origins to one or more of three geographical sources of Human migrations: the pre-Hispanic indigenous Amerindians who... |
10.4 | 1.4 |
| Paraguay Demographics of Paraguay This article is about the demographic features of the population of Paraguay, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
20 | 1.3 |
| Nicaragua Demographics of Nicaragua This article is about the demographic features of the population of Nicaragua, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
17 | 1 |
Costa Rica
In Costa Rica the estimates of White people slightly vary between 77%Worldstatesmen.org: Costa Rica and 82%, or about 3.1 – 3.5 million people. Other sources estimate that White Costa Ricans -who simply self identified as "Costa Ricans"- and other European groups comprise a 78.75%The Joshua Project: Ethnic people groups of Costa Rica. of Costa Rica's population, or about 3,652,000 people. A combined ratio of 94% is given for the White and Mestizo populations by the CIA World Factbook.CIA The World Factbook: Costa Rica Costa Rican European ancestry is mostly Spanish, though there are significant numbers of Costa Ricans descended from Italian, Greek, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, Lebanese and Polish families, as well as a sizable Jewish community.El Salvador
Of the total Salvadoran population, 12%, or 545,000, is white. They are mostly of Spanish descent.Guatemala
The exact percentage of the white Guatemalan population is not known because the Guatemalan census combines mestizos and whites in one category, where they make up a combined total of 59.4%. Whites are mostly of Spanish descent, but there are also those of German, English, Italian], Scandinavian, and American descent.Some other sources place the percentage of whites at 5.1%, or about 649,000 people.
Honduras
Honduras contains perhaps the smallest percentage of whites in Latin America, with only 1% classified in this group, or up to 75,000 to 150,000 of the total population. Of these, the majority are people of Spanish descent. A white population, especially descendants of Palestinians, is found in the city of San Pedro SulaSan Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula is a city in Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country, in the Valle de Sula , about 60 km south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean. With an estimated population of 638,259 people in the main municipality, and 802,598 in its metro area , it is the second...
, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.
Nicaragua
Estelí
Estelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí is a city and municipality within the Estelí department. It is the third largest city in Nicaragua, an active commercial center in the north and is known as "the Diamond of the Segovias."...
, Jinotega
Jinotega
Jinotega is the capital of Jinotega Department in the north central region of Nicaragua.-About:The capital city of the Department of Jinotega is the City of Jinotega. The Department of Jinotega produces 80% of the nation's coffee. It has a population of about 51,000 living inside a vast valley...
, and Matagalpa
Matagalpa
Matagalpa is a city in Nicaragua, the capital of the department of Matagalpa. The city has a population of 109,100 , while the population of the department is more than 480,000. Matagalpa is Nicaragua's fifth largest city and one of its most commercially active outside of Managua...
have significant fourth generation Germans. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels, and banks. The Jews of Nicaragua are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
from Eastern Europe.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguan
Palestinian Nicaraguan
Palestinian Nicaraguan are Nicaraguans of Palestinian ancestry who were born in or have immigrated to Nicaragua...
s, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.
Panama
White Panamanians form 10%, with the Spanish being the majority. Other ancestries includes Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Portuguese, Polish and Russian.Mexico
White people in Mexico are an estimated 9%, 15%, or about 17% of Mexico's population, i.e. around 12, 17, or 19 million people. The majority of them are of Spanish descent. However, many other non-IberianIberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
Second Mexican Empire
The Second Mexican Empire was the name of Mexico under the regime established from 1864 to 1867. It was created by Napoleon III of France, who attempted to use the Mexican adventure to recapture some of the grandeur of earlier Napoleonic times...
in the 1860s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Palestine also made Mexico their home. In the 20th century, White Americans, Canadians], Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, and immigrants from other Eastern European countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, also settled in Mexico.
The northern regions of Mexico, such as the states of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
, Chihuahua and Nuevo León
Nuevo León
Nuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...
, and particularly the city of Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
, hold the greatest European genetic admixture, with roughly 50–61% European admixture among the regional population.Supporting Information Silva-Zolezzi et al. 10.1073/pnas.0903045106
The only time that the Mexican Government has asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage was in the 1921 census.RACIAL CLASSIFICATIONS IN JALISCO AND THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC – 1921 CENSUS 10% of the population answered that they were white. The Distrito Federal, in the Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
area, had the largest total of whites (206,514 of the 1.4 million nationwide), followed by Chihuahua (145,926), Sonora (115,151), Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
(114,150), and Mexico state (88,660), while in terms of percentage, the white population was most prominent in Sonora (41.85%), Chihuahua (36.33%), Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur , is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state on October 8, 1974, the area was known as the South Territory of Baja California. It has an area of , or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises...
(33.40%), Tabasco
Tabasco
Tabasco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa....
(27.56%), and Distrito Federal (22.79%).
Cuba
White people in Cuba make up about 70% of the total Cuban population, with the majority being of diverse Spanish descent. However, after the mass exodus resulting from the Cuban RevolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most white Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German
German Cuban
A German Cuban refers to Cubans of German ethnicity, or who are German-born immigrants to Cuba.-Notable people:* Steven Bauer, actor * Cameron Diaz, American actress...
, Italian and Russian descent. (from Cuban Genealogy Center) During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Canarians
Canarian people
The Canarians are an ethnic group living in the archipelago of the Canary Islands , near the coast of Western Africa...
, Catalans
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
, Andalusians
Andalusian people
The Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
, Castilians
Castilian people
The Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
, and Galicians
Galician people
The Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
emigrated to Cuba. Also, one significant ethnic influx is derived from various Middle Eastern nations. Many Jews have also immigrated there, some of them Sephardic. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist regime took power
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
.
Dominican Republic
The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of increasing the white population, or "whitening
Racial whitening
Racial Whitening or "Whitening" is an ideology that was widely accepted in Brazil between 1889 and 1914, as the solution to the "Negro problem." Supporters of the Whitening ideology believed that the Negro race would advance culturally and genetically, or even disappear totally, within several...
" the racial composition of the country by rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. He also welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s as part of this plan. The country's German minority is the largest in the Caribbean.http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Laender/DominikanischeRepublik.html
Some notable White Dominicans include Juan Luis Guerra
Juan Luis Guerra
Juan Luis Guerra is a singer, songwriter and producer from the Dominican Republic who has sold over 30 million records, and won numerous awards including 12 Latin Grammy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Latin Billboard Music Awards...
, 2003 Miss Universe Amelia Vega
Amelia Vega
Amelia Vega Polanco became the first and only Dominican woman to be named Miss Universe, in 2003. At the age of 18, she was the youngest winner since 1994....
, Miss Dominican Republic 2010 Eva Arias
Eva Arias
-External links:*...
, world known fashion designer Oscar De La Renta
Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta is one of the world's leading fashion designers. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1973.-Career:...
, singer and television presenter Charytín Goyco, former Dominican president Hipólito Mejía
Hipólito Mejía
Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez is a Dominican politician and former President of the Dominican Republic...
, and painter Guillo Pérez.
Haiti
The Mulatto and the White population of HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
make up about 5%.CIA World Factbook : Haiti. Most of the white Haitians are descendants of French settlers, although most French left following the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
of 1791–1804, which resulted in Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
's independence as the Republic of Haiti. The white community had numbered 32,000 in 1789. There are also white Haitians that are descendants of Irish, Danes, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Poles, Portuguese, Russians and Syrians. The country has also small numbers of Haitians of Spanish descent, who are the descendants of the first settlers on the whole of Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
before French rule came to Haiti.
Martinique
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include MartiniqueWhite people in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
represent 5% of the population, as Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
is an overseas French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
department, most whites are French.
Martinique: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA
Puerto Rico
White Puerto Ricans of European, mostly Spanish descent, are said to comprise the majority with 75.8% of the population identifying as white.2010.census.gov In the year 1899, one year after the U.S invaded and took control of the island, 61.8% of people identified as WhiteWhite people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
. For the first time in fifty years, the 2000 United States Census asked people to define their race. One hundred years later, the total has risen to 80.5% (3,064,862), less than one percent more than reported in 1950.Puerto Rico's History on race
From the beginning of the twentieth century American observers remarked on the "surprising preponderance of the white race" on the island. One travel writer called Puerto Rico "the whitest of the Antilles". In a widely distributed piece, a geologist, wrote that the island was "notable among the West Indian group for the reason that its preponderant population is of the white race." In a more academic book he reiterated that "Porto Rico, at least, has not become Africanized
Africanization
Africanization or Africanisation has been applied in various contexts, notably in naming and in the composition of staff.-Africanization of names:...
.Representation of racial identity among Puerto Ricans and in the u.s. mainland
During the 19th century, hundreds of Corsica
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of various economic and political changes in the mid-19th century Europe; among those factors were the social-economic changes which came about in Europe as a result of the Second Industrial Revolution, political discontent and widespread...
n, French
French immigration to Puerto Rico
The French immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of the economic and political situations which occurred in various places such as Louisiana , Saint-Domingue and in Europe....
, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Asturias
Asturias
The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...
, Galicia, the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
, Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, and the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish
Irish immigration to Puerto Rico
From the 16th to the 19th century, there was considerable Irish immigration to Puerto Rico, for a number of reasons. During the 16th century many Irishmen, who were known as "Wild Geese," fled the English Army and joined the Spanish Army. Some of these men were stationed in Puerto Rico and...
, Scots, Germans
German immigration to Puerto Rico
German immigration to Puerto Rico increased when German businessmen immigrated to Puerto Rico during the early part of the 19th century. However, it was the economic and political situation in Europe during the early 19th century plus, the fact that the Spanish Crown issued the Royal Decree of...
, Italians, and thousands of others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
The Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 is a legal order approved by the Spanish Crown in the early half of the 19th century to encourage Spaniards and later Europeans of non-Spanish origin to settle and populate the colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico....
), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. After the United States took possession of Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, an influx of Jews
Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico
The Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage...
and White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
s began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
’s rule in Spain.
Saint Barthélemy
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include Saint BarthélemyMost of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
and Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
.Fact Sheet on St. Barthélemy
Argentina
, 85%, or even up to 86.4% of the total population. These percentages would rise up to 86.1%, 87.8% or 89.7% if the Non-European Caucasian groups (Jews and Arabs) are also counted. Summing up, These percentages would result in an estimated population of 34-36 million White people in Argentina. The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated; either it counts both White and Mestizo population all together, or it is the result of the successful campaign implemented by Argentina's ruling elite in the early 20th century to present "a White country". In the survey conducted by Cohesión Social mentioned in the introduction, 63% of the Argentinian interviewed identified themselves as "White". Other articles state that 75%-80% of Argentina's population might be White.
White Argentines may live in any part of the country, but their concentration is greater especially in the central-eastern region called Pampas, the southern region called Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...
, and in the central-western region called Cuyo
Cuyo (Argentina)
Cuyo is the name given to the wine-producing, mountainous area of central-west Argentina. Historically it comprised the provinces of San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza. The term New Cuyo is a modern one, which indicates both Cuyo proper and the province of La Rioja...
.Their concentration is smaller in the north-eastern region called Litoral
Mesopotamia, Argentina
La Mesopotamia, Región Mesopotámica is the humid and verdant area of north-east Argentina, comprising the provinces of Misiones, Entre Ríos and Corrientes. The region called Litoral consists of the Mesopotamia and the provinces of Chaco, Formosa and Santa Fe...
and much lesser in the north-western provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
, Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
, Tucumán
Tucumán Province
Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...
, Catamarca
Catamarca Province
Catamarca is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province has a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km². Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are : Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, and La Rioja...
, La Rioja
La Rioja Province (Argentina)
La Rioja is a one of the provinces of Argentina and is located in the west of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Catamarca, Córdoba, San Luis and San Juan.-History:...
and Santiago del Estero
Santiago del Estero Province
Santiago del Estero is a province of Argentina, located in the north of the country. Neighbouring provinces are from the north clockwise Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca and Tucumán.-History:...
, This is because these provinces were the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
people) before the immigratory wave of 1857-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least.Los hombres barbados en la América precolombina: razas indígenas americanas. Escrito por Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso. página 10. Editorial Kier. Buenos Aires, 1997.During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Perú
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...
, and the provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
and Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
has significantly decreased as well.
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
between the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, and in smaller proportion from Spaniards of the colonial period. Out of the total estimation of 437,669 Spaniards who settled in the American Spanish colonies
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
during the period 1506-1650 made by M. Möner, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman estimated that a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares established in the Río de la Plata region. The colonial censuses conducted after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata showed that the proportion of Spaniards and Criollo
Criollo
Criollo is a Spanish term that may refer to:-Groups of people and animals:* Criollo people, a caste in the Spanish race-based colonial caste system* Criollo horse, a South American horse breed...
s was very significant in the cities and surrounding countryside, but not so much in the rural areas. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
Juan José de Vértiz
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo was a Spanish colonial politician born in New Spain, and Viceroy of the Río de la Plata.-Biography:...
in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo
Cuyo (Argentina)
Cuyo is the name given to the wine-producing, mountainous area of central-west Argentina. Historically it comprised the provinces of San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza. The term New Cuyo is a modern one, which indicates both Cuyo proper and the province of La Rioja...
in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
(city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
In 1822, a census was conducted in the city of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
; it showed that the city had then 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were White (about 72.2%). Of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations.Argentina 200 Años. Vol. 9 1820-1830. Editor José Alemán. Arte Gráfico Editorial Argentino. Buenos Aires. 2010. This figure differs substantially with an estimate by Italo-Argentine sociologist José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros was an Argentine physician, pharmaceutic, positivist philosopher and essayist.He was born Giuseppe Ingegneri in Palermo , and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in 1900...
, which stated that in 1826 the Argentine territory was populated by 630,000 people, of whom only 13,000 were White; if this figures were correct, Whites comprised a mere 1.66% of the total.Argentina en marcha, Volumen 1. Comisión Nacional de Cooperación Intelectual. 1947.
“Para 1826 se admiten 630.000 almas, así repartidas, según Ingenieros: Blancos extranjeros 5.000, Blancos argentinos 8.000, Indios 132.000, Mestizos 400.000, Negros…”
According to historian John W. White's estimate, those percentages had barely changed by 1852; out of a total 785,000 inhabitants, a 22,000 were White -a 2,8%- divided in 15,000 Criollos and 7,000 Europeans.Argentina, the Life Story of a Nation. escrito por John W. White, Viking Press (1942), página 124. Citado en World's Great Men of Colour escrito por Joel Augustus Rogers y John Henrik Clarke, editorial Touchstone (1996), página 191. In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero
Baradero
Baradero is the oldest town of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, being founded in 1615. It is the head town of the Baradero Partido.It is located on the bank of the Baradero River which is a tributary of the Paraná River.-External links:...
granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza
Esperanza, Santa Fe
Esperanza is a city in the center of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It has about 36,000 inhabitants as of the and it is the head town of the Las Colonias Department....
, Santa Fe
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
. During the 1860s and 1870s, Presidents Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre Martínez was an Argentine statesman, military figure, and author. He was the President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868.-Life and times:...
, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva was an Argentine politician and journalist, and president of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education reform, leading to Argentina's economic growth...
implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina.
Data provided by Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (National Bureau of Migrations) states that the country received a total 6,611,000 European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940.Yale immigration study The main immigrant group were the 2,970,000 Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
arrived in the period (44.9% of the total); initially they came from Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
and Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, and later from Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
.Federaciones Regionales. The second group in importance were the Spaniards, some 2,080,000 (31.4% of the total); They were mostly Galicians and Basques, but also Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalonians
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
and Andalucians). In smaller but significant numbers arrived Frenchmen from Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
(239,000, 3.6% of the total) and Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(180,000 – 2.7%). From the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
came some 177,000 people (2.6%); they were not only ethnic Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, but also Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Belarussians, Volga Germans, Lithuanians
Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
, etc. From the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
the contributors were mainly Armenians
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
and Arabs (mostly from Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
), some 174,000 in all (2.6%). Very closely in numbers come the immigrants from the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, some 152,000 (2.2%). From the Austro-Hungarian Empire came 111,000 people (1.6%), among them Austríans
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Hungarians
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Croatians
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Bosniaks, Serbs
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Rutenians and Montenegrins
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
. Among the 75,000 British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
immigrants there were many people from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, but mosto f them were Irish people
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
who were escaping the Potato famine
Potato famine
Potato famine may refer to:* Great Famine , the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1852* Highland Potato Famine, a major agrarian crisis in the Scottish Highlands from 1846 to 1857...
or the British rule. Other minor groups were the Portuguese (65,000), the Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
s from ex-Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
(48,000), the Suiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(44,000), the Belgians
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
(26,000), the Danes
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
(18,000), the White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
s (12.000), the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(10,000), and the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
(7,000). Even colonishts from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and Boers from South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
can be found in the Argentine immigration records.
The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), and about 15-20% from Sephardic groups from Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
In the 1910s, when the immigration rate reached its peak, more than 30% of Argentina’s population was born in Europe, and over half of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
city’s population was born abroad. According to the 1914 National Census, the 80% out of a total population of 7.903.662 people were either Europeans, or their children and grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (the descendants of the residing population previous to the immigratory wave), about a third were White. Put down in numbers, that meant that an 86.6% or about 6.8 million people residing in Argentina were White.History of Argentina, de Ricardo.Levene. University of North Carolina Press, 1937. European immigration continued accounting for over half the population growth of the nation during the 1920s, and in smaller waves after the Second World War. Many Europeans migrated in Argentina after the great conflict, escaping hunger and destruction. According to the Argentine records, 392.603 people from the Old World entered the country in the 1940s. In the following decade, the flow diminished because the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
improved Europe’s economy, and emigration was not such a necessity; even then, immigratory records state that between 1951 and 1970 other 256,252 Europeans entered Argentina. From the 1960s onwards, when it comprised 76.1% of the total, increasing immigration from the northern bordering countries (Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
)Inmigración, Cambio Demográfico y Desarrollo Industrial en la Argentina. Alfredo Lattes y Ruth Sautu. Cuaderno Nº 5 del CENEP (1978). Citado en Argentina: 1516-1982 From Spanish Colonisation to the Falklands War by David Rock. University of California Press, 1987. ISBN 0-520-05189-0 has significantly increased the process of Mestizaje in certain areas of Argentina, especially the Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...
. This is mainly because the aforementioned countries have Amerindian and Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
majorities.
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its allies, the governments of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 526 were Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians
Georgian people
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
, Moldovans, and Poles, and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport.Recent Migration from Central and Eastern Europe to Argentina, a Special Treatment? (Spanish) by María José Marcogliese. Revista Argentina de Sociología, 2003. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning.Ukrainians, Russians and Armenians, from professionals to security guardians. (Spanish) by Florencia Tateossian. Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2001.
Beyond all the changes that this massive immigratory wave brought about in Argentina's demography and ethnic composition, it must not be forgotten the great influence that all these European immigrants and their descendants have exerted –even nowadays- on Argentine culture: The Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
variety spoken in most of Argentina, the Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish or River Plate Spanish is a dialectal variant of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin of Argentina and Uruguay, and also in Rio Grande do Sul, although features of the dialect are shared with the varieties of Spanish spoken...
, has entonation patterns heavily influenced by the southern dialects of the Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, especially the Napolitan dialect.Napolitans and porteños, united by the accent. Diario La Nación. Almost all the sports practiced nowadays in Argentina were brought by European immigrants (particularly the British), such as football,History of a Might House. (Spanish) Diario Clarín, Buenos Aires, 21 Febrero 2003. rugby, golf,Welcome Argentina: Golf tennis, cycling, car racing, etc. Great glories of the Argentine sport, as Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio , nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro , was a racing car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing...
F1 Fanatics: Juan Manuel Fangio or Nicolino Locche
Nicolino Locche
Nicolino Locche was an Argentine boxer from Tunuyán, Mendoza. He was of Italian origin, with his ancestors coming from Sardinia...
Locche. El último amague. Diario Clarín, 8 September 2005. had direct European ancestry.
Regarding music, tango genre appeared partly due to Italian and Spanish influence,Comienzos del Tango. por Jorge Gutman. De Norte a Sur (Noticiero Online). Año 21, Nº 241. Septiembre 2001. and the top artists of the genre had French (Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was born in Toulouse, France, although he never acknowledged his birthplace publicly, and there are still claims of his birth in Uruguay. He lived in Argentina from the age of two...
Carlos Gardel: Síntesis de su vida y trayectoria. por Pablo Taboada. Todo Tango.), Italian (Astor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
Ástor Piazzolla Associazione musicale culturale Domenico Sarro (Italiano)) or Basque ancestry (Roberto Goyeneche
Roberto Goyeneche
Roberto Goyeneche was an Argentine tango singer of Basque descent, who epitomized the archetype of 1950s Buenos Aires' bohemian life, and became a living legend in the local music scene.He was known as El Polaco due to his blond hair, and thinness, like the Polish immigrants of the time...
El Tango y los Vascos.). Inside the folklore genre, the most Europe-influenced rhythm is the chamamé,Historia de la Música folclórica de Argentina with important musicians such as Chango Spasiuk
Chango Spasiuk
Horacio "Chango" Spasiuk is an Argentine chamamé musician and accordion player.Of Ukrainian grandparents, El Chango had a strong Polka music influence from his early days; Eastern European musical influences were also already present in the chamamé music of the region...
–with Ukrainian ancestryChango Spasiuk Estación Tierra.- or Soledad Pastorutti
Soledad Pastorutti
Soledad "La Sole" Pastorutti is an Argentine folk singer, who brought the genre to the younger generations at the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st....
–with Italian ancestry-. Among the best singer-songwriters of the Argentine rock
Argentine rock
Argentine rock , is composed or made by Argentine bands or artists, in the Spanish language. For nearly half a century it has been a major popular genre, and it is considered part of the popular music tradition of Argentina alongside Argentine Tango, and Argentine folk music.The moment when...
we may find plenty of Euro-descendants: Charly García
Charly García
Charly García is a singer-songwriter, pianist and keyboardist from Argentina with a long career in rock music, forming successful groups such as Sui Generis and Serú Girán, cult status groups like La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros, and as a solo musician.-Early years:Charly García was the eldest son in...
, Fito Páez
Fito Páez
Rodolfo "Fito" Páez Ávalos is an Argentine popular rock and roll pianist, lyricist, Spanish language singer and film director.-Early career:...
, León Gieco
León Gieco
Raúl Alberto Antonio Gieco, better known as León Gieco is a pop-folk music composer and interpreter. He is known for mixing popular folkloric genres with Argentine rock, and for lyrics with social and political connotations...
, Pappo
Pappo
-, 1968:-, 1969:# # # # # # # # # -Rock de la mujer perdida, 1970:...
, Andres Calamaro
Andrés Calamaro
Andrés Calamaro , is an Argentine musician, composer and Latin Grammy winner. His former band Los Rodríguez was a major success in Spain in the 1990s. He became one of the main icons of the Argentine rock in the last two decades and has sold over 1.3 million copies.-Abuelos de la Nada:Calamaro was...
, Alejandro Lerner
Alejandro Lerner
Alejandro Federico Lerner is an Argentine musician and singer-songwriter. He has written and sang countless songs including several hits, and his fame and recognition spread all over South America....
, David Lebón, Litto Nebbia
Litto Nebbia
Litto Nebbia is a singer, songwriter and producer prominent in the development of Argentine rock.-Life and work:Félix Francisco Nebbia was born in Rosario to Martha and Félix Nebbia, in 1948. His parents were struggling musicians, though during his early teens, Litto left secondary school to join...
and Gustavo Cerati
Gustavo Cerati
Gustavo Adrián Cerati Clark is an Argentine rock musician, singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. He was the frontman, lead vocalist, lead guitarist and lead songwriter of the Argentine rock band Soda Stereo, one of the most influential bands of latin rock music. In the early 90s, with...
, among many others.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated that up to 40% of the Argentinians who can be considered phenotypically White may have partial Amerindian or Black African
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
ancestry. The first study on the matter was conducted by genetist Daniel Corach, from University of Buenos Aires
University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 4 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos...
in 2005. The results of this study in which DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor.Estructura genética de la Argentina, Impacto de contribuciones genéticas - Ministerio de Educación de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Nación. (Spanish) Nevertheless, the study clarified that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.Mezcla génica en una muestra poblacional de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Avena, Sergio A., Goicochea, Alicia S., Rey, Jorge et al. (2006). Medicina (Buenos Aires), mar./abr. 2006, vol.66, no.2, p.113-118. ISSN 0025-7680.
The most recent study on the matter was conducted by another team led by Daniel Corach in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: The analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
analysis showed again a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, a 53.7% -though a little lower than the 56% of the 2005 study-, a little higher 44.3% of European contribution, and only 2% African contribution. The study of 24 Autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.6%, against 17.3% of Ameridian and 4.1% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".Inferring Continental Ancestry of Argentineans from Autosomal, Y-Chromosomal and Mitochondrial DNA by Daniel Corach, Oscar Lao, Cecilia Bobillo, Kristiaan Van Der Gaag, Sofia Zuniga, Mark Vermeulen, Kate Van Duijn, Miriam Goedbloed, Peter M. Vallone, Walther Parson, Peter De Knijff, Manfred Kayser. First published on-line: 15 Dec 2009. Annals of Human Genetics;
Volume 74, Issue 1, pages 65-76, January 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.2009.00556.x © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/University College London.How Argentina Became White. Magazine Discover: Science, Technology and the Future.
Bolivia
White people in Bolivia make up 15% of the nation's population, or up to 1.4 million. The white population consists mostly of criolloCriollo (people)
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
s, which consist of families of unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists
History of Bolivia
This is the history of Bolivia. See also the history of Latin America and the history of the Americas.Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America...
and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano S.A. was an airline serving as flag carrier of Bolivia. It operated domestic and international flights, aiming at passenger as well as cargo transport. LAB was active for more than 80 years, having been based in Cochabamba most of the time, with Cochabamba Airport being an...
, as well as Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
, Americans, Basques, Lebanese, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.
Brazil
Brazil is one of the few countries in Latin America that includes racial categories in its censuses: Branco (White), Preto (Black), Pardo (Brown, multiracial), Amarelo (Yellow) and Indígena (Amerindian); categorization is made by sel-identification. Taking into account the data provided by the last National Household Survey conducted in 2008, Brazil would possess the most numerous White population in Latin America, given that a 48,43% -92 million people- of Brazilians self-declared "Brancos". Comparing this survey with previous censuses, a slow but constant decrease in the percentages of self-identified White Brazilians can be noticed: in the 2000 Census it was 53.7%;Brazil: People: Ethnic Groups.World Statesmen.org: Brazil but in the 2006 Household Survey it was 49.9% and in the last 2008 survey it diminished even more, down to current 48.4%. Some analists consider that this decreasing is due to the fact that more Brazilians reappreciate their African ancestry and then they re-classify themselves as "Pardos".White Brazilian population is spread all over the national territory, but it is concentrated in the four southernmost states, where a 79,6% of the population self-identify as White.
The states with more White people are: Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina is the name of several places :-Places:Brazil*Santa Catarina , one of that country's federal states...
(85,7%), Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
(81,4%), Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
(71,3%) y São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
(70.4%). Other four states have significant proportions of Whites; and they are: Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro (state)
Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
(55,8%), Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
(51,6%), Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
(44,2%) y Goiás
Goiás
Goiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...
(40,1%).http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/tabela/protabl.asp?c=262&i=P&nome=on¬arodape=on&tab=262&unit=0&pov=1&opc1=1&poc2=1&OpcTipoNivt=1&opn1=0&nivt=0&orc86=3&poc1=1&orp=6&qtu3=27&opv=1&poc86=1&sec1=0&opc2=1&pop=1&opn2=0&orv=2&orc2=5&qtu2=5&sev=1000093&opc86=1&sec2=0&opp=1&opn3=1&sec86=2776&ascendente=on&sep=17795&orn=1&qtu7=9&orc1=4&qtu1=1&cabec=on&pon=1&OpcCara=44&proc=1&opn7=0&decm=99IBGE. PNAD 2009. População residente, por cor ou raça, situação e sexo]
By the time Brazil became independent, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had already left for Brazil, most of them male colonial settlers from Portugal.The Phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages Rich immigrants, who established the first sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
and Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
, and, on the other hand, banished New Christian
New Christian
New Christian was a term used to refer to Iberian Jews and Muslims who converted to Roman Catholicism, and their known baptized descendants. The term was introduced by the Old Christians of Iberia who wanted to distinguish themselves from the conversos...
s and Gypsies fleeing from religious persecution were among the early settlers. In the 18th century, an estimated 600,000 Portuguese arrived, including wealthier immigrants, as well as poor peasants attracted by the Brazil Gold Rush
Brazil Gold Rush
The Brazil Gold Rush was a gold rush that started in the 1690s, in the then-Portuguese colony, now the nation of Brazil. The rush opened up the major gold-producing area of Ouro Preto , then the aptly named Vila Rica .The rush began when bandeirantes discovered large gold deposits in the mountains...
that was going on in Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
.Século XVIII
After its independence, declared by emperor Pedro II in 1822, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
began several campaigns to attract European immigrants, shaped by a manifest policy of Branqueamento (Whitening). During the 19th century the slave labour force was gradually replaced by European immigrants, especially Italians. This happened particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of slave traffic in the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and the growth of coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
plantations in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
region.Fim da escravidão gera medidas de apoio a imigração no Brasil – 16/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil.Café atrai imigrante europeu para o Brasil – 22/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil. European immigration had its momentum peak between mid-19th century and mid-20th century, when nearly five million Europeans migrated to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, most of themItalians, Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
s, Spaniards, Pole
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
s, Lithuanian
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:* Lithuanian cuisine* Anything related to Lithuania* Anything related to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania* The Lithuanian people* The Lithuanian language...
s, and Ukrainian
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine* The Ukrainians, people from Ukraine or of Ukrainian descent.* Something relating to Ukrainian culture....
s. Between 1877 and 1903, 1,927,992 inmigrantes entered Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, an average of 71.000 people per year. The process reached it peak in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was caracterized by an intense arrival of Italians (58.5%) and a lower income of Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(20%).
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
immigrants rose to the second place because of the poverty that was affecting millions of rural workers; IBGE espanhóis Germans
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupy the fourth place in the list; they arrived especially during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, due to poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
caused by the First World War. .
White Latin Americans are the people of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
who are white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country. In some countries such as Ecuador being white is socially desirable, because it is associated with high socio-economic status. The colonial rule in Latin America kept strict track of the blood purity of its subjects, considering Christian (i.e. European) blood to be purest. This has meant that in contrast to racial policies in the U.S. which have generally encouraged segregation, Latin American countries have often had miscegenation, since even small amounts of European ancestry could entail significant upwards social mobility.
Throughout Latin America people who are White identify with heritage from European settlers arriving in the Americas throughout the colonial and post-independence periods. Many of the earliest settlers were Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
and Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, and after independence, Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
have led numerically among the millions of immigrants. The Spaniards and Portuguese round out the top three. Notably large immigration occurred as well by Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
, British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
, French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Belgians
Belgians
Belgians are people originating from the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe.-Etymology:Belgians are a relatively "new" people...
, Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, Scandinavians
Scandinavians
Scandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
, Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, Swiss, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and other Europeans. In at least some countries, the white population also includes Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
erners/Southwest Asia
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East, which describes a geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than its location within Asia...
ns. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
, and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n origin, but there are Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans
History of the Jews in Latin America
The history of the Jews in Latin America dates, according to some interpretations, back to Christopher Columbus and his first cross-Atlantic voyage on August 3, 1492, when he left Spain and eventually discovered the New World...
are Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), and others.
Composing about 33% or 36% of the population according to some sources,http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/pdf/128/12891701.pdf White Latin Americans
Latin Americans
Latin Americans are the citizens of the Latin American countries and dependencies. Latin American countries are multi-ethnic, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. As a result, some Latin Americans don't take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with...
constitute the largest racial-ethnic group in the region. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article. According to a survey conducted by consultant Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven different countries of the region, a 34% of the interviewée identified themselves as "White".
Representation in the media
Latin American media has received criticism for featuring a disproportionate number of blondBlond
Blond or blonde or fair-hair is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color...
and blue-eyed/green-eyed white Latin American and white Hispanic and Latino American
White Hispanic and Latino Americans
White Hispanic and Latino Americans are citizens and residents of the United States who are racially White and ethnically Hispanic or Latino.White American, itself an official U.S...
actors and actresses in telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
s relative to non-white Latin Americans and non-white Hispanic and Latino Americans.The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TVBlonde, Blue-Eyed Euro-Cute Latinos on Spanish TVWhat are Telenovelas? – Hispanic CultureRacial Bias Charged On Spanish-Language TVBlack ElectorateSkin tone consciousness in Asian and Latin American populationsDifferences Between American and Castilian SpanishPOV - Corpus Film Description European-looking actors are mostly given characters of upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
and upper-middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
status, while non-white Latin American actors portray lower-class people.
Being "White"
Being "White" is a classificatory term that emerges from the tradition of racial classification, a system that developed as Europeans colonized large parts of the world and employed classificatory systems to distinguish themselves from the local inhabitants of those countries. However, while most racial classifications include a concept of being White that is ideologically connected to European heritage and specific phenotypic, biological features associated with European heritage, there is a wide variability about the ways in which they are used to classify people. These differences have to do with the particular historical processes and social contexts in which a given racial classification is used. Since Latin America is characterized by widely differing histories and social contexts, there is also wide variability in the use of the classification "white" throughout Latin America. According to Peter WadePeter Wade
Peter Wade is a British anthropologist who specializes in issues of race and ethnicity in Latin America. Peter Wade is a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. He has written numerous books and articles about the social and historical meanings of race, ethnicity and...
specialist in race concepts of Latin America "...racial categories and racial ideologies are not simply those that elaborate social constructions on the basis of phenotypical variation or ideas about innate difference but those that do so using the particular aspects of phenotypical variation that were worked into vital signifiers of difference during European colonial encounters with others."Wade, Peter. 1997. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. Critical Studies On Latin America. Pluto Press p. 15 In many parts of Latin America being white is connected more to socio-economic status than to specific phenotypic traits - and it is often said that in Latin America "Money Whitens"Levine-Rasky, Cynthia. 2002. "Working through whiteness: international perspectives. SUNY Press ( p. 73) ""Money whitens" If any phrase encapsulates the association of whiteness and the modern in Latin America, this is it. It is a cliché formulated and reformulated throughout the region, a truism dependant upon the social experience that wealth is associated with whiteness, and that in obtaining the former one may become aligned with the latter (and vice versa)"." Also within Latin America there is variation in how racial boundaries have been defined. In Argentina, for example, the notion of mixture has been downplayed resulting in the country having no real Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
group, whereas in countries like Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
the notion of mixedness has been fundamental for nation-building, resulting in a large group of Mestizos' being considered neither fully "white" nor fully non-white.
For these reasons the distinction between "white" and "mixed", and between "mixed" and "black" or "indigenous" is largely subjective and situational meaning that any attempt to quantify racial categories into discrete categories is fraught with problems.
History
More than a million Spaniards and PortuguesePortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
settled in their American colonies during the colonial period
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitans establishee in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form the metropoli arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.Presença portuguesa: de Colonizadores a Imigrantes. Text taken from the book Brasil: 500 Anos de Povoamento IBGE, 3º Capítulo "Presença portuguesa: de colonizadores a imigrantes" written by Renato Pinto Venâncio. Retrieved 26-11-2007.
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
by the time -Sefardic Jews, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries in the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
or Mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desireable.Whiteness in Latin America: Measurement and Meaning in National Censuses (1850-1950) written by Mara Loveman. Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Vol. 95-2, 2009. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 12 million immigrants arrived in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
welcomed 4.4 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
Historical demographic growth
The following chart displays estimates (in thousands) of White, Black/Mulatto, Amerindian and Mestizo population of the subcontinent from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The figures shown for the years between 1650 and 1980 are taken from The Cry of My People. Out of Captivity in Latin America, written by Esther and Mortimer Arias. New York Friendship Press, 1980. Pages 17 and 18.The Cry of My People. Out of Captivity in Latin America, escrita por Esther and Mortimer Arias. Editorial New York Friendship Press. 1980. Páginas 17 y 18. Data belonging to year 2000 are taken from Lizcano's work. Percentages are provided by the editor.| Year | White | Black | Amerindian | Mestizo | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1650 | 138 | 67 | 12,000 | 670 | 12,875 |
| Percentages | 1.1% | 0.5% | 93.2% | 5.2% | 100% |
| 1825 | 4,350 | 4,100 | 8,000 | 6,200 | 22,650 |
| Percentages | 19.2% | 18.1% | 35.3% | 27.3% | 100% |
| 1950 | 72,000 | 13,729 | 14,000 | 61,000 | 160,729 |
| Percentages | 44.8% | 8.5% | 8.7% | 37.9% | 100% |
| 1980 | 150,000 | 27,000 | 30,000 | 140,000 | 347,000 |
| Percentages | 43.2% | 7.7% | 8.6% | 40.3% | 100% |
| 2000 | 181,296 | 119,055 | 46,434 | 152,380 | 502,784 |
| Percentages | 36.1% | 23.6% | 9.2% | 30.3% | 100% |
Admixture
Since the European colonizationColonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many Latin Americans have who have Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and/or sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
n and/or, rarely, East Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
ancestry have also White ancestry. The casta
Casta
Casta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period...
classification of colonial Latin America defined a person of mixed European/Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ancestry, or Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
ancestry. A castizo
Castizo
Castizo is a Spanish word with a general meaning of "pure" or "genuine". The feminine form is castiza. From this meaning it evolved other meanings, such as "typical of an area" and it was also used for one of the colonial Spanish race categories, the castas, that evolved in the seventeenth...
was someone whose mother was European and his father a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).
As it happened in Spain, persons of Jewish or Moorish ancestry up to several generations, were not allowed to enroll at the service of the Spanish Army or the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonies. All applicants to both institutions and their spouses had to obtain a Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre
Limpieza de sangre , Limpeza de sangue or Neteja de sang , meaning "cleanliness of blood", played an important role in modern Iberian history....
certificate in the same way as those in the Peninsula did, that proved that they had no Jewish or Moorish ancestors. However, being a medieval concept that targeted exclusively those religious groups, it was never an issue among the native population in the colonies of the Spanish Empire, that by law allowed people from all racial groups to join the Army, with the only prerequisite of embracing the Catholic faith. One notable example was that of Francisco Menendez
Francisco Menendez (creole)
Francisco Menendez was a free black military leader serving the Spanish Crown in 18th century St. Augustine, Florida. He is first traceable as a slave in South Carolina who, like many of his contemporaries, escaped to St. Augustine, Florida...
, a freed black military officer of the Spanish Army during the 18th century at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose fort in St. Augustine, Florida.
Although historically both Colonial
Colonial Brazil
In the history of Brazil, Colonial Brazil, officially the Viceroyalty of Brazil comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to kingdom alongside Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.During the over 300 years...
and Imperial Brazil had institutionalized discrimination against citizens which were deemed as people of color, contrary to the common sense in its population, it never had a casta classification like that of Hispanic America. White Brazilian people in the social status equivalent to the Hispanic criollo could have less than 80% of European (overwhelmingly Portuguese, seldom Spanish and much rarely other European ethnicities) ancestry. Aside some Amerindian and Black African descent which is knowly widespread among White populations in Brazil among all social classes in its five geographic regions
Regions of Brazil
Brazil is divided into five regions by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística . These divisions are composed of states within them.-The five regions:-North Region: *Area: 3,869,637.,9 km²...
since historically early times (c. 16th to 17th centuries), Moorish, Jewish, Arab and Romani
Roma people
The Romani, who are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms, are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent...
mixed ancestry were also less significant to social status there than in Hispanic America.
It does not mean that social prestige of "fully non-whites" (people of color which are not mulattoes, mestizos, zambos, pardos, etc. in short, multiracial Brazilians
Mixed-race Brazilian
Brazilian censuses do not use a "multiracial" category. Instead, the censuses use skin colour categories, with a Pardo one, that may include people of varied "mixed racial" ancestry, but probably also accounts for non-mixed acculturated Amerindians...
, with Caucasian features i.e. Black Africans, Amerindians, their direct descendants and "westernized" Brazilians with wholly or almost fully non-Caucasian phenotypes, which also would be >70% European in their ancestry, since genes that form racial phenotypes are distributed random among the descendants of intermixing couples) and people with knowable non-European ancestry was equal, comparable or even acceptable among Brazilians elites, but that in Portuguese America, people were less concerned with ancestry and Limpeza de Sangue than its Hispanic neighbours.
Populations
In terms of absolute numbers, the largest White population in Latin America is found in BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, with 95.3 million whites out of 191.9 million total Brazilians, or 49.7% of the total population. Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
has the second largest white population, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
has the third largest. In terms of percentage of the total population, Argentina and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
have the largest white populations, with roughly 90% of their respective populations self-identified as White. Depending on the definition of "Latin America", the smallest White population is either in Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, with only 1% White, approximately 75,000 people, or in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. Guatemala's census groups both Whites and Mestizos (people of mixed White and Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of White Guatemalans is undetermined.
| Country | % local | Population (millions) |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil Demographics of Brazil Brazils population is very diverse, comprising many races and ethnic groups. In general, Brazilians trace their origins from four sources: Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians.... |
49.7 or 53.7 | 93 or 105 |
| Argentina Demographics of Argentina This article is about the demographic features of Argentina, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.... |
85 or 97 | 34 or 38 |
| Mexico Demographics of Mexico With a population 112,336,538 in 2010, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, the second-most populous country in Latin America after Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and the second in North America, after the United States. Throughout most of the twentieth century Mexico's... |
9 or 15 or ~17 | 12 or 17 or 19 |
| Chile Demographics of Chile This article is about the demographic features of Chile, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population.... |
52.7 or 90http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Latin_American#cite_note-104 | 8.8 or 16.3 |
| Colombia Demographics of Colombia This article is about the demographic features of the population of Colombia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
20 or 25 | 8.9 or 11 |
| Cuba Demographics of Cuba This article is about the demographic features of the population of Cuba, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
65.1 | 7.3 |
| Venezuela Demographics of Venezuela The Demographics of Venezuela are the condition and overview of Venezuela's peoples. Demographic topics include basic education, health, and population statistics as well as identified racial and religious affiliations.-Overview:... |
20 | 5.6 |
| Peru Demographics of Peru This article is about the demographic features of the population of Peru, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
15 | 4.4 |
| Costa Rica Demographics of Costa Rica This article is about the demographic features of the population of Costa Rica, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
82 | 3.8 |
| Puerto Rico Demographics of Puerto Rico This article is about the demographic features of the population of Puerto Rico, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
75.8 | 3.1 |
| Uruguay Demographics of Uruguay This article is about the demographic features of the population of Uruguay, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.- Origins and Ethnicity :... |
88 | 3 |
| Dominican Republic |
16 | 1.6 |
| Bolivia Demographics of Bolivia This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bolivia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
15 | 1.4 |
| Ecuador Demographics of Ecuador The Ethnography of Ecuador consists of a diverse collection of ethnic groups, almost all related to another group in one way or another. The great majority of Ecuadorans trace their origins to one or more of three geographical sources of Human migrations: the pre-Hispanic indigenous Amerindians who... |
10.4 | 1.4 |
| Paraguay Demographics of Paraguay This article is about the demographic features of the population of Paraguay, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
20 | 1.3 |
| Nicaragua Demographics of Nicaragua This article is about the demographic features of the population of Nicaragua, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.... |
17 | 1 |
Costa Rica
In Costa Rica the estimates of White people slightly vary between 77%Worldstatesmen.org: Costa Rica and 82%, or about 3.1 – 3.5 million people. Other sources estimate that White Costa Ricans -who simply self identified as "Costa Ricans"- and other European groups comprise a 78.75%The Joshua Project: Ethnic people groups of Costa Rica. of Costa Rica's population, or about 3,652,000 people. A combined ratio of 94% is given for the White and Mestizo populations by the CIA World Factbook.CIA The World Factbook: Costa Rica Costa Rican European ancestry is mostly Spanish, though there are significant numbers of Costa Ricans descended from Italian, Greek, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, Lebanese and Polish families, as well as a sizable Jewish community.El Salvador
Of the total Salvadoran population, 12%, or 545,000, is white. They are mostly of Spanish descent.Guatemala
The exact percentage of the white Guatemalan population is not known because the Guatemalan census combines mestizos and whites in one category, where they make up a combined total of 59.4%. Whites are mostly of Spanish descent, but there are also those of German, English, Italian], Scandinavian, and American descent.Some other sources place the percentage of whites at 5.1%, or about 649,000 people.
Honduras
Honduras contains perhaps the smallest percentage of whites in Latin America, with only 1% classified in this group, or up to 75,000 to 150,000 of the total population. Of these, the majority are people of Spanish descent. A white population, especially descendants of Palestinians, is found in the city of San Pedro SulaSan Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula is a city in Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country, in the Valle de Sula , about 60 km south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean. With an estimated population of 638,259 people in the main municipality, and 802,598 in its metro area , it is the second...
, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.
Nicaragua
Estelí
Estelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí is a city and municipality within the Estelí department. It is the third largest city in Nicaragua, an active commercial center in the north and is known as "the Diamond of the Segovias."...
, Jinotega
Jinotega
Jinotega is the capital of Jinotega Department in the north central region of Nicaragua.-About:The capital city of the Department of Jinotega is the City of Jinotega. The Department of Jinotega produces 80% of the nation's coffee. It has a population of about 51,000 living inside a vast valley...
, and Matagalpa
Matagalpa
Matagalpa is a city in Nicaragua, the capital of the department of Matagalpa. The city has a population of 109,100 , while the population of the department is more than 480,000. Matagalpa is Nicaragua's fifth largest city and one of its most commercially active outside of Managua...
have significant fourth generation Germans. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels, and banks. The Jews of Nicaragua are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
from Eastern Europe.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguan
Palestinian Nicaraguan
Palestinian Nicaraguan are Nicaraguans of Palestinian ancestry who were born in or have immigrated to Nicaragua...
s, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.
Panama
White Panamanians form 10%, with the Spanish being the majority. Other ancestries includes Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Portuguese, Polish and Russian.Mexico
White people in Mexico are an estimated 9%, 15%, or about 17% of Mexico's population, i.e. around 12, 17, or 19 million people. The majority of them are of Spanish descent. However, many other non-IberianIberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
Second Mexican Empire
The Second Mexican Empire was the name of Mexico under the regime established from 1864 to 1867. It was created by Napoleon III of France, who attempted to use the Mexican adventure to recapture some of the grandeur of earlier Napoleonic times...
in the 1860s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Palestine also made Mexico their home. In the 20th century, White Americans, Canadians], Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, and immigrants from other Eastern European countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, also settled in Mexico.
The northern regions of Mexico, such as the states of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
, Chihuahua and Nuevo León
Nuevo León
Nuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...
, and particularly the city of Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
, hold the greatest European genetic admixture, with roughly 50–61% European admixture among the regional population.Supporting Information Silva-Zolezzi et al. 10.1073/pnas.0903045106
The only time that the Mexican Government has asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage was in the 1921 census.RACIAL CLASSIFICATIONS IN JALISCO AND THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC – 1921 CENSUS 10% of the population answered that they were white. The Distrito Federal, in the Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
area, had the largest total of whites (206,514 of the 1.4 million nationwide), followed by Chihuahua (145,926), Sonora (115,151), Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
(114,150), and Mexico state (88,660), while in terms of percentage, the white population was most prominent in Sonora (41.85%), Chihuahua (36.33%), Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur , is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state on October 8, 1974, the area was known as the South Territory of Baja California. It has an area of , or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises...
(33.40%), Tabasco
Tabasco
Tabasco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa....
(27.56%), and Distrito Federal (22.79%).
Cuba
White people in Cuba make up about 70% of the total Cuban population, with the majority being of diverse Spanish descent. However, after the mass exodus resulting from the Cuban RevolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most white Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German
German Cuban
A German Cuban refers to Cubans of German ethnicity, or who are German-born immigrants to Cuba.-Notable people:* Steven Bauer, actor * Cameron Diaz, American actress...
, Italian and Russian descent. (from Cuban Genealogy Center) During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Canarians
Canarian people
The Canarians are an ethnic group living in the archipelago of the Canary Islands , near the coast of Western Africa...
, Catalans
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
, Andalusians
Andalusian people
The Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
, Castilians
Castilian people
The Castilian people are the inhabitants of those regions in Spain where most people identify themselves as Castilian. They include Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, and the major part of Castile and León. However, not all regions of the medieval Kingdom of Castile think of themselves as Castilian...
, and Galicians
Galician people
The Galicians are an ethnic group, a nationality whose historical homeland is Galicia in north-western Spain. Most Galicians are bilingual, speaking both their historic language, Galician, and Castilian Spanish.-Political and administrative divisions:...
emigrated to Cuba. Also, one significant ethnic influx is derived from various Middle Eastern nations. Many Jews have also immigrated there, some of them Sephardic. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist regime took power
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
.
Dominican Republic
The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of increasing the white population, or "whitening
Racial whitening
Racial Whitening or "Whitening" is an ideology that was widely accepted in Brazil between 1889 and 1914, as the solution to the "Negro problem." Supporters of the Whitening ideology believed that the Negro race would advance culturally and genetically, or even disappear totally, within several...
" the racial composition of the country by rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. He also welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s as part of this plan. The country's German minority is the largest in the Caribbean.http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Laender/DominikanischeRepublik.html
Some notable White Dominicans include Juan Luis Guerra
Juan Luis Guerra
Juan Luis Guerra is a singer, songwriter and producer from the Dominican Republic who has sold over 30 million records, and won numerous awards including 12 Latin Grammy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Latin Billboard Music Awards...
, 2003 Miss Universe Amelia Vega
Amelia Vega
Amelia Vega Polanco became the first and only Dominican woman to be named Miss Universe, in 2003. At the age of 18, she was the youngest winner since 1994....
, Miss Dominican Republic 2010 Eva Arias
Eva Arias
-External links:*...
, world known fashion designer Oscar De La Renta
Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta is one of the world's leading fashion designers. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1973.-Career:...
, singer and television presenter Charytín Goyco, former Dominican president Hipólito Mejía
Hipólito Mejía
Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez is a Dominican politician and former President of the Dominican Republic...
, and painter Guillo Pérez.
Haiti
The Mulatto and the White population of HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
make up about 5%.CIA World Factbook : Haiti. Most of the white Haitians are descendants of French settlers, although most French left following the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
of 1791–1804, which resulted in Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
's independence as the Republic of Haiti. The white community had numbered 32,000 in 1789. There are also white Haitians that are descendants of Irish, Danes, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Poles, Portuguese, Russians and Syrians. The country has also small numbers of Haitians of Spanish descent, who are the descendants of the first settlers on the whole of Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
before French rule came to Haiti.
Martinique
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include MartiniqueWhite people in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
represent 5% of the population, as Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
is an overseas French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
department, most whites are French.
Martinique: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA
Puerto Rico
White Puerto Ricans of European, mostly Spanish descent, are said to comprise the majority with 75.8% of the population identifying as white.2010.census.gov In the year 1899, one year after the U.S invaded and took control of the island, 61.8% of people identified as WhiteWhite people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
. For the first time in fifty years, the 2000 United States Census asked people to define their race. One hundred years later, the total has risen to 80.5% (3,064,862), less than one percent more than reported in 1950.Puerto Rico's History on race
From the beginning of the twentieth century American observers remarked on the "surprising preponderance of the white race" on the island. One travel writer called Puerto Rico "the whitest of the Antilles". In a widely distributed piece, a geologist, wrote that the island was "notable among the West Indian group for the reason that its preponderant population is of the white race." In a more academic book he reiterated that "Porto Rico, at least, has not become Africanized
Africanization
Africanization or Africanisation has been applied in various contexts, notably in naming and in the composition of staff.-Africanization of names:...
.Representation of racial identity among Puerto Ricans and in the u.s. mainland
During the 19th century, hundreds of Corsica
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of various economic and political changes in the mid-19th century Europe; among those factors were the social-economic changes which came about in Europe as a result of the Second Industrial Revolution, political discontent and widespread...
n, French
French immigration to Puerto Rico
The French immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of the economic and political situations which occurred in various places such as Louisiana , Saint-Domingue and in Europe....
, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Asturias
Asturias
The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...
, Galicia, the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
, Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, and the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish
Irish immigration to Puerto Rico
From the 16th to the 19th century, there was considerable Irish immigration to Puerto Rico, for a number of reasons. During the 16th century many Irishmen, who were known as "Wild Geese," fled the English Army and joined the Spanish Army. Some of these men were stationed in Puerto Rico and...
, Scots, Germans
German immigration to Puerto Rico
German immigration to Puerto Rico increased when German businessmen immigrated to Puerto Rico during the early part of the 19th century. However, it was the economic and political situation in Europe during the early 19th century plus, the fact that the Spanish Crown issued the Royal Decree of...
, Italians, and thousands of others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
Royal Decree of Graces of 1815
The Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 is a legal order approved by the Spanish Crown in the early half of the 19th century to encourage Spaniards and later Europeans of non-Spanish origin to settle and populate the colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico....
), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. After the United States took possession of Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, an influx of Jews
Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico
The Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage...
and White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
s began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
’s rule in Spain.
Saint Barthélemy
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include Saint BarthélemyMost of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
and Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
.Fact Sheet on St. Barthélemy
Argentina
, 85%, or even up to 86.4% of the total population. These percentages would rise up to 86.1%, 87.8% or 89.7% if the Non-European Caucasian groups (Jews and Arabs) are also counted. Summing up, These percentages would result in an estimated population of 34-36 million White people in Argentina. The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated; either it counts both White and Mestizo population all together, or it is the result of the successful campaign implemented by Argentina's ruling elite in the early 20th century to present "a White country". In the survey conducted by Cohesión Social mentioned in the introduction, 63% of the Argentinian interviewed identified themselves as "White". Other articles state that 75%-80% of Argentina's population might be White.
White Argentines may live in any part of the country, but their concentration is greater especially in the central-eastern region called Pampas, the southern region called Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...
, and in the central-western region called Cuyo
Cuyo (Argentina)
Cuyo is the name given to the wine-producing, mountainous area of central-west Argentina. Historically it comprised the provinces of San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza. The term New Cuyo is a modern one, which indicates both Cuyo proper and the province of La Rioja...
.Their concentration is smaller in the north-eastern region called Litoral
Mesopotamia, Argentina
La Mesopotamia, Región Mesopotámica is the humid and verdant area of north-east Argentina, comprising the provinces of Misiones, Entre Ríos and Corrientes. The region called Litoral consists of the Mesopotamia and the provinces of Chaco, Formosa and Santa Fe...
and much lesser in the north-western provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
, Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
, Tucumán
Tucumán Province
Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...
, Catamarca
Catamarca Province
Catamarca is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province has a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km². Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are : Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, and La Rioja...
, La Rioja
La Rioja Province (Argentina)
La Rioja is a one of the provinces of Argentina and is located in the west of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Catamarca, Córdoba, San Luis and San Juan.-History:...
and Santiago del Estero
Santiago del Estero Province
Santiago del Estero is a province of Argentina, located in the north of the country. Neighbouring provinces are from the north clockwise Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca and Tucumán.-History:...
, This is because these provinces were the most densely populated region of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
people) before the immigratory wave of 1857-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least.Los hombres barbados en la América precolombina: razas indígenas americanas. Escrito por Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso. página 10. Editorial Kier. Buenos Aires, 1997.During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Perú
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...
, and the provinces of Salta
Salta Province
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
and Jujuy
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.-History:...
has significantly decreased as well.
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
between the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, and in smaller proportion from Spaniards of the colonial period. Out of the total estimation of 437,669 Spaniards who settled in the American Spanish colonies
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
during the period 1506-1650 made by M. Möner, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman estimated that a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares established in the Río de la Plata region. The colonial censuses conducted after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata showed that the proportion of Spaniards and Criollo
Criollo
Criollo is a Spanish term that may refer to:-Groups of people and animals:* Criollo people, a caste in the Spanish race-based colonial caste system* Criollo horse, a South American horse breed...
s was very significant in the cities and surrounding countryside, but not so much in the rural areas. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
Juan José de Vértiz
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo was a Spanish colonial politician born in New Spain, and Viceroy of the Río de la Plata.-Biography:...
in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo
Cuyo (Argentina)
Cuyo is the name given to the wine-producing, mountainous area of central-west Argentina. Historically it comprised the provinces of San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza. The term New Cuyo is a modern one, which indicates both Cuyo proper and the province of La Rioja...
in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
(city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
In 1822, a census was conducted in the city of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
; it showed that the city had then 55,416 inhabitants, of which 40,000 were White (about 72.2%). Of this total of Whites, a 90% were Criollos, a 5% were Spaniards, and the other 5% were from other European nations.Argentina 200 Años. Vol. 9 1820-1830. Editor José Alemán. Arte Gráfico Editorial Argentino. Buenos Aires. 2010. This figure differs substantially with an estimate by Italo-Argentine sociologist José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros was an Argentine physician, pharmaceutic, positivist philosopher and essayist.He was born Giuseppe Ingegneri in Palermo , and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in 1900...
, which stated that in 1826 the Argentine territory was populated by 630,000 people, of whom only 13,000 were White; if this figures were correct, Whites comprised a mere 1.66% of the total.Argentina en marcha, Volumen 1. Comisión Nacional de Cooperación Intelectual. 1947.
“Para 1826 se admiten 630.000 almas, así repartidas, según Ingenieros: Blancos extranjeros 5.000, Blancos argentinos 8.000, Indios 132.000, Mestizos 400.000, Negros…”
According to historian John W. White's estimate, those percentages had barely changed by 1852; out of a total 785,000 inhabitants, a 22,000 were White -a 2,8%- divided in 15,000 Criollos and 7,000 Europeans.Argentina, the Life Story of a Nation. escrito por John W. White, Viking Press (1942), página 124. Citado en World's Great Men of Colour escrito por Joel Augustus Rogers y John Henrik Clarke, editorial Touchstone (1996), página 191. In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero
Baradero
Baradero is the oldest town of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, being founded in 1615. It is the head town of the Baradero Partido.It is located on the bank of the Baradero River which is a tributary of the Paraná River.-External links:...
granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza
Esperanza, Santa Fe
Esperanza is a city in the center of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It has about 36,000 inhabitants as of the and it is the head town of the Las Colonias Department....
, Santa Fe
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
. During the 1860s and 1870s, Presidents Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre Martínez was an Argentine statesman, military figure, and author. He was the President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868.-Life and times:...
, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva was an Argentine politician and journalist, and president of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education reform, leading to Argentina's economic growth...
implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina.
Data provided by Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (National Bureau of Migrations) states that the country received a total 6,611,000 European and Middle Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940.Yale immigration study The main immigrant group were the 2,970,000 Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
arrived in the period (44.9% of the total); initially they came from Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
and Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, and later from Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
.Federaciones Regionales. The second group in importance were the Spaniards, some 2,080,000 (31.4% of the total); They were mostly Galicians and Basques, but also Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalonians
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
and Andalucians). In smaller but significant numbers arrived Frenchmen from Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
(239,000, 3.6% of the total) and Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(180,000 – 2.7%). From the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
came some 177,000 people (2.6%); they were not only ethnic Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, but also Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Belarussians, Volga Germans, Lithuanians
Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
, etc. From the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
the contributors were mainly Armenians
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
and Arabs (mostly from Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
), some 174,000 in all (2.6%). Very closely in numbers come the immigrants from the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, some 152,000 (2.2%). From the Austro-Hungarian Empire came 111,000 people (1.6%), among them Austríans
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Hungarians
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Croatians
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Bosniaks, Serbs
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Rutenians and Montenegrins
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
. Among the 75,000 British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
immigrants there were many people from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, but mosto f them were Irish people
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
who were escaping the Potato famine
Potato famine
Potato famine may refer to:* Great Famine , the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1852* Highland Potato Famine, a major agrarian crisis in the Scottish Highlands from 1846 to 1857...
or the British rule. Other minor groups were the Portuguese (65,000), the Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
s from ex-Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
(48,000), the Suiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(44,000), the Belgians
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
(26,000), the Danes
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
(18,000), the White American
White American
White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
s (12.000), the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(10,000), and the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
(7,000). Even colonishts from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and Boers from South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
can be found in the Argentine immigration records.
The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), and about 15-20% from Sephardic groups from Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
In the 1910s, when the immigration rate reached its peak, more than 30% of Argentina’s population was born in Europe, and over half of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
city’s population was born abroad. According to the 1914 National Census, the 80% out of a total population of 7.903.662 people were either Europeans, or their children and grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (the descendants of the residing population previous to the immigratory wave), about a third were White. Put down in numbers, that meant that an 86.6% or about 6.8 million people residing in Argentina were White.History of Argentina, de Ricardo.Levene. University of North Carolina Press, 1937. European immigration continued accounting for over half the population growth of the nation during the 1920s, and in smaller waves after the Second World War. Many Europeans migrated in Argentina after the great conflict, escaping hunger and destruction. According to the Argentine records, 392.603 people from the Old World entered the country in the 1940s. In the following decade, the flow diminished because the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
improved Europe’s economy, and emigration was not such a necessity; even then, immigratory records state that between 1951 and 1970 other 256,252 Europeans entered Argentina. From the 1960s onwards, when it comprised 76.1% of the total, increasing immigration from the northern bordering countries (Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
)Inmigración, Cambio Demográfico y Desarrollo Industrial en la Argentina. Alfredo Lattes y Ruth Sautu. Cuaderno Nº 5 del CENEP (1978). Citado en Argentina: 1516-1982 From Spanish Colonisation to the Falklands War by David Rock. University of California Press, 1987. ISBN 0-520-05189-0 has significantly increased the process of Mestizaje in certain areas of Argentina, especially the Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires
Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...
. This is mainly because the aforementioned countries have Amerindian and Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
majorities.
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its allies, the governments of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 526 were Romanians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Georgians
Georgian people
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
, Moldovans, and Poles, and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport.Recent Migration from Central and Eastern Europe to Argentina, a Special Treatment? (Spanish) by María José Marcogliese. Revista Argentina de Sociología, 2003. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning.Ukrainians, Russians and Armenians, from professionals to security guardians. (Spanish) by Florencia Tateossian. Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2001.
Beyond all the changes that this massive immigratory wave brought about in Argentina's demography and ethnic composition, it must not be forgotten the great influence that all these European immigrants and their descendants have exerted –even nowadays- on Argentine culture: The Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
variety spoken in most of Argentina, the Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish or River Plate Spanish is a dialectal variant of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin of Argentina and Uruguay, and also in Rio Grande do Sul, although features of the dialect are shared with the varieties of Spanish spoken...
, has entonation patterns heavily influenced by the southern dialects of the Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, especially the Napolitan dialect.Napolitans and porteños, united by the accent. Diario La Nación. Almost all the sports practiced nowadays in Argentina were brought by European immigrants (particularly the British), such as football,History of a Might House. (Spanish) Diario Clarín, Buenos Aires, 21 Febrero 2003. rugby, golf,Welcome Argentina: Golf tennis, cycling, car racing, etc. Great glories of the Argentine sport, as Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio , nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro , was a racing car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing...
F1 Fanatics: Juan Manuel Fangio or Nicolino Locche
Nicolino Locche
Nicolino Locche was an Argentine boxer from Tunuyán, Mendoza. He was of Italian origin, with his ancestors coming from Sardinia...
Locche. El último amague. Diario Clarín, 8 September 2005. had direct European ancestry.
Regarding music, tango genre appeared partly due to Italian and Spanish influence,Comienzos del Tango. por Jorge Gutman. De Norte a Sur (Noticiero Online). Año 21, Nº 241. Septiembre 2001. and the top artists of the genre had French (Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel was a singer, songwriter and actor, and is perhaps the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was born in Toulouse, France, although he never acknowledged his birthplace publicly, and there are still claims of his birth in Uruguay. He lived in Argentina from the age of two...
Carlos Gardel: Síntesis de su vida y trayectoria. por Pablo Taboada. Todo Tango.), Italian (Astor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
Ástor Piazzolla Associazione musicale culturale Domenico Sarro (Italiano)) or Basque ancestry (Roberto Goyeneche
Roberto Goyeneche
Roberto Goyeneche was an Argentine tango singer of Basque descent, who epitomized the archetype of 1950s Buenos Aires' bohemian life, and became a living legend in the local music scene.He was known as El Polaco due to his blond hair, and thinness, like the Polish immigrants of the time...
El Tango y los Vascos.). Inside the folklore genre, the most Europe-influenced rhythm is the chamamé,Historia de la Música folclórica de Argentina with important musicians such as Chango Spasiuk
Chango Spasiuk
Horacio "Chango" Spasiuk is an Argentine chamamé musician and accordion player.Of Ukrainian grandparents, El Chango had a strong Polka music influence from his early days; Eastern European musical influences were also already present in the chamamé music of the region...
–with Ukrainian ancestryChango Spasiuk Estación Tierra.- or Soledad Pastorutti
Soledad Pastorutti
Soledad "La Sole" Pastorutti is an Argentine folk singer, who brought the genre to the younger generations at the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st....
–with Italian ancestry-. Among the best singer-songwriters of the Argentine rock
Argentine rock
Argentine rock , is composed or made by Argentine bands or artists, in the Spanish language. For nearly half a century it has been a major popular genre, and it is considered part of the popular music tradition of Argentina alongside Argentine Tango, and Argentine folk music.The moment when...
we may find plenty of Euro-descendants: Charly García
Charly García
Charly García is a singer-songwriter, pianist and keyboardist from Argentina with a long career in rock music, forming successful groups such as Sui Generis and Serú Girán, cult status groups like La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros, and as a solo musician.-Early years:Charly García was the eldest son in...
, Fito Páez
Fito Páez
Rodolfo "Fito" Páez Ávalos is an Argentine popular rock and roll pianist, lyricist, Spanish language singer and film director.-Early career:...
, León Gieco
León Gieco
Raúl Alberto Antonio Gieco, better known as León Gieco is a pop-folk music composer and interpreter. He is known for mixing popular folkloric genres with Argentine rock, and for lyrics with social and political connotations...
, Pappo
Pappo
-, 1968:-, 1969:# # # # # # # # # -Rock de la mujer perdida, 1970:...
, Andres Calamaro
Andrés Calamaro
Andrés Calamaro , is an Argentine musician, composer and Latin Grammy winner. His former band Los Rodríguez was a major success in Spain in the 1990s. He became one of the main icons of the Argentine rock in the last two decades and has sold over 1.3 million copies.-Abuelos de la Nada:Calamaro was...
, Alejandro Lerner
Alejandro Lerner
Alejandro Federico Lerner is an Argentine musician and singer-songwriter. He has written and sang countless songs including several hits, and his fame and recognition spread all over South America....
, David Lebón, Litto Nebbia
Litto Nebbia
Litto Nebbia is a singer, songwriter and producer prominent in the development of Argentine rock.-Life and work:Félix Francisco Nebbia was born in Rosario to Martha and Félix Nebbia, in 1948. His parents were struggling musicians, though during his early teens, Litto left secondary school to join...
and Gustavo Cerati
Gustavo Cerati
Gustavo Adrián Cerati Clark is an Argentine rock musician, singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. He was the frontman, lead vocalist, lead guitarist and lead songwriter of the Argentine rock band Soda Stereo, one of the most influential bands of latin rock music. In the early 90s, with...
, among many others.
Recent genetic studies have demonstrated that up to 40% of the Argentinians who can be considered phenotypically White may have partial Amerindian or Black African
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
ancestry. The first study on the matter was conducted by genetist Daniel Corach, from University of Buenos Aires
University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 4 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos...
in 2005. The results of this study in which DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor.Estructura genética de la Argentina, Impacto de contribuciones genéticas - Ministerio de Educación de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Nación. (Spanish) Nevertheless, the study clarified that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian.
On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African.Mezcla génica en una muestra poblacional de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Avena, Sergio A., Goicochea, Alicia S., Rey, Jorge et al. (2006). Medicina (Buenos Aires), mar./abr. 2006, vol.66, no.2, p.113-118. ISSN 0025-7680.
The most recent study on the matter was conducted by another team led by Daniel Corach in 2009, analyzing 246 samples from eight provinces and three different regions of the country. The results were as follows: The analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA revealed a 94.1% of European contribution (a little higher than the 90% of the 2005 study), and only 4.9% and 0.9% of Native American and Black African contribution, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
analysis showed again a great Amerindian contribution by maternal lineage, a 53.7% -though a little lower than the 56% of the 2005 study-, a little higher 44.3% of European contribution, and only 2% African contribution. The study of 24 Autosomal markers also proved a large European contribution of 78.6%, against 17.3% of Ameridian and 4.1% Black African contributions. The samples were compared with three assumed parental populations, and the MDS analysis plot resulting showed that "most of the Argentinean samples clustered with or closest to Europeans, some appeared between Europeans and Native Americans indicating some degree of genetic admixture between these two groups, three samples clustered close to Native Americans, and no Argentinean sampled appeared close to Africans".Inferring Continental Ancestry of Argentineans from Autosomal, Y-Chromosomal and Mitochondrial DNA by Daniel Corach, Oscar Lao, Cecilia Bobillo, Kristiaan Van Der Gaag, Sofia Zuniga, Mark Vermeulen, Kate Van Duijn, Miriam Goedbloed, Peter M. Vallone, Walther Parson, Peter De Knijff, Manfred Kayser. First published on-line: 15 Dec 2009. Annals of Human Genetics;
Volume 74, Issue 1, pages 65-76, January 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.2009.00556.x © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/University College London.How Argentina Became White. Magazine Discover: Science, Technology and the Future.
Bolivia
White people in Bolivia make up 15% of the nation's population, or up to 1.4 million. The white population consists mostly of criolloCriollo (people)
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
s, which consist of families of unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists
History of Bolivia
This is the history of Bolivia. See also the history of Latin America and the history of the Americas.Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America...
and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano S.A. was an airline serving as flag carrier of Bolivia. It operated domestic and international flights, aiming at passenger as well as cargo transport. LAB was active for more than 80 years, having been based in Cochabamba most of the time, with Cochabamba Airport being an...
, as well as Italians
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
, Americans, Basques, Lebanese, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.
Brazil
Brazil is one of the few countries in Latin America that includes racial categories in its censuses: Branco (White), Preto (Black), Pardo (Brown, multiracial), Amarelo (Yellow) and Indígena (Amerindian); categorization is made by sel-identification. Taking into account the data provided by the last National Household Survey conducted in 2008, Brazil would possess the most numerous White population in Latin America, given that a 48,43% -92 million people- of Brazilians self-declared "Brancos". Comparing this survey with previous censuses, a slow but constant decrease in the percentages of self-identified White Brazilians can be noticed: in the 2000 Census it was 53.7%;Brazil: People: Ethnic Groups.World Statesmen.org: Brazil but in the 2006 Household Survey it was 49.9% and in the last 2008 survey it diminished even more, down to current 48.4%. Some analists consider that this decreasing is due to the fact that more Brazilians reappreciate their African ancestry and then they re-classify themselves as "Pardos".White Brazilian population is spread all over the national territory, but it is concentrated in the four southernmost states, where a 79,6% of the population self-identify as White.
The states with more White people are: Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina is the name of several places :-Places:Brazil*Santa Catarina , one of that country's federal states...
(85,7%), Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
(81,4%), Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
(71,3%) y São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
(70.4%). Other four states have significant proportions of Whites; and they are: Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro (state)
Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
(55,8%), Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
(51,6%), Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
(44,2%) y Goiás
Goiás
Goiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...
(40,1%).http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/tabela/protabl.asp?c=262&i=P&nome=on¬arodape=on&tab=262&unit=0&pov=1&opc1=1&poc2=1&OpcTipoNivt=1&opn1=0&nivt=0&orc86=3&poc1=1&orp=6&qtu3=27&opv=1&poc86=1&sec1=0&opc2=1&pop=1&opn2=0&orv=2&orc2=5&qtu2=5&sev=1000093&opc86=1&sec2=0&opp=1&opn3=1&sec86=2776&ascendente=on&sep=17795&orn=1&qtu7=9&orc1=4&qtu1=1&cabec=on&pon=1&OpcCara=44&proc=1&opn7=0&decm=99IBGE. PNAD 2009. População residente, por cor ou raça, situação e sexo]
By the time Brazil became independent, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had already left for Brazil, most of them male colonial settlers from Portugal.The Phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages Rich immigrants, who established the first sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
and Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
, and, on the other hand, banished New Christian
New Christian
New Christian was a term used to refer to Iberian Jews and Muslims who converted to Roman Catholicism, and their known baptized descendants. The term was introduced by the Old Christians of Iberia who wanted to distinguish themselves from the conversos...
s and Gypsies fleeing from religious persecution were among the early settlers. In the 18th century, an estimated 600,000 Portuguese arrived, including wealthier immigrants, as well as poor peasants attracted by the Brazil Gold Rush
Brazil Gold Rush
The Brazil Gold Rush was a gold rush that started in the 1690s, in the then-Portuguese colony, now the nation of Brazil. The rush opened up the major gold-producing area of Ouro Preto , then the aptly named Vila Rica .The rush began when bandeirantes discovered large gold deposits in the mountains...
that was going on in Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
.Século XVIII
After its independence, declared by emperor Pedro II in 1822, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
began several campaigns to attract European immigrants, shaped by a manifest policy of Branqueamento (Whitening). During the 19th century the slave labour force was gradually replaced by European immigrants, especially Italians. This happened particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of slave traffic in the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and the growth of coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
plantations in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
region.Fim da escravidão gera medidas de apoio a imigração no Brasil – 16/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil.Café atrai imigrante europeu para o Brasil – 22/02/2005 – Resumos | História do Brasil. European immigration had its momentum peak between mid-19th century and mid-20th century, when nearly five million Europeans migrated to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, most of themItalians, Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
s, Spaniards, Pole
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
s, Lithuanian
Lithuanian
Lithuanian may refer to:* Lithuanian cuisine* Anything related to Lithuania* Anything related to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania* The Lithuanian people* The Lithuanian language...
s, and Ukrainian
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine* The Ukrainians, people from Ukraine or of Ukrainian descent.* Something relating to Ukrainian culture....
s. Between 1877 and 1903, 1,927,992 inmigrantes entered Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, an average of 71.000 people per year. The process reached it peak in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was caracterized by an intense arrival of Italians (58.5%) and a lower income of Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(20%).
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
immigrants rose to the second place because of the poverty that was affecting millions of rural workers; IBGE espanhóis Germans
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupy the fourth place in the list; they arrived especially during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, due to poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
caused by the First World War. .A assimilação dos imigrantes como questão nacional From 1914 to 1918, the entrance of Europeans of other ethnicities increased; among these were people from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, who emigrated in the 1920s, probably because of politic persecution. Other peoples migrated from the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, especially Arabs from what now is Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
. . Summarizing, estimates afirm that during the period 1821-1932, Brazil received 4.431.000 European immigrants.
After the end of Second World War, European immigration diminished significantly, though between 1931 and 1963 1.1 million immigrants entered Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, mostly Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. . Besides, by the mid-1970s, many Portuguese emigrated to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
after the independence of the African colonies: Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
and Guinea Bissau; some also migrated from Macao
Mação
Mação is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 400.0 km² and a total population of 7,763 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of eight parishes, and is located in the Santarém District....
, because of the dictatorship installed there.Portuguese Immigration (History)Flight from Angola, The Economist, August 16, 1975
A comprehensive genetic study presented by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research found that. on average, 'White' Brazilians have >70% European genomic ancestry, whereas 'black' Brazilians have 37.1% European genomic ancestry. It concluded that "The high ancestral variability observed in Whites and Blacks suggests that each Brazilian has a singular and quite individual proportion of European, African and Amerindian ancestry in his/her mosaic genomes. Thus, the only possible basis to deal with genetic variation in Brazilians is not by considering them as members of colour groups, but on a person-by-person basis, as 190 million human beings, with singular genome and life histories".http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0100-879X2009005000026&script=sci_arttext#Abstract
Chile
In 2011, Chile had an estimated population of 16.9 million, of which 95.4% consists of whites and mestizos.CIA World Factbook - Chile One source estimates that 52.7% of Chileans are white, while another asserts that more than 90% of the Chilean populationChilean people
Chilean people, or simply Chileans, are the native citizens and long-term immigrants of Chile. Chileans are mainly of Spanish and Amerindian descent, with small but significant traces of 19th and 20th century European immigrant origin...
is white.Bosque Maurel, Joaquín.LA ETAPA IBÉRICA EN EL PASADO DE LA MUNDIALIZACIÓN / GLOBALIZACIÓN (1492 – 1825) "Argentina, como Chile y Uruguay, su población está formada casi exclusivamente por una población blanca procedente del sur de Europa – más del 90 por 100 ... (E. García Zarza, 1992, 19)." Chile's various waves of immigrants consisted of Spanish, Italian, Irish, French
French Chilean
A French Chilean is an Chilean citizen of full or partial French ancestry. Between 1840 and 1940, 20,000 to 25,000 French people immigrated to Chile...
, Greek
Greeks in Chile
The Greek community in Chile are estimated to number from 90,000 to 120,000 and reside either in the Santiago area or in the Antofagasta area, mostly.-Immigration:...
, German, English, Scottish, Croat and Palestinian
Palestinian Chilean
The Palestinian community in Chile is believed to be the largest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world. Estimates of the number of Palestinian descendants in Chile range from 350,000 to 500,000...
arrivals.
One of the largest groups in Chile arrived from Spain and the Basque regions in the south of France. Estimates of the number of descendants from Basques in Chile range from 10% (1,600,000) to as high as 27% (4,500,000).vascos Ainara Madariaga:
Autora del estudio "Imaginarios vascos desde Chile La construcción de imaginarios vascos en Chile durante el siglo XX".Basques au Chili.Contacto Interlingüístico e intercultural en el mundo hispano.instituto valenciano de lenguas y culturas. Universitat de València Cita: " Un 20% de la población chilena tiene su origen en el País Vasco". La población chilena con ascendencia vasca bordea entre el 15% y el 20% del total, por lo que es uno de los países con mayor presencia de emigrantes venidos de Euskadi.El 27% de los chilenos son descendientes de emigrantes vascos. DE LOS VASCOS, OÑATI Y LOS ELORZA Waldo Ayarza Elorza. Presencia vasca en Chile.
In 1848 an important and substantial German immigration took place, laying the foundation for the German-Chilean
German-Chilean
German Chileans are an important ethnic group in Chile; they are Chileans of German descent deriving their German ethnicity from one or both parents – they also include a minority of German citizens holding permanent residency in Chile...
community. Sponsored by the Chilean government for the colonization of the southern region, the Germans (including German-speaking Swiss, Silesians
Silesians
Silesians , are the inhabitants of Silesia in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. A small diaspora community also exists in Karnes County, Texas in the USA....
, Alsatians
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
and Austrians
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
), strongly influenced the cultural and racial composition of the southern provinces of Chile. The Chilean Embassy in Germany estimated 500,000 to 600,000 Chileans are of German origin.German Embassy in Chile.
Note that Israelis, both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of the nation of Israel may be included. Chile is home to a large population of immigrants, mostly Christian, from the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
.Arab. Roughly 500,000 Palestinian descendants are believed to reside in Chile.Chile: Palestinian refugees arrive to warm welcome. 500,000 descendientes de primera y segunda generación de palestinos en Chile. Santiago de Chile es un modelo de convivencia palestino-judía.Exiling Palestinians to Chile. Chile tiene la comunidad palestina más grande fuera del mundo árabe, unos 500.000 descendientes.
Other historically significant immigrant groups include: Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
whose number of descendants today is estimated to be 380,000 persons, the equivalent of 2.4% of the population. Diaspora Croata..Splitski osnovnoškolci rođeni u Čileu. Other authors claim, on the other hand, that close to 4.6% of the Chilean population must have some Croatian ancestry
Croatian diaspora
Croatian diaspora refers to the Croatian communities that have formed outside Croatia.Estimates on its size are only approximate because of incomplete statistical records and naturalization, but estimates suggest that the Croatian diaspora numbers between a third and a half of the total number of...
.hrvatski. Over 700,000 Chileans may have British (English, Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
and Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
) origin. 4.5% of Chile's population. Chileans of Greek descent are estimated 90,000 to 120,000. Embajada de Grecia en Chile. Most of them live either in the Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
area or in the Antofagasta
Antofagasta
Antofagasta is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2002 census, the city has a population of 296,905...
area, and Chile is one of the 5 countries with the most descendants of Greeks in the world. Griegos de Chile The descendants of Swiss add 90,00090,000 descendants Swiss in Chile. and it is estimated that about 5% of the Chilean population
Demographics of Chile
This article is about the demographic features of Chile, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population....
has some French ancestry. 5% de los chilenos tiene origen frances 600,000 to 800,000 are descendants of Italians. Other groups of European descendants have followed, but are found in smaller numbers. They did transform the country culturally, economically and politically.
Colombia
The white Colombian population is approximately 20% of the total population. White Colombians are mostly descendants of Spaniards. Italian, Russians, Lithuanian, German, British, French, Belgian, Irish, Portuguese, and Lebanese (Arab diaspora in ColombiaArab diaspora in Colombia
The Arab diaspora in Colombia refers to the Arab immigrants and their offspring in the Republic of Colombia. Most of the Middle Easterners came from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine escaping from the repression of the Ottoman Empire and financial hardships...
) Colombians are found in notable numbers.
The Colombian Paisa Region
Paisa Region
The Paisas are a people who inhabit a region over the northwest Colombia in the Andes.The region is formed by the departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío. Some regions of Valle del Cauca Department and Tolima Department belong to the cultural identity of paisas...
received a strong immigration wave from Spain (Basques, and others from Extremadura
Extremadura
Extremadura is an autonomous community of western Spain whose capital city is Mérida. Its component provinces are Cáceres and Badajoz. It is bordered by Portugal to the west...
and Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
) during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
Ecuador
In Ecuador being white Ethnic is more a designator of social class than of ethnicity. Classifying oneself as white is often used to claim membership to the middle class and to distance oneself from the lower class which is associated with racial status as "indian". For this reason status as "blanco" can be claimed by people who are not primarily of European heritage.Levinson, David. 1998. Ethnic groups worldwide: a ready reference handbook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 346. "Blanco or White is more a social-class designation than an ethnic one, as identification as a Blanco is based on a combination of white skin color, European features, speaking Spanish, residence in the western part of the nation (especially in a city), and enough wealth or education to be classified as middle or upper class. However, in some rural regions, Mestizos refer to themselves as Blancos, to distinguish themselves from Native Americans and Quechua speakers. Blancos form the ruling elite in Ecuador, and categorization as a Blanco is considered desirable by people of full or partial European descent.White Ecuadorians, mostly criollos, descendants of Spanish colonists and also Spanish refugees fleeing the 1936—1939 Spanish Civil War, account for 7%, or approximately 960,000, of the Ecuadorian population. Most still hold large amounts of lands, mainly in the northern Sierra, and live in Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
or Guayaquil
Guayaquil
Guayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...
. There is also a large number of white people in Cuenca
Cuenca, Ecuador
Cuenca is the capital of the Azuay Province. It is located in the highlands of Ecuador at about 2500 m above sea level...
, a city in the southern Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
of Ecuador, due to the arrival of Frenchmen in the area, in order to measure the arc of the Earth. Cuenca, Loja
Loja, Ecuador
Loja is the capital of Ecuador's Loja Province. It is located in the Cuxibamba valley in the south of the country, sharing borders with the provinces of Zamora-Chinchipe and El Oro, and with Peru in the south...
, and the Galápagos
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
attracted German immigration during the early 20th century, and the Galápagos also had a small Norwegian fishing community until they were asked to leave.
French Guiana
Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include French Guiana12% of the population, mostly French.
French Guiana: People: Ethnic Groups. World Factbook of CIA
Paraguay
Ethnically, culturally, and socially, Paraguay has one of the most homogeneous populations in South America. Because of José Gaspar Rodríguez de FranciaJosé Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia
200px|right|thumb|José Gaspar Rodríguez de FranciaDr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia y Velasco was the first leader of Paraguay following its independence from Spain...
's policy that no white Spaniards and Europeans may intermarry (they could only marry blacks, mulattoes, mestizos or the native Guaraní) established in 1814, a measure taken to avoid white supremacy being established in Paraguay (De Francia believed that all men were equal as well), it was within little more than one generation that most of the population were of mixed racial origin. The exact percentage of the white Paraguayan population is not known because the Paraguayan census does not include racial or ethnic identification, save for the indigenous population,Paraguayan Census form which reached 1.7% of the country's total in the last census in 2002.II CENSO NACIONAL INDÍGENA DE POBLACIÓN Y VIVIENDAS 2002. Pueblos Indígenas del Paraguay. Resultados Finales Other sources estimate the other groups. The mestizo population is estimated at 95% by the CIA World Factbook, and all other groups at 5%. Thus, Whites and the remaining groups (Asians, Afro-Paraguayans, others, if any) combine for approximately 3.3% of the total population. The majority of whites are of Spanish descent with others being of Italian, German, or of other European descent.
Peru
White Peruvians represent 15% of the population, or 4.4 million people according to the CIA Factbook. They are descendants primarily of Spanish colonists, and also of Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War; after World War II many German refuges fled to Peru and settled in large cities, while many others descend from IItalian, French (mainly Basques), Austrian or German, Portuguese, British, Russians, Croats, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Syrian immigrant families. The majority of the whites live in the largest cities, concentrated usually in the northern coastal cities of TrujilloTrujillo, Peru
Trujillo, in northwestern Peru, is the capital of the La Libertad Region, and the third largest city in Peru. The urban area has 811,979 inhabitants and is an economic hub in northern Peru...
, Chiclayo
Chiclayo
Chiclayo is the capital city of the Lambayeque region in northern Peru. It is located 13 kilometers inland from the Pacific coast and 770 kilometers from the nation's capital, Lima...
, Piura
Piura
Piura is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Piura Region and the Piura Province. The population is 377,496.It was here that Spanish Conqueror Francisco Pizarro founded the third Spanish city in South America and first in Peru, San Miguel de Piura, in July 1532...
, and of course the capital Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
. The only southern city with a significant white population is Arequipa
Arequipa
Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 836,859 it is the second most populous city of the country...
. To the north Cajamarca
Cajamarca (city)
- Education :Cajamarca is home to two universities. is a public university while Universidad Privada Antonio Guillermo Urrelo is a private one, additionally another 4 universities have branches in town , Universidad San Pedro, , Universidad Los Angeles, ....
and San Martín Region
San Martín Region
San Martín is a region in northern Peru. Most of the region is located in the upper part of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Its capital is Moyobamba and the largest city in the region is Tarapoto.-Boundaries:* North and East: Loreto Region...
are also places with a strong Spanish influence and ethnic presence.
Uruguay
UruguayUruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
received between the mid-19th Century and the early 20th Century part of the same migratory influx received by Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, though the process started a little earlier. During the period 1850-1900, this country welcomed four waves of European immigrants, mainly Spaniards
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Frenchmen
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. In smaller numbers also arrived British, Germans
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, Russians
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, Poles
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Bulgarians
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Hungarians
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Ukrainians
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Lithuanians
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Estonians
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Belgians
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Croatians
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Armenians
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, Greeks
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Scandinavians
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
and Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. The demographic impact of these immigratory waves was even greater than in Argentina: Uruguay evolved from having 70,000 inhabitants in 1830 to have 450,000 in 1875, and a million inhabitants in 1900; i. e., its population became fourteen times larger... in only 70 years! Between 1840 and 1890, 50%-60% of Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
's population was born abroad, almost all in Europe. The Census conducted in 1860 showed that 35% of the country's population was made up by foreigners, although by the time of the 1908 Census this figure had decreased to 17%.El Nacimiento del Uruguay Moderno en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. (Spanish)
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
conducted during 1996-1997 a Continuous Household Survey in 40,000 homes, that included the topic of races in the country. Its results were based on "the explicit statements of the interviewée about the race they consider they belong themselves". These results were extrapolated, and the INE estimated that out of the 2,790,600 inhabitants that Uruguay had at that moment, some 2,602,200 were White (93.2%), some 164,200 (5.9%) were totally or parcially Black, some 12,100 were totally or partially Amerindian (0.4%), and the remaining 12,000 considered themselves Yellow.Encuesta Contínua de Hogares 1996-1997. Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Uruguay. (Spanish)
A new Enhanced National Household Survey conducted in 2006 touched on the topic again, but this time enfazising on "ancestry" and not on "race"; the results revealed a 5.8% more Uruguayans that stated having total or partial Black and/or Amerindian ancestry. This reduction in the percentaje of self-declared "pure Whites" in between surveys could be caused by a phenomenon of the interviewée giving new value to their African heritage, similar to what has happened in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in the three last censuses. Anyway, it is worth noting that 2,897,525 interviewées declared having only White ancestry (87.4%), 302,460 declared having total or partial Black ancestry (9.1%), 106,368 total o partial Amerindian ancestry (2.9%) and 6,549 total o parcial Yellow ancestry (0,2%).Perfil Demográfico y Socioeconómico de la Población Uruguaya según su Ascendencia Racial. por Marisa Bucheli y Wanda Cabela. Fuente: Encuesta Nacional de Hogares Ampliada 2006. INE. (Spanish) This figure matches external estimates for White population in Uruguay of 87,4% 88%, or 90%.World Reference Desk: Uruguay.
During the last decade many European and American immigrants have entered this country seeking peacefulness and security, and also escaping from pollution and the voracious tax systems in their countries of origin. In 1997, the Uruguayan government granted residence rights to only 200 European/American citizens; in 2008 the number of residence rights granted had increased up to 927.Inmigración norteamericana y europea en Uruguay. (Spanish)
Venezuela
Venezuela has no official race percentages; however, unofficial estimates put the white people in Venezuela percentage at 21.6 or 5.7 million people. The majority of white Venezuelans are of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German descent. Nearly half a million European immigrants, mostly from Spain (as a sequel of the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
), and from Italy and Portugal, entered the country during and after World War II, attracted by a prosperous, rapidly developing country where educated and skilled immigrants were welcomed.