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A Mexican of European descent is a Mexican citizen of predominantly European heritage. In Mexican Spanish, they are referred to as "güero" or "blanco".

History

As Mexico was colonized by Spain, the majority of white Mexicans are of Spanish descent, or criollos, as they were referred to in colonial times. However, many other immigrants (mostly French) also arrived during the Second Mexican Empire, and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the majority from Italy, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Lebanon and Israel.

Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Jews, White Americans and White Canadians, and immigrants from other Slavic countries, along with many more Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War, also settled in Mexico.

Region

The northern region of mexico has the largest european population and admixture in the country. In the northwest, the majority of the relatively small indigenous communities remain isolated from the rest of the population, and as for the northeast, the indigenous population was eliminated by early European settlers, becoming the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period. However, recent immigrants from southern Mexico have been slowly changing, to some degree, its demographic trends.

Due to the intermixing of Europeans and Amerindians since colonial times, some white Mexicans today may have a degree of Amerindian ancestry and vice versa, though many communities of European immigrants have remained isolated from the rest of the population since their arrival. There are Dutch and German Mennonites who settled in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas and Quintana Roo.

Italians from Veneto established the town of Chipilo in the central state of Puebla and have retained their customs, still speaking a derivative of the Venetian dialect (Chipilo Venetian dialect). Scandinavian Mennonites, mostly from Sweden, established the town of Nueva Escandinavia in the northern state of Chihuahua.

The European Jewish immigrants joined the Sephardic community that lived in Mexico since colonization. Though many lived as Crypto-Jews, mostly in the northern states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. In 1904, the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California received an influx of Molokan immigrants from Russia, a religious group which opposed war and fled Russia so its men would not be drafted by the Czarist army. In Mexico they found freedom of creed and acquired about 100 acres (0.4 km²) of land for harvesting grapes for wine. In the last decades, immigration from other Latin American countries has also increased and has brought other White Latin Americans to Mexico, especially from Argentina.

Cornish people settled in the state of Hidalgo, around Real del Monte and Pachuca. They were brought in to reopen the flooded mines of the Sierra Madre and ended up introducing football (soccer) to Mexico.

1921 Census

The Mexican Government asked Mexicans about their perception of their own racial heritage. In the 1921 census, residents of the Mexican Republic were asked if they fell into one of the following categories:

• "Indígena pura" (of pure indigenous heritage)
• "Indígena mezclada con blanca" (of mixed indigenous and white heritage)
• "Blanca" (of White or Spanish heritage)
• "Extranjeros sin distinción de razas" (Foreigners without racial distinction)
• "Cualquiera otra o que se ignora la raza" (Either other or chose to ignore the race)

1. Pure indigenous heritage: 4,179,449 {29%}
2. Mixed indigenous and white: 8,504,561 {59%}
3. White or Spanish heritage: 1,404,718 (10%)
4. Total population: 14,334,780

The states with the largest populations of "Blanca" or White persons were:

• Distrito Federal - 206,514
• Chihuahua - 145,926
• Sonora - 115,151
• Veracruz - 114,150
• México - 88,660

In terms of percentage, the "blanca" classification was most prominent in these states:

• Sonora (41.85%)
• Chihuahua (36.33%)
• Baja California Sur (33.40%)
• Tabasco (27.56%)
• Distrito Federal (22.79%)

This was the last Mexican Census which asked people to self-identify themselves with a racial group.

See also

• White people
• White Latin American
• White Brazilian
• White American
• Indigenous Mexican
• Afro-Mexican
• Criollo people

Notes and references

1. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/379167/Mexico/27384/Ethnic-groups
2. Nutini, Hugo; Barry Isaac (2009). Social Stratification in central Mexico 1500 - 2000. University of Texas Press. p. 55.
3. Asociaciones de Inmigrantes Extranjeros en la Ciudad de México. Una Mirada a Fines del Siglo XX
4. ^ Los Extranjeros en México, La inmigración y el gobierno ¿Tolerancia o intolerancia religiosa?
5. Refugiados españoles en México
6. http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/123878. Los-indios-barbaros-de.html
7. ^ Menonitas en México
8. El dialecto veneto de Chipilo
9. Nexos entre los cripto-judios coloniales y contemporáneos
10. Molokans in Mexico: Guadalupe Valley
11. http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Ex-West-Briton-writer-helps-tell-tale-Mexico-s-Cornish-miners/article-2982225-detail/article.html
12. http://www.cornish-mexico.org/index.html
13. RACIAL CLASSIFICATIONS IN JALISCO AND THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC – 1921 CENSUS

External links

• Mexico Criollo Forum

• White people
• Ethnic groups in Mexico
• Mexican people of European descent
• European diaspora