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White Latin American

Che GuevaraRicky Martin Notable White Latin Americans Che Guevara · Ricky Martín · Xuxa  · Thalía · Shakira · Gisele Bündchen
Total population
White People 192 million - 209 million ~35-38% of Latin American population
Regions with significant populations
Brazil	93 - 102 million
Argentina	39 million
Mexico	9.8 million or 16.3 million
Colombia	8.9 million
Cuba	7.3 million
Venezuela	5.2 million
Chile	4.9 million
Peru	4.3 million
Costa Rica	up to 3.9 million
Puerto Rico	3.2 million
Uruguay	3 million
Dominican Republic	~1.5 million
Bolivia	~1.4 million
Nicaragua	~1 million
All other areas	6,100,000 – 7,500,000
Languages
Portuguese, Spanish, and others
Religion
Predominantly Christian (mainly Roman Catholic; large Protestant minority); minorities practicing Judaism, Islam, or no religion

White Latin Americans are the white population of Latin America. They are descendants of colonial-era settlers and of post-independence immigrants. The settlers were mostly Spanish and Portuguese. After independence, immigrants arrived mostly from Italy. The next largest sources were Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, France, Lebanon, and the British Isles, followed by various other European and Middle Eastern countries. The immigrants came principally in the late decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries. Some twelve million people arrived in South America alone in this period, although many returned or re-migrated to other countries, including the United States and Canada. The largest group in the region, white Latin Americans number approximately 200 million, or more than one-third of the total population of nearly 550 million.

History of whiteness in Latin America

More than one and a half million Portuguese and Spanish settled in their American colonies during the colonial period. Small numbers of other Europeans also settled, usually as a reward for military service to Spain or Portugal.

For the region as a whole, the number of post-independence immigrants far surpassed that of settlers during the colonial period. Argentina and Uruguay were the most affected and were "inundated" with European immigrants, so that in the early 20th century Buenos Aires had a larger proportion of European-born population than did New York City. Argentina received more than half of the 11-12 million immigrants to South America in this time. In Brazil, with the largest population in the region, the effect was consequently not as great, but the number of immigrants was large, at more than 4 million.

Since the European conquest, the evolution of Latin America's population is embedded in a long and widespread history of intermixing, so that many White Latin Americans have Amerindian and/or sub-Saharan African and/or Asian ancestry. Thus, "whiteness" is constructed similarly in Latin America as in other places, given that the white race is nowhere a "pure race": pure races do not exist, nor are they thought to have ever existed.

The concept of "whiteness" does differ in some ways from country to country within the region and in comparison with North America and Europe. For instance, people whose ancestry is Middle Eastern consider themselves "white" in Latin America (and in the U.S. and elsewhere), although in Europe Middle Easterners are not all categorized as such. Equally, a person with one eighth of African ancestry and seven eighths European ancestry would usually be considered black in the U.S. and white in Latin America.

As far as Amerindian ancestry in the White Latin American population is concerned, under the casta system of colonial Latin America, a person of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry would legally and automatically regain their limpieza de sangre (lit. "purity of blood") and be classified as criollo with others in that category (a designation denoting "pure" Spaniards born in the Americas), if they were of one-eighth or less Amerindian ancestry. These would be the offspring of a castizo (1/4th Amerindian 3/4th Spanish) with a Spaniard or a criollo (who may himself have been mixed).

In practice, many castizos did themselves also subversively purchase their Whiteness all over Latin America, for a steep price, with relevant "probanzas de limpieza de sangre" records altered, consolidating themselves within the lawfully white population. Additionally, at least in the parts of Latin America under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (from the modern Southwest United States plus Florida, all of modern Mexico then down as far south as the southern border of modern Costa Rica, as well as Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic), officials in the late 16th century did actually decide "to grant limpieza certification to those who had no more than a fourth of native ancestry (called castizos)."

Populations

The largest white population in Latin America is found in Brazil. Brazil has a population of 190 million, 53.7% (102 million) white. Argentina, with a population of 40 million is 85-97% white, the largest percentage in Latin America. The smallest white population in Latin America is in Honduras, with only 1% white, approximately 75,000 people. Chile, Costa Rica, and Guatemala have censuses which identify both whites and mestizos (people of mixed white and Native American ancestry) in one category, so the exact percentage of whites in those countries is undetermined or unknown.

Country	% local	Population (millions)
Brazil	53.7%	up to 102
Argentina	85-97%	up to 39
Mexico	9% or ~15%	up to 16.3
Colombia	20%	up to 8.9
Cuba	65.05% or 37%	up to 7.2
Venezuela	20%	up to 5.2
Chile	30%	up to 4.8
Peru	15%	up to 4.3
Costa Rica	up to 94%	up to 3.9
Puerto Rico	80.5%	up to 3.1
Uruguay	88%	up to 3
Dominican Republic	16%	up to 1.5
Bolivia	15%	up to 1.3
Nicaragua	17%	up to 1

Caribbean

Cuba

 Cuba

White Cubans make up approximately 66% of Cuba's total population (however, it's 37% in the CIA Factbook), with the majority being of diverse Spanish descent, mainly from the settlers but also from the more recent influx of exiles from Franco's Spain.

Between 1900 and 1930, close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after the Castro government took power.

Dominican Republic

 Dominican Republic

White Dominicans represent 16% of the total population, with the majority being of Spanish descent. Notable other ancestries includes Italian, Lebanese, French, German, and Portuguese. The government of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo made a point of "whitening" the racial composition of the country, rejecting black immigrants from Haiti and the local blacks as foreigners. For example, he welcomed Jewish refugees in 1938 and Spanish farmers in the 1950s.

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Puerto Rico

 Puerto Rico

White Puerto Ricans of European, chiefly Spanish descent, are said to comprise the majority. In the United States Census, 2000 over 3,064,862 or 80.5% of the total Island population identified as White. One reason for Puerto Rico's high percentage of European-descent population is the fact that many of the Puerto Ricans of African descent left the island in waves of migration. During the 1800s, hundreds of Corsican, French, Lebanese, 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 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.

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Central America

Costa Rica

 Costa Rica

The exact percentage of the white Costa Rican population is not known because the Costa Rican census combines mestizos and whites in one category, however, unofficial estimates put the white Costa Rican population at 80%. The Costa Rican census combines both mestizo (of mixed Native American and European decent) and whites in one category, the estimated combined total of both groups is 94%. The white population is primarily of Spanish ancestry. There are also significant numbers of Costa Ricans of Italian, German, Jewish and Polish descent. In contrast to its neighboring countries' populations, less mixing of the Spanish settlers and the indigenous populations occurred. Therefore, a vast majority of Costa Ricans are either of Spanish or to a lesser extent of mixed mestizo heritage.

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El Salvador

 El Salvador

Of the total Salvadoran population, 9% is white. They're mostly of Spanish descent, others of Italian, German and French. The majority of the white Salvadorans are in San Salvador and Santa Ana.

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Guatemala

 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 primarily of Spanish descent, but there are also those of German, English, Italian, and Scandinavian descent).

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Honduras

 Honduras

Honduras contains the smallest percentage of whites in Latin America, with only 1% classified as white, or up to 75,000 of the total population.

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Nicaragua

 Nicaragua

White Nicaraguans make up 17%, about 1 million, of the Nicaraguan population. The majority of White Nicaraguans are of Spanish, German, Italian, or French ancestry. In the 1800s 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.

Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Palestinian Nicaraguans, Jewish Nicaraguans, and Lebanese Nicaraguans with a total population of about 30,000.

Panama

 Panama

White Panamanians form 10% of the current population, up to 250,000, with the Spanish being predominant. Other ancestries includes Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian.

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Mexico

 Mexico

White Mexicans make up 9% or 15% of Mexico's population or around 16.3 million people. The majority of White Mexicans are of Spanish descent. However, many other immigrants arrived during the Second Mexican Empire (mostly French) and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mostly from Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. White Americans, Yugoslavians, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Poles, Romanians, Russians and Ashkenazic Jews, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War also immigrated.

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South America

Argentina

 Argentina

White Argentines make up 95% of Argentina's population, or around 39 million people. Whites are found in all areas of the country. White Argentines mainly are descendants of immigrants who came from Europe in the late 19th century. Most of these immigrants came from Spain and Italy.

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Brazil

 Brazil

According to the 2006 census, White Brazilians make up 49.7% of Brazil's population, or 93.096 million people. Whites are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are in the South and Southeastern parts of the country.

By the 1800s, close to one million Europeans had left for Brazil, most of them colonial settlers from Portugal. The immigration boom occurred between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, when nearly five million Europeans immigrated to Brazil, most of them Italians, Portuguese, Germans and Spaniards.

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Bolivia

 Bolivia

White Bolivians make up 15% of the nation's population, or up to 1.4 million. The white population consists mostly of criollos, which consist of families of relatively unmixed Spanish ancestry from the Spanish colonists. These have formed much of the aristocracy since independence. Other smaller groups within the white population are Germans, who founded the national airline Lloyd Aereo Boliviano, as well as Italians, Americans, Basques, Croats, Russians, Polish, and other minorities, many of whose members descend from families that have lived in Bolivia for several generations.

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Chile

 Chile

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The Chilean population is approximately 30% white, with predominantly-white Mestizos further numbered at 65%. These two figures are normally combined, so that Chile's population is classified as 95% white and white-Amerindian (mestizo), 3% Amerindian, and 2% other. Whites are mostly Spanish in origin (mainly Castilians, Andalusians and Basques). The more notable other groups are Italians, Germans, and Croats.

Colombia

 Colombia

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The white Colombian population is approximately 20%, or up to 8.9 million. White Colombians mainly are descendants of Spaniards but also of Italians, Germans, Lithuanians, French, Belgians, Polish, Portuguese, Ukranians, Croatians, and Scandinavians.

The Colombian Paisa Region received a strong immigration wave from Spain (Basques, and others from Extremadura and Andalusia) during 16th and 17th centuries.

Ecuador

 Ecuador

White Ecuadorians, mostly criollos, descendants of Spanish colonists, 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 found in the southern Andes of Ecuador, due to the arrival of Frenchmen in the area, in order to measure the arc of the Earth.

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Paraguay

 Paraguay

Ethnically, culturally, and socially, Paraguay has one of the most homogeneous populations in South America. 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, which reached 1.7% of the country's total in the last census, held in 2002. 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 others groups (Asians, Afro-Paraguayans, others, if any) combine for approximately 3.3% of the total population. It can be said, then, that up to 3.3% of Paraguayans are white. The majority of whites are of Spanish descent with others being of Italian, German, or of other European descent.

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Peru

 Peru

White Peruvians represent 15% of the population, they are descendants of the colonial Spanish colonizers and other European nations as British, French, German, Greek, Armenian, Russian, Italian and Portuguese. Basques from both Spain and southwest France are notably numerous in Peru, who represent a large percentage of fishermen and shepherds in the country from its colonial past. The majority of the whites live in the largest cities, concentrated usually the northern coastal cities of Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura, and of course the capital Lima. The only southern city with a significant population is Arequipa. To the north Cajamarca and San Martin are also cities with a strong Spanish influence.

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Uruguay

 Uruguay

White Uruguayans represent approximately 88% of its population and are of prevalently white European descent, mainly Spaniards, followed closely by Italians, then British, Germans, French, Swiss, Russians, Portuguese, Poles, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Dutch, Belgians, Croatians, Greeks, Scandinavians, and Irish.

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Venezuela

 Venezuela

Venezuela's has no official ethnic race percentages, however, unofficial estimates put the white Venezuelan percentage at 20%, or up to 2.5 million. The majority of white Venezuelans are of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German descent.

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Notable White Latin Americans

See also

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Notes and references

1. ^ "PNAD" (PDF) (in Portuguese). 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
2. ^ "Field Listing - Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-08-25. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
3. "Mexico; Ethnic Groups". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2007-12-09. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
4. ^ "TABLA II.3 POBLACION POR COLOR DE LA PIEL Y GRUPOS DE EDADES, SEGUN ZONA DE RESIDENCIA Y SEXO" (in Spanish). CubaGob.cu. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
5. ^ "Venezuela". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2007-08-25. "...about one-fifth of Venezuelans are of European lineage". {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
6. ^ "5.2.6. Estructura racial". La Universidad de Chile. Retrieved 2007-08-26. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
7. ^ "Costa Rica; People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-21. white (including mestizo) 94% {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) = 3.9 million whites and mestizos
8. The term "White Latin American" has been occasionally used for the commonalities of the different white groups in Latin America. For examples, see Repression: the recognition of human rights, page 15 excerpted from the book Cry of the People: The struggle for human rights in Latin America and the Catholic Church in conflict with US policy, by Penny Lernoux, Penguin Books, 1980, paper; or Globalization Dynamics in Latin America: South Cone and Iberian Investments, Mario Gómez Olivares, Department of Economy, ISEG/UTL, and Cezar Guedes, Departament of Economy, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro.
9. "L'emigració dels europeus cap a Amèrica" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-11-26.
10. "Presença portuguesa: de colonizadores a imigrantes". Retrieved 2007-11-26.
11. ^ "South America: Postindependence overseas immigrants". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2007-11-26. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
12. American Association of Physical Anthropology. AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Race
13. ^ Martínez, María Elena. "The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico". History Cooperative. Retrieved 2007-08-25. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
14. Frank W. Sweet. Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise And Triumph of the One-drop Rule. Backintyme. pp. 215–235. ISBN 0-939479-23-0.
15. ^ "Argentina: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
16. "Mexico: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
17. ^ "Mexico: Ethnic Groups". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2007-08-27.
18. ^ "Colombia: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
19. ^ "Cuba; People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-21. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
20. ^ "Peru: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
21. "Puerto Rico: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
22. ^ "Uruguay: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
23. ^ "D.R.: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
24. ^ "Bolivia: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
25. ^ "Nicaragua: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
26. "Cuba; Ethnic Makeup". The Financial Times World Desk Reference. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
27. Origen de la población dominicana
28. Revista Electrónica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad de Barcelona
29. Sitios patrimonio de la humanidad: San Pedro de Macorís, República Dominicana
30. Sagás, Ernesto. "A Case of Mistaken Identity: Antihaitianismo in Dominican Culture". Retrieved 2007-12-08.
31. Levy, Lauren. "The Dominican Republic's Haven for Jewish Refugees". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2007-12-08. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
32. "...no hicieron Las Américas". El País. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
33. "Where does it take place?". Retrieved 2007-12-08.
34. Waibel, Leo (1939-10-01). "White Settlement in Costa Rica". Geographical Review. 29 (4): 529–560. doi:10.2307/209828. Retrieved 2007-12-08. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
35. "El Salvador: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
36. "Honduras; People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-21. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
37. "Panama; People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-21. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
38. "Ecuador: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
39. Paraguayan Census form
40. II CENSO NACIONAL INDÍGENA DE POBLACIÓN Y VIVIENDAS 2002. Pueblos Indígenas del Paraguay. Resultados Finales
41. "Paraguay: People; Ethnic groups". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved 2007-11-26.

• Ethnic groups in Latin America