White Latin Americans

For the white Latino population of the United States, see White Hispanic and Latino Americans.

White Latin American

Total population
White people 192 million – 209 million 33% or 36% of Latin American population
Regions with significant populations
Brazil	93M or 105M
Argentina	38M
Mexico	12.0M or 17.0M or 19M
Chile	8.8M or 16.3M
Colombia	8.9M or 11M
Cuba	7.3M
Venezuela	5.6M
Peru	4.4M
Costa Rica	3.5M
Puerto Rico	3.2M
Uruguay	3.1M
Dominican Republic	1.5M
Bolivia	1.4M
Ecuador	1.4M
Paraguay	1.3M
Nicaragua	1M
All other areas	1.1M
Languages
Portuguese, Spanish, and other languages
Religion
Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic, with a minority of Protestants); and other religions

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 US 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 Easterners/Southwest Asians. The majority are Christian Arabs of Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian origin, but there are Armenians, Maghrebi Jews (most Jewish Latin Americans are Ashkenazi), and others.

Composing about 33% or 36% of the population as of 2010 according to some sources, White Latin Americans constitute the largest ethnic category in the region, an ethnic category meaning a demographic grouping based on externally imposed criteria with no internal cohesion or selfidentification with the grouping. Nevertheless, White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses, as seen further on in this article.

Representation in the media

Latin American media, along with U.S. Hispanic media, was criticized of having more blond and blue-eyed Northern European-looking actors and actresses mostly in telenovelas, that non-white Latin American and non-white Hispanic and Latino American actors and actresses are shown with underrepresentation. Northern 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.

Being "White"

Main article: Race and ethnicity in Latin America

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 Wade 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.

History

More than a million Spaniards and Portuguese 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.

Latin America.

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.

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 colonization, 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 African 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.

Populations

In terms of absolute numbers, the largest White population in Latin America is found in Brazil, 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.

Country	% local	Population (millions)
Brazil	49.7 or 53.7	93 or 105
Argentina	85 or 97	34 or 38
Mexico	9 or 15 or ~17	12 or 17 or 19
Chile	52.7 or 90	8.8 or 16.3
Colombia	20 or 25	8.9 or 11
Cuba	65.1	7.3
Venezuela	20	5.6
Peru	15	4.4
Costa Rica	82	3.8
Puerto Rico	75.8	3.1
Uruguay	88	3
Dominican Republic	16	1.6
Bolivia	15	1.4
Ecuador	10.4	1.4
Paraguay	20	1.3
Nicaragua	17	1

Central America

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

Main article: Demographics of 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 Sula, and another in the Bay Islands Department which descends from Caymanian settlers with English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian and Greek descent.

Nicaragua

Main articles: Nicaraguan and Demographics of Nicaragua

File:Enrique Bolaños.jpg

Enrique Bolaños, 82nd President of Nicaragua. He is of Spanish and German heritage.

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 Nicaraguans, 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.

North America

Mexico

Main articles: Mexicans of European descent, Immigration to Mexico, and Mexican people

Agustin de Iturbide was Mexican of Basque descent.

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-Iberian 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%).

Caribbean

Cuba

Main article: Cubans

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 Revolution 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.

Dominican Republic

Juan Pablo Duarte, Founding Father of the Dominican Republic, was born to a Spanish father and a mother of Spanish descent.

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.

Haiti

The Mulatto and the White population of Haiti 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.

Martinique

Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include Martinique

White people in Martinique represent 5% of the population, as Martinique is an overseas French department, most whites are French.

Puerto Rico

Ricky Martin is a pop singer.

See also: Spanish immigration to Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican people, and Demographics of 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 White. 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 Corsican, 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 Americans began settling in Puerto Rico, continuing to the present day. Spanish refugees arrived in Puerto Rico during Francisco Franco’s rule in Spain.

Saint Barthélemy

Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include Saint Barthélemy

Most of the population are French-speaking descendants of the first settlers from Normandy and Brittany.

South America

Argentina

* Guillermo Brown, an Irish-Argentine known as the father of the Argentine Navy.
* Gabriel Batistuta is an ex-footballer of Italian descent.

Main articles: Argentines of European descent, Immigration to Argentina, and Ethnography of Argentina

Although no official censuses based on ethnic classification have been carried out in Argentina, some international sources state that White people in Argentina make up somewhere between 89.7% (around 36.7 million people). White people can be found in all areas of the country, but especially in the central-eastern region (Pampas), the central-western region (Cuyo), the southern region (Patagonia) and the north-eastern region (Litoral).

White Argentines are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from Europe and the Middle East in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After the regimented Spanish colonists, waves of European settlers came to Argentina from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Major contributors included Italy (initially from Piedmont, Veneto and Lombardy, later from Campania, Calabria, and Sicily), and Spain (most are Galicians and Basques, but there are Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalans, and Andalusians). Smaller but significant numbers of immigrants include Germans, primarily Volga Germans from Russia, but also Germans from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; French which mainly came from the Occitania region of France; Slavic groups which most are Croats and Poles, but there are Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Montenegrins; British mainly from England and Wales: Irish who left from the Potato famine or British rule; Scandinavians from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway; from the Ottoman Empire came mainly Armenians and Arabs (from what is now the countries of Lebanon and Syria). Smaller waves of settlers from Australia and South Africa, and the United States can be traced in 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).

By the 1910s, after immigration rates peaked, over 30 percent of the country's population was from outside Argentina, and over half of Buenos Aires' population was foreign-born. The 1914 national census, however, revealed that around 80 percent of the national population were either European immigrants, their children or grandchildren. Among the remaining 20 percent (those descended from the population residing locally before this immigrant wave took shape in the 1870s), around a third were white. European immigration continued to account for over half the nation's population growth during the 1920s, and was again significant (albeit in a smaller wave) following World War II. It is estimated that Argentina received a total amount of 6.6 million European and Middle-Eastern immigrants during the period 1857–1940.

White Argentines, therefore, likely peaked as a percentage of the national population at over 90% on or shortly after the 1947 census. Since the 1960s, increasing immigration from bordering countries to the north (especially from Bolivia and Paraguay, which have Amerindian and Mestizo majorities) has lessened that majority somewhat.

Bolivia

Main article: Immigration to 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 criollos, 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.

Brazil

Main articles: White Brazilian and Immigration to Brazil

Helô Pinheiro, "The Girl from Ipanema"

Recent censuses in Brazil are conducted on the basis of self-identification. In 2008 a National Survey of Households was conducted, and the percentage of Brazilians who self-identified as Whites diminished to 48.4, i.e. 92 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. A comprehensive 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 color groups, but on a person-by-person basis, as 190 million human beings,with singular genome and life histories".

By 1822, an estimated 500,000–700,000 Europeans had 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 Christians 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 independence Brazil attracted larger numbers of European immigrants particularly after 1850, as a result of the end of the Atlantic slave trade and the expansion of coffee plantations in the region of São Paulo. Between then and the mid–20th century nearly five million Europeans immigrated to Brazil, most of them Italians, Portuguese, Germans, Spaniards, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Ashkenazi Jews. Immigration peaked in 1891, when 215,239 Europeans arrived. The period was characterized by an intense immigration of Italians (58.49%) and a decrease on the participation of the Portuguese (20%).

After World War I, the Portuguese were once again the main group of immigrants, and Italians dropped to third place. Spanish immigrants rose to second place, as a result of the poverty that affected millions of rural Spanish workers. Germans came in fourth, mainly during the Weimar Republic, due to the poverty and unemployment brought by World War I. From 1914 to 1918, the entry of Poles, Romanians, Russians, and Jews increased. The other important group was composed of Syrian and Lebanese people. After World War II, the European immigration reduced greatly, although from 1931 to 1963 1.1 million immigrants entered Brazil, mostly Portuguese. In the mid-1970s, Portuguese refugees immigrated to Brazil after leaving their emancipating African colonies, and others arrived from Portuguese Macau because of strict dictatorial rule.

Chile

Main articles: Demographics of Chile, Chilean people, and Immigration to Chile

Manuel Pellegrini, former Chilean footballer and coach of Málaga CF

In 2011, Chile had an estimated population of 16.9 million, of which 95.4% consists of whites and mestizos. One source estimates that 52.7% of Chileans are white, while another asserts that more than 90% of the Chilean population is white. 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).

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.

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. Roughly 500,000 Palestinian descendants are believed to reside in Chile.

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. Other authors claim, on the other hand, that close to 4.6% of the Chilean population must have some Croatian ancestry. 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. 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. The descendants of Swiss add 90,000 and it is estimated that about 5% of the Chilean population has some French ancestry. 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

Main articles: White Colombian, Colombian people, and Immigration to Colombia

Jorge Isaacs Ferrer, Colombian writer, politician and soldier. Son of an English Jewish father and a Spanish mother.

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 Colombia) 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.

Ecuador

Main article: Demographics of 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.

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.

French Guiana

Note: Many definitions of Latin America do not include French Guiana

12% of the population, mostly French.

Paraguay

Main article: Demographics of Paraguay

Ethnically, culturally, and socially, Paraguay has one of the most homogeneous populations in South America. Because of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia'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, which reached 1.7% of the country's total in the last census 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 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

Main articles: Peruvian of European descent, Peruvian people, and Immigration to 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 Trujillo, 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.

Uruguay

Main article: Uruguayan people

File:Uruguayan people.jpg

This picture of Uruguayan people demonstrate the impact of European immigration in the country.

Uruguay 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, Ukranians, 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%.

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.

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%). This figure matches external estimates for White population in Uruguay of 87,4% 88%, or 90%.

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 goverment granted residence rights to only 200 European/American citizens; in 2008 the number of residence rights granted had increased up to 927.

Venezuela

Main articles: Venezuelan of European descent, Venezuelan people, and Immigration to 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 War), 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.

See also

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates

Type	Family	Handles wiki table code?†	Responsive/ mobile suited	Start template	Column divider	End template
Float	"col-float"	Yes	Yes	{{col-float}}	{{col-float-break}}	{{col-float-end}}
	"columns-start"	Yes	Yes	{{columns-start}}	{{column}}	{{columns-end}}
Columns	"div col"	Yes	Yes	{{div col}}	–	{{div col end}}
	"columns-list"	No	Yes	{{columns-list}} (wraps div col)	–	–
Flexbox	"flex columns"	No	Yes	{{flex columns}}	–	–
Table	"col"	Yes	No	{{col-begin}}, {{col-begin-fixed}} or {{col-begin-small}}	{{col-break}} or {{col-2}} .. {{col-5}}	{{col-end}}

^† Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.