Jump to content

Asian Latin Americans: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
Line 16: Line 16:
|region2 = {{flagcountry|Peru}}
|region2 = {{flagcountry|Peru}}
|pop2 = 1,470,000
|pop2 = 1,470,000
|ref2 =<ref name="ocac.gov.tw"/><ref name="universia.edu.pe">http://www.universia.edu.pe/noticias/principales/destacada.php?id=65889</ref>
|region3 = {{flagcountry|Mexico}}
|pop3 = 253,472
|ref4 =<ref>http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,COUNTRYPROF,SUR,4562d94e2,4954ce5523,0.html</ref>
|region5 = {{flagcountry|Panama}}
|pop5 = 200,000
|ref5 = <!--not a reliable source--><ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Chinese_in_Panama</ref>
|region6 = {{flagcountry|Argentina}}
|region6 = {{flagcountry|Argentina}}
|pop6 = 131,600
|pop6 = 131,600

Revision as of 16:45, 22 March 2012

For the Latino population of Asian descent living in or native to the United States, please see Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans
Asian Latin American
Notable Asian Latin Americans:

1st row: Alberto Fujimori • Ana Gabriel • Franklin Chang-Diaz • Angela Park • Harry Shum, Jr.
2nd row: Bárbara Mori • Rafael Yamashiro • Lisa Ono • Luis Nishizawa • Keiko Fujimori
3rd row: Luiz Gushiken • Ayako Hamada • José Antonio Chang • Sabrina Sato • Alejandro Honda
4th row: Juliana Imai • Santiago Fujimori • Lovefoxxx • Juniti Saito • Fernanda Takai

5th row: Wifredo Lam • Daniele Suzuki • Jorge Cham • Tizuka Yamasaki • Alfredo Abon Lee
Regions with significant populations
 Brazil1,505,000[1][2]
 Peru1,470,000
 Argentina131,600[3]
 Cuba114,444[4]
Languages
Romance Languages:

Spanish · Portuguese · French
Asian Languages:

Chinese · Hindustani · Japanese · Korean · Tagalog · Tamil · Other Asian Languages
Religion
Agnosticism · Atheism · Buddhism · Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Shintoism · Sikhism · Taoism

Asian Latin Americans are Latin Americans of East Asian, Southeast Asian or South Asian descent. Asian Latin Americans have a centuries-long history in the region, starting with Filipinos in the 16th century. The heyday of Asian immigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, however. There are currently more than four million Asian Latin Americans, nearly 1% of Latin America's population. Chinese and Japanese are the group's largest ancestries; other major ones include Filipinos, Koreans, and Indians. Brazil is home to the largest population of Asian Latin Americans, at some 1.5 million.[5][6] The highest ratio of any country in the region is 5%,[7] in Peru. There has been notable emigration from these communities in recent decades, so that there are now hundreds of thousands of people of Asian Latin American origin in both Japan and the United States.

History

The first Asian Latin Americans were Filipinos who made their way to Latin America (particularly Mexico) in the 16th century, as sailors, crews, prisoners, slaves, adventurers and soldiers during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. For two and a half centuries (between 1565 and 1815) many Filipinos sailed on the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, assisting in the Spanish Empire's monopoly in trade. Some of these sailors never returned to the Philippines, and many of their descendants can be found in small communities around Baja California, Sonora, Mexico City, and others.

In the 19th century, thousands of Indian labourers of Tamil descent from the Indian French colonial settlements of Madras, Pondichéry, Chandernagor and Karikal were brought to French Guiana, Guadeloupe & Martinique to work in plantations.

Most Chinese-Latin Americans descended from the Coolie slave trade, and most are found in the Caribbean, especially in Cuba and Peru. They are also closely related to Afro-Asian people in Latin America.

Most Asians, however, arrived in the 19th and 20th century as contract workers or economic migrants. Today, the overwhelming majority of Asian Latin Americans are of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean descent. Japanese migration mostly came to a halt after World War II (with the exception of Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic), while Korean migration mostly came to an end by the 1980s (though it still continues in Guatemala) and Chinese migration remains ongoing in a number of countries.

Settlement of war refugees has been extremely minor: a few dozen ex-North Korean soldiers went to Argentina and Chile after the Korean War,[8][9] and some Hmong went to French Guiana after the Vietnam War.[10]

Geographic distribution

Four and a half million Latin Americans (almost 1% of the total population of Latin America) are of Asian descent. The number may be millions higher, even more so if all who have partial ancestry are included. For example, Asian Peruvians are estimated at 5%[7] of the population there, but one source places the number of all Peruvians with at least some Chinese ancestry at 4.2 million, which equates to 15% of the country's total population.[11]

Most who are of Japanese descent reside in Brazil, Peru and Argentina, while significant populations of Chinese ancestry are found in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Costa Rica (where they make up about 1% of the total population). Nicaragua is home to 12,000 ethnic Chinese; the majority reside in Managua and on the Caribbean coast. Smaller communities of Chinese, numbering just in the hundreds or thousands, are also found in Colombia, Ecuador and various other Latin American countries. The largest Korean communities are in Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico and Argentina. There are around 10,000 living in Guatemala. There is also a Hmong community in Argentina. The French Overseas Departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe & Martinique have large populations of people of Tamil Indian descent. Chile, Panama and Venezuela also have small Asian Indian communities.

Japanese Peruvians have a considerable economic position in Peru.[12] Many past and present Peruvian Cabinet members are ethnic Asians and former president Alberto Fujimori is of Japanese ancestry. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan, numbering about 1.5 million.[13]

Emigrant communities

Canada

Canada has been a destination for Asian Latin American emigration. The immigrants usually settle in the largest cities, such as Vancouver and Toronto, and integrate into the overall Asian Canadian communities.

Japan

Japanese Brazilian immigrants to Japan numbered 250,000 in 2004, constituting Japan's second-largest immigrant population.[14] Their experiences bear similarities to those of Japanese Peruvian immigrants, who are often relegated to low income jobs typically occupied by foreigners and, as with other immigrants, are vulnerable to the Yakuza.[12]

United States

Main article: Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans

Most Asian Latin Americans who have migrated to the United States live in the largest cities, often in Asian American or Hispanic and Latino communities in the Greater Los Angeles area, New York metropolitan area, Chicago metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay area, Greater Houston, the San Diego area, Imperial Valley, California, Dallas-Fort Worth, and South Florida (mainly Chinese Cubans). They and their descendants are sometimes known as Asian Hispanics and Asian Latinos.

In the 2000 US Census, 119,829 Hispanic or Latino Americans identified as being of Asian race alone.[15] In 2006 the Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimated them at 154,694,[16] while its Population Estimates, which are official, put them at 277,704.[17] Some notable Americans of Asian Hispanic/Latino heritage include Franklin Chang-Diaz, Carlos Galvan, Kelis, and Chino Moreno. In the United States, there are facebook groups that are devoted to Asian Hispanics in New York,[18] California[19] and Bay Area.[20]

Composition

Asian Latin American population (incomplete data)
Country Chinese Indian[21] Japanese[22] Korean[23] Filipino Others References
Argentina 130,000 1,600 35,000 22,024 15,000 20,000
Bolivia 12,000 640
Brazil 151,649 5,200 1,405,685 48,419 1,000 [7][24]
Chile 1,500 10,000 2,249
Colombia 100 1,119 710
Costa Rica 7,873 16 730 [25]
Cuba 113,828 1,300 [26][27]
Dominican Republic 50,000 3,000 518
Ecuador 100 1418
El Salvador 272
Guatemala 2,000 288 9,921 [28]
Honduras 123 406 1,107
Mexico 31,000 2,000 35,000 12,072 200,000 [29][30]
Nicaragua 10 531
Panama 200,000 2,164 456 306
Paraguay 10,321 5,229
Peru 1,300,000 145 90,000 812 [7][31]
Puerto Rico >2,200
Uruguay ~100 456 152
Venezuela 680 828 325

Notable persons

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil

Costa Rica

Cuba

Guatemala

Haiti

  • Edouard Wah - Renowned Haitian painter; Chinese-Haitian

Martinique

  • Serge Letchimy - President of Martinique Regional Council; Indo-Martiniquais
  • Lord Kossity - Ragga-zouk musician; Indo-Martiniquais

Mexico

Nicaragua

Panama

Paraguay

Peru

Uruguay

Honduras

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Asian_Latin_Americans&oldid=483388348"