Migration To Latin America From Different Parts Of The Globe

Migration to Latin America from different parts of the globe

Latin America is a region with a huge variety of ethnic groups. According to Anthony Smith, the word ethnic group "serves to describe a group that shares the same idea about their ancestors, a common cultural identity and a link with a certain homeland". Thus, we could define ethnicity as a set of people who maintain a subjective belief in a common origin.

This belief can be based on similar aspects, customs, language, religion or memory of historical events such as migrations. Taking this into account, in this article we will talk about the variety of ethnic groups in Latin America.

The origin of man in America, an isolated continent

The modern human, that is, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, emerged will do about 200,000 years in sub -Saharan Africa. From there, 65,000 years ago, it began to migrate until it expands throughout the planet.

Indigenous in the Amazon, one of the ethnic groups in Latin America

Amazon indigenous

The expansion, first, was carried out by the African continent, the European and the Asian. America was not populated until 40,000 years ago. The American settlement occurred through different migratory movements from Asia. How was it possible that the human being arrived in America if this is an isolated continent?

Migrations could be done by the Bering Strait. At that time a new glacier period affected the planet. This contributed to considerable masses of ice in polar caps, causing the removal of water from the oceans and the corresponding decrease in sea level.

In this way, in the Bering Strait, a passable corridor was formed that for a long period of time allowed the continued passage of humans and animals in both directions.

Environment the year 8000, with the beginning of the interglaciar period in which we were today, the land temperature increased and the poles began to melt. This meant an increase in sea level and the consequent enclosure of passing through the Strait.

Since then, until 1492, the continent and its inhabitants, subsequently known as American Amerindians or Indians, will be isolated from the rest of the planet. There are several contacts of contacts prior to 1492 of populations of Polynesia or Vikings, although these were sporadic.

Ethnic groups of Latin America after the conquest

With the arrival in the year 1492 of the Cristóbal Columbus expedition to American soil, the isolation ended and a continuous population movement between the Old and the New World began to be generated. This intensification of the mobility of people initiated in the fifteenth century has been forging the great ethnic diversity that exists in America today.

The American continent is characterized by being multi -ethnic and multicultural. In it, a wide variety of ethnic groups coexist: indigenous peoples or amers, Afro -descents, descendants of Europeans, mestized groups and other groups from migratory movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as, for example, Chinese and Japanese. Let’s talk a little about them.

Indigenous or Amerindian peoples

Aymaras, one of the ethnic groups in Latin America

In Latin America, Brazil and the Caribbean, indigenous peoples have an approximate population of 50 million people and reach around 8-10 % of the population. On the other hand, it is estimated that in the United States they live approximately another four million people.

From Mexico to Argentina we can tell more than 700 indigenous peoples. Linguistic wealth is incalculable, because in the region more than 500 different languages are spoken. A quarter of these languages are cross -border, that is, they are used in two or more countries. In the following table we can see the number of indigenous peoples in the different countries of Latin America.

• Argentina Bolivia Brazil Colombia Chile Costa Rica El Salvador Honduras Nicaragua

32 39 303 102 9 8 3 7 9

• Panama Uruguay Ecuador Guatemala Paraguay Mexico Peru Venezuela

8 2 34 24 24 78 85 57

The areas inhabited by these villages are very diverse, from Patagonia, to the extended Chaco, the Amazon, Orinoquia, Los Andes, the Pacific Coastal Plain, the Continental Caribbean, the Central America, Mesoamerica, North America, to the Arctic Region. In Latin America, 87 % indigenous people reside in Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia. Brazil is the country with more diversity.

Ethnic groups of Latin America: the Afro -descendant population

It is well known that after the process of conquest and colonization of America, slave traffic from Africa was fundamental for the support of the colonial economy. This meant the forced and massive arrival of the African population to the American continent.

Although in many Latin American countries the presence of Afro -descendant population wanted to be invisible, this has been difficult because in the region, the Afro -descendant population is estimated around 120 million people. This, not counting the United States whose Afro -descendant population represents 16 % of the total population of this country.

• The descendants of Europeans
• Cartagena de Indias street
• Cartagena de Indias street

The European emigration towards the American continent was an intense phenomenon that began during the time of the Hispanic colonial domain. It is estimated that throughout those 300 years they moved to the territory that today belongs to Brazil, between 500,000 and one million Portuguese.

On the other hand, in the Spanish domain territory it is estimated that approximately 750,000 people emigrated. The main arrival territories of these migrants were the territories that are Colombia, Mexico and Peru today. About 10 % of these migrants returned to the Iberian Peninsula and another 10 % only moved as a stationary worked.

European emigration of the 19th and 20th centuries

• La Cumbrecita in Argentina, German town
• La Cumbrecita – Travel through your country / Flickr.com

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was a European migratory phenomenon unprecedented towards the American continent. It was a massive movement of people fleeing from misery or political persecution. The United States was the main immigrant receiver, but in Latin America the entry of Europeans was very important.

The main countries receiving European immigrants in Latin America were Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico. Today, in these countries many children and grandchildren of those migrants live. In Argentina, the arrival of Italians and Spanish was especially prominent. Approximately 6.5 of people arrived, of which four were definitively established.

Uruguay arrived approximately one million people, of which only 60% remained. Brazil was another of the main receiving countries. Around five million Europeans arrived between 1860 and 1920. In Cuba it is estimated that European settlement was about 600,000 people.

The most important immigrant communities are Italian, the Spanish and the Portuguese. Migrants from other European nationalities moved to Latin America were Poles, French, English, Germans, among others, but did so in lesser number than those mentioned above.

Immigrants from other parts of the globe

• Chinatown in Buenos Aires

Europeans were not the only ones who saw in Latin America the possibility of forming a new home. Immigrants also arrived from other places. An example is Japanese and Chinese migrations. According to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, from 1899 to 1979, the countries that received the most migrants were Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia.

On the other hand, in the nineteenth century a movement of Chinese inhabitants began that were marketed as workers, the culíes. Many of the American infrastructure were made with this labor, for example, the railroads in the United States or the famous Panama Channel.

Currently, the Chinese population continues to migrate and Latin America is one of its destinations. In Brazil it is estimated that Chinese immigration is 23,000 people;In Argentina, according to the International Organization for Migration (IIM), there are 14,000 people, although the country’s censuses estimate that much greater.

Mestizos, another ethnic groups in Latin America

It is undeniable that in the coexistence of this great variety of ethnic groups there were unions with each other. These unions generate what in social sciences are called mestizo populations, that is, populations that have combined their different cultures.

During the colony, miscegenation generated a hierarchical classification in racial terms, which was dominated as a caste system. It is very interesting to see the caste paintings where this hierarchy was represented, in the Museum of America in Madrid you have the opportunity to see some examples.

There are countries that build their national identity in the mestizo citizen, others that do so through the European origin of their ancestors. What we cannot deny is that Latin America is a territory with huge ethnic diversity where, unfortunately on many occasions, discrimination and hierarchy that was built during the time of the colony can still be perceived.