White Mexican

White Mexican
Mexicano Blanco

Notable White Mexicans: Ilan Stavans, Guillermo del Toro, Elena Poniatowska, Santiago Creel, Arturo Ripstein, Lorena Ochoa
Total population
White Mexican 20,018,122 approximately 18% of Mexico's population[1]
Regions with significant populations
All regions of Mexico, most common in the northern, central and western states.
Languages
Predominantly Spanish
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic · Jewish · Protestant · Orthodox · Atheist and Agnostic minorities
Related ethnic groups
other White Latin Americans · other Mexican groups · White Hispanic and Latino Americans · European ethnic groups · Jews · Arabs

A White Mexican is a Mexican citizen of European or Middle Eastern descent. Although Mexico does not have a racial census, some international organizations believe that Mexican people of full European descent make nearly one-fifth^[1] of the country's population, or about 20 million people, thus making Mexico's white population the third largest in Latin America, after only those of Brazil and Argentina, respectively. They are found in all regions of the country, but are most common in the northern, central and western states. In addition, castizos and some mestizos (especially those with predominantly European features) may, in some cases, be considered white as well.

History

As Mexico was colonized by Spain, the majority of White Mexicans are of Spanish descent, or as they were referred to in colonial times, criollos. 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.^[2][3] White Americans and Canadians, Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazic Jews and immigrants from other Slavic countries,^[3] along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War also settled in Mexico.^[4]

White Mexicans are among the three main groups in the country.

Northern Mexico's population is predominantly white and Mestizo. This is due to very little mixing, as the indigenous population of the region was scarce. In Northwestern Mexico, the majority of the relatively small indigenous communities remain isolated from the rest of the population, and as for the case of Northeastern Mexico the indigenous population of the area was eliminated by early European settlers, becoming the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period and the one with no native american people. However, recent immigrants from other Mexican states have been slowly changing to some degree its demographic trends.^[5][6] The white population of central and western Mexico, despite not being as numerous as in the north, due to mixing, is ethnically more diverse, as there are large numbers of other European and Middle Eastern ethnic groups (mostly Italian, French and Lebanese) aside from Spanish. Non-Iberian surnames are also more common in central Mexico, especially in Mexico City and the state of Jalisco.

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 some communities of European immigrants have remained isolated from the rest of the population since their arrival. There are Dutch/German Mennonites who settled in the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Quintana Roo,^[7] and Italians from Veneto who established the town of Chipilo in the central state of Puebla and have retained their customs and still speak a derivative of the Venetian dialect (Chipilo Venetian dialect).^[8] Scandinavian Mennonites, mostly from Sweden, also established the town of Nueva Escandinavia in the northern state of Chihuahua.

A photo of Italian immigrants in Monterrey in 1905

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.^[9] 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.^[10] 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.

See also

• Indigenous Mexican
• Afro-Mexican
• Criollo people

Notes and references

External links

• Mexico Criollo Forum