Asian Latin Americans
Total population | |
---|---|
c. 4,500,000 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Brazil | 2,200,000[1][2] |
Peru | 1,560,000 |
Venezuela | 500,000 |
Argentina | 195,000 |
Panama | 140,000 |
Cuba | 114,240[3] |
Languages | |
Colonial Languages: | |
Religion | |
Buddhism · Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Shintoism · Sikhism · Taoism · Zorastrianism · Jainism | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Latino, Hispanic, Asian, Spaniards, Portuguese, European Latin Americans, Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans, Latin American Asian, Asian Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, Chinese Caribbean |
Asian Latin Americans are Latin Americans of East Asian, Western 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 peak 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 Arabs, Filipinos, Koreans, and Indians. Brazil is home to the largest population of Asian Latin Americans, at some 2.2 million.[4][5] The highest ratio of any country in the region is 5%,[6] 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 (primarily to Cuba and Mexico, and secondarily to Colombia, Panama and Peru) 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, Peru and others, thus making Filipinos the oldest Asian ethnic group in Latin-America.
Most Chinese-Latin Americans descended from the Coolie slave trade, and most are found in the Caribbean, especially in Cuba, and Peru.
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,[7][8] and some Hmong went to French Guiana after the Vietnam War.[9]
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%[6] of the population there, but one source places the number of all Peruvians with at least some Chinese ancestry at 5 million, which equates to 20% of the country's total population.[10]
Most who are of Japanese descent reside in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, and Paraguay while significant populations of Chinese ancestry are found in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Panama, 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 Ecuador and various other Latin American countries. The largest Korean communities are in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile. There are around 12,918 living in Guatemala. There is also a Hmong community in Argentina. Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, and Venezuela also have Asian Indian communities. There are also many Arabs in Colombia.
Japanese Peruvians have a considerable economic position in Peru.[11] Many past and present Peruvian Cabinet members are ethnic Asians, but most particularly Japanese Peruvians have made up large portions of Peru's cabinet members and former president Alberto Fujimori is of Japanese ancestry who is currently the only Asian Latin American to have ever served as the head of any Latin American nation. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan, numbering about 1.7 million with ancestry alone. Brazil is also home to 10 thousand Indians, 5 thousand Vietnamese people, 4.5 thousand Afghans, 2.9 thousand Indonesians and 1 thousand Filipinos.
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.[12] Their experiences bear similarities to those of Japanese Peruvian immigrants, who are often relegated to low income jobs typically occupied by foreigners.[11]
United States
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.[13] In 2006 the Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimated them at 154,694,[14] while its Population Estimates, which are official, put them at 277,704.[15] Some notable Americans of Asian Hispanic/Latino heritage include Harry Shum, Jr., Franklin Chang-Diaz, Carlos Galvan, Kelis, Kirk Acevedo and Chino Moreno. In the United States, there are Facebook groups that are devoted to Asian Hispanics in New York,[16] California[17] and Bay Area.[18]
Composition
Country | Chinese | Indian[19] | Japanese | Korean[20] | Filipino | Others | References |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Argentina | 120,000 | 4,000 | 35,000 | 22,024 | 15,000 | 2,000 | |
Bolivia | 14,000 | 640 | |||||
Brazil | 251,649 | 9,200 | 1,705,685 | 49,419 | 1,000 | [6][21] | |
Chile | 1,500 | 4,000 | 2,249 | ||||
Colombia | 160,000 | 5,000 | 2,980[22] | 12,000 | 5,000 | 17,000 | [23][24] |
Costa Rica | 7,873 | 16 | 351 | 730 | [25] | ||
Cuba | 112,000 | 200 | 84 | ||||
Dominican Republic | 50,000 | 200 | 847 | 518 | |||
Ecuador | 7,000 | 100 | 434 | 1,418 | |||
El Salvador | 2,140 | 55 | 176 | 1,272 | 103 | ||
Guatemala | 2,000 | 288 | 9,921 | [26] | |||
Honduras | 123 | 160 | 406 | 1,107 | |||
Mexico | 70,000[27] | 2,258[28] | 35,000[29] | 30,000[30] | 200,000[31] | 1,300[32] | |
Nicaragua | 10 | 145 | 531 | ||||
Panama | 135,000 | 2,164 | 456 | 306 | |||
Paraguay | 9,484 | 5,229 | |||||
Peru | 1,300,000 | 145 | 160,000[33][34][35] | 812 | [6][36] | ||
Puerto Rico | >2,200 | 823 | 10,486 | 45 | 9,832 | ||
Uruguay | ~100 | 456 | 152 | ||||
Venezuela | 420,000 | 680 | 2,000 | 325 | 10,000 |
Notable persons
Argentina
- Ignacio Huang, actor; Taiwanese Argentine
- Mario Alberto Ishii, politician; Japanese Argentine
- Marco, actor; Korean Argentine
- Jessica Michibata, fashion model; Japanese Argentine
- Leonardo Nam, actor; Korean Argentine
- Liu Song, table tennis player; Chinese Argentine
- Maria Eugenia Suarez, actress and singer; Japanese Argentine
Bolivia
- Pedro Shimose, poet; Japanese Bolivian
Brazil
- Erica Awano, manga artist; Japanese Brazilian
- Suresh Biswas, adventurer; Indo-Brazilian
- Sérgio Echigo, former footballer; Japanese Brazilian
- Boris Fausto, historian, political scientist and writer; Turkish Brazilian
- Alexandr Fier, chess grandmaster; Japanese Brazilian
- Ashok Gandotra, cricketer; Indo-Brazilian
- Kaio Felipe Gonçalves, striker; Japanese Brazilian
- Luiz Gushiken, union leader and politician; Japanese Brazilian
- Sandro Hiroshi, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
- Hugo Hoyama, tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
- Fabiane Hukuda, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
- Kaisei Ichirō, sumo wrestler; Japanese Brazilian
- Thereza Imanishi-Kari, professor; Japanese Brazilian
- Ryoki Inoue, the world's most prolific writer; Japanese Brazilian
- Vânia Ishii, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
- Cláudio Kano, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
- Nathalia Kaur, model and actress; Indo-Brazilian
- Reishin Kawai, aikido practitioner and acupuncturist; Japanese Brazilian
- Pedro Ken, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
- Allam Khodair, race car driver; Japanese Brazilian
- Felipe Kitadai, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
- Paulinho Kobayashi, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
- Caroline Kumahara, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
- Yanna Lavigne, actress and model; Japanese Brazilian
- Iara Lee, producer, director and activist; Korean Brazilian
- Lovefoxxx, singer; Japanese Brazilian
- Manabu Mabe, painter; Japanese Brazilian
- Lyoto Machida, mixed martial artist; Japanese-Brazilian
- Mitsuyo Maeda, judo master and developer of Brazilian jiu-jitsu; Japanese Brazilian
- Daniel Matsunaga, model, host, actor and footballer; Japanese-Brazilian
- Jo Matumoto, former pro baseball player; Japanese Brazilian
- Froilano de Mello, microbiologist; Indo-Brazilian
- Paulo Miyashiro, triathlete; Japanese Brazilian
- Carlos Morimoto, author; Japanese Brazilian
- Lawrence Lin Murata, technology entrepreneur[37]
- Andrews Nakahara, MMA fighter; Japanese Brazilian
- Aline Nakashima, model; Japanese-Brazilian
- Mariana Ohata, triathlete; Japanese Brazilian
- Ruy Ohtake, architect; Japanese Brazilian
- Tomie Ohtake, artist; Japanese Brazilian
- Oscar Oiwa, painter, visual artist and architect; Japanese Brazilian
- Leandro Okabe, model; Japanese Brazilian
- Tetsuo Okamoto, swimmer; Japanese Brazilian
- Poliana Okimoto, long distance swimmer and gold medalist; Japanese Brazilian
- Pedro Okuda, baseball shortstop; Japanese Brazilian
- Luís Onmura, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
- Hiroo Onoda, former Japanese Army officer; Japanese Brazilian
- Angela Park, golfer; Korean Brazilian
- Rogério Romero, swimmer; Japanese Brazilian
- Lucas Salatta, backstroke swimmer; Japanese Brazilian
- Silvio Santos, TV host and entrepreneur; Turkish Brazilian
- Akihiro Sato, model; Japanese Brazilian
- Luis Shinohara, former judoka; Japanese Brazilian
- Lígia Silva, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
- Marcos Sugiyama, volleyball player; Japanese Brazilian
- Mahau Suguimati, truck hurdler; Japanese Brazilian
- Jung Mo Sung, lay theologian; Korean Brazilian
- Manabu Suzuki, racer; Japanese Brazilian
- Rafael Suzuki, racer; Japanese Brazilian
- Rodrigo Tabata, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
- Marlon Teixeira, model; Japanese Brazilian
- Geovanna Tominaga, TV host and actress; Japanese Brazilian
- Milton Trajano, cartoonist; Japanese Brazilian
- Gustavo Tsuboi, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
- Stênio Yamamoto, sports shooter; Japanese Brazilian
- Mario Yamasaki, MMA fighter; Japanese Brazilian
- Carlos Yoshimura, baseball pitcher; Japanese Brazilian
Chile
- Nara Back, singer in electro-pop group Lulu Jam[38]
- Liza Chung, pianist; Korean Chilean
- J.J. Hwang, film composer; Korean Chilean
- Carlos Ominami, economist and politician; Japanese Chilean
- Kyoung H. Park, playwright; Korean Chilean
Colombian
Costa Rica
- Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut; Chinese-Spanish Costa Rican
- Cheng Siu Chung, retired football player, coach; Chinese Costa Rican
- Eduardo Li, president of the Costa Rican football federation; Chinese Costa Rican
- Harry Shum, Jr., actor; Chinese Costa Rican
Cuba
- Fulgencio Batista, former President of Cuba; of partial Chinese heritage
- Yamil Chade, boxing manager; Lebanese Cuban
- Yat-Sen Chang, ballet dancer; Chinese Cuban
- Emilio Estefan, musician; Lebanese Cuban
- Wifredo Lam, artist; Chinese-African Cuban
- Alfredo Abon Lee, army officer; Chinese Cuban
Dominican Republic
- Jamie Guzman, architect and blogger; Chinese Dominican
- Elías Wessin y Wessin, politician; Lebanese Dominican
- Wu Xue, table tennis player; Chinese Dominican
Ecuador
- Li Jian - midfielder; Chinese Ecuadorian
- Carlos Moncayo - co-founder and CEO of Asiam; Chinese
Guatemala
- Myrna Mack, anthropologist; Chinese-Maya Guatemalan
- Helen Mack Chang, businesswoman and human rights activist; Chinese Guatemalan
Mexico
- Alberto Arai, architect, theorist and writer; Japanese Mexican
- Eduardo Auyón, artist and cultural promoter; Chinese Mexican
- Jesús Chong, boxer; Chinese Mexican
- Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, secretary of the interior of Mexico; Chinese Mexican
- Axel Didriksson, writer and professor; Japanese Mexican
- Ana Gabriel, Mexican singer and composer; Chinese on her mother's side
- Zhenli Ye Gon, businessman and alleged drug trafficker; Chinese Mexican
- Xóchitl Hamada, pro wrestler; Japanese Mexican
- Hiromi Hayakawa, singer; Japanese Mexican
- Gilberto Hirata, state deputy; Japanese Mexican
- Tomoki Kameda, undefeated Boxer; Japanese Mexican
- Su Muy Key, actress and dancer; Chinese Mexican
- Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje, revolutionary, scholar, agricultural scientist and historian; Indo-Mexican
- Pablo Larios, goalkeeper; Japanese Mexican
- Juan Manuel Ley, founder and chairman of Casa Ley; Chinese Mexican
- Alejandro Gómez Maganda, politician and former governor of the state of Guerrero; Filipino Mexican
- Eizi Matuda, botanist; Japanese Mexican
- Lyn May, actress, exotic dancer and acrobat; Chinese Mexican
- Patricia Castañeda Miyamoto, swimmer; Japanese Mexican
- Daiwon Moon, martial artist; Korean Mexican
- Kenya Mori, actress; Japanese Mexican
- Noé Murayama, actor; Japanese Mexican
- Úrsula Murayama, actress; Japanese Mexican
- Fumiko Nakashima, artist; Japanese Mexican
- Carlos Nakatani, artist; Japanese Mexican
- Isidoro Montes de Oca, revolutionary soldier; Filipino Mexican
- Kiyoto Ota, sculptor; Japanese Mexican
- Sanjaya Rajaram, agronomist; Indo-Mexican
- M.N. Roy, nationalist revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist; Indo-Mexican
- Catarina de San Juan, the China Poblana; Indo-Mexican
- Sugi Sito, pro wrestler; Chinese Mexican
- Romeo Villalva Tabuena, painter and printmaker; Filipino Mexican
- Nancy Taira, actress; Japanese Mexican
Nicaragua
- Arlen Siu, martyr of the 1979 Sandinista revolution; Chinese Nicaraguan
Panama
- Jorge Cham, creator of the popular comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper; Chinese Panamanian
- Bruce Chen, Major League Baseball pitcher; Chinese Panamanian
- Juan Tam, writer, historian; Chinese Panamanian
Peru
- Ernesto Arakaki, footballer; Japanese Peruvian
- José Antonio Chang, former Prime Minister of Peru; Chinese Peruvian
- Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru from 1990 to 2000; Japanese Peruvian
- Keiko Fujimori, Congresswoman; Japanese Peruvian
- Kenji Fujimori, Congressman; Japanese-Peruvian
- Susana Higuchi, politician and engineer; Japanese Peruvian
- Jorge Hirano, international football player; Japanese Peruvian
- Fernando Iwasaki, writer and historian; Japanese Peruvian
- Haruki Kanashiro, goalkeeper; Japanese Peruvian
- Elena Keldibekova, volleyball player; Kazakh Peruvian
- Humberto Lay, architect and cleric; Chinese Peruvian
- Iván Miranda, tennis player; Chinese Peruvian
- Aldo Miyashiro, artist; Japanese Peruvian
- Augusto Miyashiro, engineer and politician; Japanese Peruvian
- Kaoru Morioka, futsal player; Japanese Peruvian
- José Pereda, retired footballer; Japanese Peruvian
- Víctor Polay, one of the founders of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement; Chinese Peruvian
- Venancio Shinki, painter; Japanese Peruvian
- Hector Takayama, former footballer; Japanese Peruvian
- Eduardo Tokeshi, artist; Japanese Peruvian
- Tilsa Tsuchiya, artist; Japanese Peruvian
- Edwin Vásquez, Olympic shooter; Chinese Peruvian
- José Watanabe, poet; Japanese Peruvian
- Víctor Joy Way, former Prime Minister of Peru; Chinese Peruvian
- Alan Wong, chef; Chinese Peruvian
- Erasmo Wong, businessman, owner of various retail chains; Chinese Peruvian
- Patty Wong, model; Chinese Peruvian
- Ricardo Wong, politician; Chinese Peruvian
- Rafael Yamashiro, politician; Japanese Peruvian
- César Ychikawa, vocalist; Japanese Peruvian
- David Soria Yoshinari, footballer; Japanese Peruvian
- Jaime Yoshiyama, politician; Japanese Peruvian
- Carlos Yushimito, writer; Japanese Peruvian
- Pedro Zulen, philosopher; Chinese Peruvian
Puerto Rico
- Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya, writer, performer, and theater director; Indo-Puerto Rican
- Eduardo Bhatia, politician and senator; Indo-Puerto Rican
- Lakshmi Singh, newscaster on NPR
- Ruth D. Thorne, author; Indo-Puerto Rican
Uruguay
- Barbara Mori, Mexican actress; Japanese Uruguayan
Venezuela
- Fred Armisen, American actor, has Venezuelan roots on his mother and Japanese father's side part; Japanese Venezuelan
- Alex Cabrera Suzuki, Venezuelan first baseman and right-handed batter who played in Major League Baseball, and Nippon Professional Baseball; Japanese Venezuelan
- Federico Chang, journalist; Chinese Venezuelan
- Roberto Chang Mota, engineer; Chinese Venezuelan
- Pedro Chien, missionary; Chinese Venezuelan
- Ivanova Decan, cultural promoter; Indian Venezuelan
- Virgilio Decan, lawyer, thoroughbred racing narrator; Indian Venezuelan
- Francisco Hung, painter; Chinese Venezuelan
- Maria Esperanza Hung, swimmer; Chinese Venezuelan
- Seiko Ishikawa, Diplomat; Japanese Venezuelan
- Seijiro Iyazawa, trader; Japanese Venezuelan
- Hana Kobayashi, singer; Japanese Venezuelan
- Takako Kodani de Bracho; painter and sculptor; Japanese Venezuelan
- Shanny Lam, Venezuelan model; Chinese Venezuelan
- Kamala Lopez, American actress, director, and political activist (born in New York City but raised in Venezuela); Indian Venezuelan
- Sadao Muraki, pianist; Japanese Venezuelan
- Toru Murata, Professional baseball player; Japanese Venezuelan
- Richard Obuchi, economist; Japanese Venezuelan
- Naomi Soazo, Venezuelan judoka; Japanese Venezuelan
- Hiroyuki Takeuchi, Venezuelan chef; Japanese Venezuelan
- Kaori F. Yonekura, cineast; Japanese Venezuelan
- Yuzo Yonekura, trader; Japanese Venezuelan
- Henry Zakka, Venezuelan actor; Japanese Venezuelan
- Omar Zamora Akamatsu, founder of channelTeleven; Japanese Venezuelan
- Millard Faris Ziadie, trainer of thorougbreds; Indian Venezuelan
See also
Ethnic groups
References
Further reading
External links |