Italian Mexican

Infobox Ethnic group
group = Italian Mexican


poptime = Official population numbers are unknown. Estimate 350,000.
popplace = Mexico City, Chihuahua, Durango, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Chiapas, Quintana Roo.
langs = Mexican Spanish, Italian
rels = Christianity (mostly Roman Catholic)
related = Italians, Italian American, Italian Argentine

An Italian-Mexican or Italo-Mexican (Italian: "italo-messicano", Spanish: "ítalo-mexicano") is a Mexican citizen of Italian descent or origin. Most people of Italian ancestry living in Mexico arrived in the late nineteenth century, and have become generally assimilated into mainstream societyFact|date=May 2008.

History

Italo-Mexican identity rests on the common experience of migration from Italy in the late 1800s, a period characterized by a more general Italian diaspora to the Americas (under the pressures of economic transformation and the process of unification into a nation-state in 1871), and the establishment of communities, primarily in central and eastern MexicoFact|date=May 2008. Only about 3,000 Italians emigrated to Mexico during this period, and at least half of them subsequently returned to Italy or went on to the United States [http://www.everyculture.com/Middle-America-Caribbean/Italian-Mexicans-Orientation.html Italian Mexicans Orientation] . Most Italians coming to Mexico were farmers or farm workers from the northern districts. Most of these immigrants were from northern Italy, especially from the north-east regions of Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol [http://www.italmex.vze.com/ Italianos en México] . Others arriving in the early 19th c. included many from Southern Italy. Significant numbers of Italian settlers arriving in the late 1800s and early 1900s received land grants from the Mexican government.

Today, many Italo-Mexicans continue to reside in towns founded by their ancestorsFact|date=May 2008. Among these is Chipilo, in the state of Puebla, where a derivative of the Venetian dialect is still spoken by its residents. Other towns founded by Italian immigrants lie in the states of Veracruz (Huatusco), San Luis Potosí, and the Mexican Federal DistrictFact|date=May 2008. Smaller, but also notable, numbers of Italo-Mexicans can be found in Guanajuato, Estado de Mexico, and in the towns of Nueva Italia and Lombardia in the state of Michoacán, which were founded by wealthy Italians who immigrated to Mexico after the 1880 diaspora and established large agricultural estates known as haciendasFact|date=May 2008. Playa del Carmen in the state of Quintana Roo has also received a notable amount of immigrants from ItalyFact|date=May 2008.

ociety

Although many Italo-Mexicans now live in urban centers such as Mexico City and Monterrey, many others live in, and strongly identify with, one of the original or spin-off communities that are almost entirely of Italian originFact|date=May 2008. These individuals still stridently claim an Italian ethnic identity (at least to a non-Mexican outsider), but generally note that they are Mexican as well. In the late 20th century, there were an estimated 30,000 Italian Mexicans in the original eight Italian communities. [http://www.everyculture.com/Middle-America-Caribbean/Italian-Mexicans-Orientation.html Italian Mexicans Orientation] The total population, however, is uncertain due to the national census not gathering information on any specific ethnicity, as it is done in other countries. Despite this, Italian surnames are not uncommon in parts of MexicoFact|date=May 2008.

The majority of Italian Mexicans speak Spanish, but in Italian communities derived Italian languages (usually mixed with Spanish) are used to communicate among themselves.

Derived Italian Languages

Since most Italian immigration occurred by way of the establishment of colonies, derivatives of Italian languages exist in Mexico. Besides the best known Chipilo, derivatives of the Venetian language may also exist in Huatusco and Colonia Gonzalez, VeracruzFact|date=May 2008. To this we can also add other Italian immigrant languages like Trentino (like in Colonia Manuel Gonzalez, Veracruz and Tijuana, Baja California), Piedmontese (in Gutierrez Zamora, Veracruz which remains the oldest Italian colony in Mexico as such which was called the Model Colony, and in La Estanzuela, Jalisco another Italian colony), Lombard (in Sinaloa and Colonia Manuel Gonzalez too, but mainly in Nueva Italia and Colonia Lombardia in the state of Michoacan), Sicilian (mainly in Mexico City), and Lower Bellunese (in Colonia Diez Gutierrez in San Luis Potosi)Fact|date=May 2008.

Notable Italo-Mexicans

* Juan Bottesini, maestro
* Jared Borgetti, all-time leading goal scorer for the Mexican national football team
* Caesar Cardini, inventor of Caesar salad
* Manuel Neri, artist (Italo-Mexican-American)
* Maite Perroni, actress
* Sergio Pitol Demeneghi, writer
* Bernard Stasi, French politician (Italo-Mexican-French)
* Betty Zanolli Fabila, pianist
* Uberto Zanolli, composer and writer
* Martinez del Rio family, Piedmont and Milan

ee also

* Chipilo Venetian dialect
* Italian diaspora
* German Mexican

External links

*es icon/it icon [http://www.italmex.vze.com/ Early Italian immigration to Mexico]
*es icon/it icon [http://www.geocities.com/trentinimessico/ Trentini nel Messico]

References and notes