White Mexican

infobox ethnic group
group = White Mexican
"Mexicano Blanco"


caption = Notable White Mexicans: Guillermo del Toro·Vicente Fox·Paulina Rubio
Salma Hayek·Gael García Bernal·Thalía
Carlos Slim·Fernando Eimbcke·Santiago Creel
poptime = White Mexican
19,805,133
18% of Mexico's populationcite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Mexico: Ethnic Groups | date= | publisher= | url =http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27384/Mexico | work =Encyclopædia Britannica | pages = | accessdate = | language = ]
popplace = All regions of Mexico, most common in the northern, central and western states.
langs = Predominantly Spanish
rels = Predominantly Roman Catholic·Jewish·Protestant·Orthodox·Atheist and Agnostic minorities
related = Spaniards·Mestizos·Italians·Germans·French·Europeans·Ashkenazi Jews·Arabs·White Latin American·White Argentine·White Brazilian·White American·White Hispanic

A White Mexican ( _es. Mexicano Blanco) is any citizen of Mexico who is primarily or solely a descendant of European and/or Middle Eastern immigrants. Also known as "European(-)" or "Euro-Mexicans", White Mexicans make up 18% of Mexico's population or around 19.8 million people,cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Mexico: Ethnic Groups | date= | publisher= | url =http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27384/Mexico | work =Encyclopædia Britannica | pages = | accessdate = | language = ] thus making Mexico the third country in Latin America with the largest population of whites, after Brazil and Argentina respectively. They are found in all regions of the country, but are more commonly found in the northern, central and western states.

History

As Mexico was colonized by Spain, the majority of White Mexicans are criollos or of Spanish descent. However, many other non-Iberian 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. [http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/pdf/151/15103202.pdf Asociaciones de Inmigrantes Extranjeros en la Ciudad de México. Una Mirada a Fines del Siglo XX] ] [http://historiamexicana.colmex.mx/pdf/13/art_13_1938_16335.pdf Los Extranjeros en México, La inmigración y el gobierno ¿Tolerancia o intolerancia religiosa?] ] White Americans and Canadians, Greeks, Romanians, Portuguese, Armenians, Poles, Russians, Ashkenazic Jews and immigrants from other Slavic countries, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War also settled in Mexico. [ [http://www.historyenespanol.com/espanol/tdih.jsp?day=15329380&month=15329369 Refugiados españoles en México] ] 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.

The European Jewish immigrants joined the Sephardic community that lived in Mexico since colonial times, though many lived as Crypto-Jews, mostly in the northern states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. [ [http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2061210 Nexos entre los cripto-judios coloniales y contemporáneos] ] 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. [ [http://www.molokane.org/places/Mexico/ Molokans in Mexico: Guadalupe Valley] ]

Due to the intermixing of Europeans and Amerindians since colonial times, many White Mexicans 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.

The largest Spanish communities are located in cities like Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City. Northern Mexico is almost entirely inhabited by Spanish people, in some states like Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango and Nuevo Leon, the majority of the population accounts for Spaniard due to the absence of mixing, both because of the scarcity of Indians and the size of the territory.

There are Dutch and German Mennonites who settled in the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Quintana Roo, [ [http://www.purochihuahua.com/menonitas.html Menonitas en México] ] 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). [ [http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Venetan/Dialects/Chipilo.html El dialecto veneto de Chipilo] ] Scandinavian Mennonites, mostly from Sweden, also established the town of Nueva Escandinavia in the northern state of Chihuahua. In addition, castizos and some mestizos (especially those with predominantly European features) may, in some cases, be considered white as well.

Notes and references