White is a historical specification ofskin color and a modern classification ofrace. Most often, it is applied to generally identifypeople of European origin, but could also mean people with ancestry from other continents, such as some countries in theMiddle East orNorth Africa. The exact definition of "White" can vary depending on context and points of view. Beyondracialization, the word simply denotes any person withlight skin, usually that which is coloredcarnation.
Descriptions of populations as "white" in reference to their skin color is occasionally found inGreco-Roman ethnography and in other ancient and medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of whiteness as a race nor of apan-European identity. The present-day racialized understanding that is "White race" or "White people" entered the majorEuropean languages in the late 17th century, when the concept of a White people achieved greater acceptance inEurope, particularly in the context of race-basedslavery and social status in the world'sEuropean colonies. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept frompre-modern descriptions, which focused on physical complexion rather than the idea of race. Prior to themodern era, no European peoples regarded themselves as "White" and instead defined their identity in terms of their religion, ancestry,ethnicity, ornationality.[1]
Inancient Egypt as a whole, people were not designated by color terms ... Egyptian inscriptions andliterature only rarely, for instance, mention the dark skin color of theKushites ofUpper Nubia. We know the Egyptians were not oblivious to skin color, however, because artists paid attention to it in their works of art, to the extent that the pigments at the time permitted.[3]
Theancient Egyptian funerary text known as theBook of Gates distinguishes "four groups" in a procession. These are theEgyptians, theLevantine andCanaanite peoples or "Asiatics", the "Nubians" and the "fair-skinnedLibyans".[4] The Egyptians are depicted as considerably darker-skinned than the Levantines and Libyans, but considerably lighter than the Nubians.
The assignment ofpositive and negative connotations ofWhite andBlack to certain persons date to the very old age in a number ofIndo-European languages, but these differences were not necessarily used in respect to skin colors. Religious conversion was sometimes described figuratively as a change in skin color.[5] Similarly, theRigveda useskrsna tvac "black skin" as a metaphor for irreligiosity.[6] Ancient Egyptians,Mycenaean Greeks andMinoans generally depicted women as having pale or white skin while men were depicted as dark brown or tanned.[7] As a result, men with pale or light skin,leukochrōs (λευκόχρως, "white-skinned") could be considered weak and effeminate byAncient Greek writers such asPlato andAristotle.[8] According to Aristotle "Those whose skin is too dark are cowardly: witness Egyptians and the Ethiopians. Those whose skin is too light are equally cowardly: witness women. The skin color typical of the courageous should be halfway between the two."[9] Similarly,Xenophon of Athens describesPersian prisoners of war as "white-skinned because they were never without their clothing, and soft and unused to toil because they always rode in carriages" and states that Greek soldiers as a result believed "that the war would be in no way different from having to fight with women."[10][11]
Classicist James H. Dee states "the Greeks do not describe themselves as 'White people' – or as anything else because they hadno regular word in their color vocabulary for themselves."[5] People's skin color did not carry useful meaning; what mattered is where they lived.[12]Herodotus described theScythianBudini as having deepblue eyes and brightred hair[13] and the Egyptians – quite like theColchians – asmelánchroes (μελάγχροες, "dark-skinned") andcurly-haired.[14] He also gives the possibly first reference to the common Greek name of the tribes living south of Egypt, otherwise known asNubians, which wasAithíopes (Αἰθίοπες, "burned-faced").[15] LaterXenophanes of Colophon described theAethiopians as black and theThracians as having red hair and blue eyes.[16] In his description of the Scythians,Hippocrates states that the cold weather "burns their white skin and turns it ruddy."[17][18]
Modern racial hierarchies
The term "White race" or "White people" entered the majorEuropean languages in the later seventeenth century, originating with theracialization ofslavery at the time, in the context of theAtlantic slave trade[19] and the enslavement ofindigenous peoples in theSpanish Empire.[20] It has repeatedly been ascribed to strains of blood, ancestry, and physical traits, and was eventually made into a subject of pseudoscientific research, which culminated inscientific racism, which was later widely repudiated by the scientific community. According to historian Irene Silverblatt, "Race thinking… made social categories into racial truths."[20] Bruce David Baum, citing the work ofRuth Frankenberg, states, "the history of modern racist domination has been bound up with the history of how European peoples defined themselves (and sometimes some other peoples) as members of a superior 'white race'."[21] Alastair Bonnett argues that "white identity", as it is presently conceived, is an American project, reflectingAmerican interpretations ofrace and history.[22][page needed]
Before the age of exploration, group differences were largely based on language, religion, and geography. ... the European had always reacted a bit hysterically to the differences of skin color and facial structure between themselves and the populations encountered in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (see, for example, Shakespeare's dramatization of racial conflict inOthello andThe Tempest). Beginning in the 1500s, Europeans began to develop what became known as "scientific racism", the attempt to construct a biological rather than cultural definition of race ... Whiteness, then, emerged as what we now call a "pan-ethnic" category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single "race" ... .
— Gregory Jay, "Who Invented White People? A Talk on the Occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1998"[23]
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as White, never as yellow."[24] Michael Keevak's historyBecoming Yellow, finds thatEast Asians were redesignated as being yellow-skinned because "yellow had become aracial designation," and that the replacement of White with yellow as a description came through pseudoscientific discourse.[25]
A social category formed by colonialism
A three-part racial scheme in color terms was used in seventeenth-centuryLatin America under Spanish rule.[26] Irene Silverblatt traces "race thinking" inSouth America to the social categories ofcolonialism andstate formation: "White, black, and brown are abridged, abstracted versions of colonizer, slave, and colonized."[27] By the mid-seventeenth century, the novel termespañol ("Spaniard") was being equated in written documents withblanco, or "White".[27] In Spain's American colonies,Black African,Indigenous (indios),Jewish, ormorisco ancestry formally excluded individuals from the "purity of blood" (limpieza de sangre) requirements for holding any public office under the Royal Pragmatic of 1501.[28] Similar restrictions applied in the military, some religious orders, colleges, and universities, leading to a nearly all-White priesthood and professional stratum.[28][29] Blacks andindios were subject to tribute obligations and forbidden to bear arms, and black andindio women were forbidden to wear jewels, silk, or precious metals in early colonial Mexico and Peru.[28] Thosepardos (people with dark skin) andmulattos (people of mixed African and European ancestry) with resources largely sought to evade these restrictions by passing as White.[28][29] A brief royal offer to buy the privileges of Whiteness for a substantial sum of money attracted fifteen applicants before pressure from White elites ended the practice.[28]
In theBritish colonies inNorth America and the Caribbean, the designationEnglish orChristian was initially used in contrast to Native Americans or Africans. Early appearances of White race or White people in the Oxford English Dictionary begin in the seventeenth century.[5] Historian Winthrop Jordan reports that, "throughout the [thirteen] colonies the termsChristian,free,English, andwhite were ... employed indiscriminately" in the seventeenth century as proxies for one another.[30] In 1680, Morgan Godwyn "found it necessary to explain" to English readers that "inBarbados, 'white' was 'the general name for Europeans.'"[31] Several historians report a shift towards greater use ofWhite as a legal category alongside a hardening of restrictions on free or Christian blacks.[32]White remained a more familiar term in the American colonies than in Britain well into the 18th century, according to historianTheodore W. Allen.[31]
Scientific racism
Henry Strickland Constable's illustration in the nineteenth century which shows an alleged similarity between "Irish Iberian" and "Negro" features in contrast to the higher "Anglo-Teutonic"
Western studies ofrace andethnicity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed into what would later be termedscientific racism. Prominent European pseudoscientists writing about human and natural difference included aWhite orWest Eurasian race among a small set of human races and imputed physical, mental, or aesthetic superiority to this White category. These ideas were discredited by twentieth-century scientists.[33]
Eighteenth century beginnings
In 1758,Carl Linnaeus proposed what he considered to be naturaltaxonomic categories of the human species. He distinguished betweenHomo sapiens andHomo sapiens europaeus, and he later added four geographical subdivisions of humans: whiteEuropeans, redAmericans, yellowAsians and blackAfricans. Although Linnaeus intended them as objective classifications, his descriptions of these groups included cultural patterns and derogatory stereotypes.[34]
The Georgian female skullJohann Friedrich Blumenbach discovered in 1795, which he used to hypothesize origination of Europeans from theCaucasus
In 1775, thenaturalistJohann Friedrich Blumenbach asserted that "The white color holds the first place, such as is that of most European peoples. The redness of the cheeks in this variety is almost peculiar to it: at all events it is but seldom to be seen in the rest".[35]
In the various editions of hisOn the Natural Variety of Mankind, he categorized humans into four or five races, largely built on Linnaeus' classifications. But while, in 1775, he had grouped into his "first and most important" race "Europe, Asia this side of the Ganges, and all the country situated to the north of the Amoor, together with that part of North America, which is nearest both in position and character of the inhabitants", he somewhat narrows his "Caucasian variety" in the third edition of his text, of 1795: "To this first variety belong the inhabitants of Europe (except the Lapps and the remaining descendants of the Finns) and those of Eastern Asia, as far as the river Obi, the Caspian Sea and the Ganges; and lastly, those of Northern Africa."[36][34][37][38] Blumenbach quotes various other systems by his contemporaries, ranging from two to seven races, authored by the authorities of that time, including, besides Linnæus,Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon,Christoph Meiners andImmanuel Kant.
In the question of color, he conducts a rather thorough inquiry, considering also factors ofdiet andhealth, but ultimately believes that "climate, and the influence of the soil and the temperature, together with the mode of life, have the greatest influence".[39] Blumenbach's conclusion was, however, to proclaim all races' attribution to one single human species. Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on environmental factors, such assolarization and diet. Like othermonogenists, Blumenbach held to the "degenerative hypothesis" of racial origins. He claimed thatAdam and Eve wereCaucasian inhabitants of Asia,[40] and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors such as the sun and poor diet. He consistently believed that the degeneration could be reversed in a proper environmental control and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the originalCaucasian race.[41]
Nineteenth and twentieth century: the "Caucasian race"
Between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries,[42] race scientists, including mostphysical anthropologists classified the world's populations intothree, four, or five races, which, depending on the authority consulted, were further divided into various sub-races. During this period theCaucasian race, named after people of theCaucasus Mountains but extending to all Europeans, figured as one of these races and was incorporated as a formal category of both pseudoscientific research and, in countries including the United States, social classification.[43]
There was never any scholarly consensus on the delineation between the Caucasian race, including the populations of Europe, and the Mongoloid one, including the populations of East Asia. Thus,Carleton S. Coon (1939) included the populations native to all ofCentral andNorthern Asia under the Caucasian label, whileThomas Henry Huxley (1870) classified the same populations as Mongoloid, andLothrop Stoddard (1920) classified as "brown" most of the populations of theMiddle East,North Africa and Central Asia, and counted as "White" only the European peoples and their descendants, as well as some populations in parts ofAnatolia and the northern areas of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.[44] Some authorities,[who?] following Huxley (1870), distinguished theXanthochroi or "light Whites" ofNorthern Europe with theMelanochroi or "dark Whites" of theMediterranean.[45]
Although modernneo-Nazis often invokeNazi iconography on behalf ofWhite nationalism,Nazi Germany repudiated the idea of a unified White race, instead promotingNordicism. In Nazi propaganda, Eastern EuropeanSlavs were often referred to asUntermensch (subhuman in English), and the relatively under-developed economic status of Eastern European countries such as Poland and the USSR was attributed to the racial inferiority of their inhabitants.[46] Fascist Italy took the same view, and both of these nations justified their colonial ambitions in Eastern Europe on racist, anti-Slavic grounds.[47] These nations were not alone in their view; during thelong nineteenth century andinterwar period, there were numerous cases – regardless of the position in thepolitical spectrum of the person – where European ethnic groups and nations labeled or treated other Europeans as members of another, somehow "inferior race". Between the Enlightenment era and interwar period, the racist worldviews fit well into the liberal worldview, and they were almost general among the liberal thinkers and politicians.[48]
Census and social definitions in different regions
Definitions of White have changed over the years, including the official definitions used in many countries, such as theUnited States andBrazil.[49] Through the mid to late twentieth century, numerous countries had formal legal standards or procedures defining racial categories (seecleanliness of blood,casta,apartheid in South Africa,hypodescent). Some countries do not ask questions about race or colour at all in their census.
WhiteDutch people first arrived in South Africa around 1652.[54][55] By the beginning of the eighteenth century, some 2,000 Europeans and their descendants were established in the region. Although these earlyAfrikaners represented various nationalities, including German peasants and FrenchHuguenots, the community retained a thoroughly Dutch character.[56]
TheKingdom of Great Britain capturedCape Town in 1795 during theNapoleonic Wars andpermanently acquired South Africa from Amsterdam in 1814. Thefirst British immigrants numbered about 4,000 and were introduced in 1820. They represented groups fromEngland,Ireland,Scotland, orWales and were typically more literate than the Dutch.[56] The discovery of diamonds and gold led to a greater influx of English speakers who were able to develop the mining industry with capital unavailable to Afrikaners.[56] They have been joined in more subsequent decades by former colonials from elsewhere, such asZambia andKenya, and poorer British nationals looking to escape famine at home.[56]
Both Afrikaners and English have been politically dominant in South Africa during the past; due to the controversialracial order underapartheid, the nation's predominantly Afrikaner government became a target of condemnation by other African states and the site of considerable dissension between 1948 and 1991.[54]
There were 4.6 million Whites in South Africa in 2011,[57][58] down from an all-time high of 5.2 million in 1995 following a wave of emigration commencing in the late twentieth century.[59] However, many returned over time.[60]
In the 2021 census of Hong Kong, 61,582 people identified as white representing 0.8% of the resident population, while 70,124 people (0.9%) were listed as "other", which includes people who identify as more than one ethnic group.[70]
From 1788, when thefirst British colony in Australia was founded, until the early nineteenth century, most immigrants to Australia wereEnglish, Scottish, Welsh and Irish convicts. These were augmented by small numbers of free settlers from theBritish Isles and other European countries. However, until the mid-nineteenth century, there were few restrictions on immigration, although members of ethnic minorities tended to be assimilated into theAnglo-Celtic populations.[citation needed]
Australians of European origin from 1947 to 1966 when racial data was collected
People of many nationalities, including many non-White people, emigrated to Australia during thegold rushes of the 1850s. However, the vast majority was still White and the gold rushes inspired thefirst racist activism and policy, directed mainly atChinese immigrants.[citation needed]
From the late nineteenth century, theColonial/State and laterfederal governments of Australia restricted all permanent immigration to the country by non-Europeans. These policies became known as the "White Australia policy", which was consolidated and enabled by theImmigration Restriction Act 1901,[71] but was never universally applied. Immigration inspectors were empowered to ask immigrants to take dictation from anyEuropean language as a test for admittance, a test used in practice to exclude people from Asia, Africa, and some European and South American countries, depending on the political climate.
Although they were not the prime targets of the policy, it was not until afterWorld War II that large numbers of southern European and eastern European immigrants were admitted for the first time.[72] Following this, the White Australia Policy was relaxed in stages: non-European nationals who could demonstrate European descent were admitted (e.g., descendants of European colonizers and settlers fromLatin America orAfrica), as wereautochthonous inhabitants (such asMaronites,Assyrians andMandeans) of various nations from the Middle East, most significantly fromLebanon and to a lesser degreeIraq,Syria andIran. In 1973, all immigration restrictions based on race and geographic origin were officially terminated.
Australia enumerated its population by race between 1911 and 1966, by racial origin in 1971 and 1976, and by self-declared ancestry alone since 1981, meaning no attempt is now made to classify people according to skin colour.[73] As at the 2016 census, it was estimated by theAustralian Human Rights Commission that around 58% of the Australian population were Anglo-Celtic Australians with 18% being of other European origins, a total of 76% for European ancestries as a whole.[74] The2021 Australian census form does not use the term "white".[75]
The federal and state police forces use the descriptor Caucasian, along with four others:Aboriginal, Asian, and Other.[76][77]
The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans to the vicinity ofNew Zealand. Whalers and sealers were often itinerant, and the first real settlers were missionaries and traders in the Bay of Islands area from 1809. Early visitors to New Zealand included whalers, sealers, missionaries, mariners, and merchants, attracted to natural resources in abundance. They came from the Australian colonies, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany (forming the next biggest immigrant group after the British and Irish),[79] France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, and Canada.
In the 1860s, the discovery of gold started a gold rush in Otago. By 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. TheOtago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating a definite Scottish influence in that region, while theCanterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region.[80]
In the 1870s, MPJulius Vogel borrowed millions of pounds from Britain to help fund capital development such as a nationwide rail system, lighthouses, ports, and bridges, and encouraged mass migration from Britain. By 1870 the non-Māori population reached over 250,000.[81] Other smaller groups of settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and India, but British and Irish settlers made up the vast majority and did so for the next 150 years.
White people in France are a broad racial-based, orskin color-based, social category in French society.
In statistical terms, the French government banned the collection of racial or ethnic information in 1978, and theNational Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), therefore, does not provide census data on White residents or citizens in France.French courts have, however, made cases,[82] and issued rulings, which have identified White people as a demographic group within the country.[83]
White people in France are defined, or discussed, as a racial or social grouping, from a diverse and often conflicting range of political and cultural perspectives; in anti-racism activism in France, from right-wing political dialogue or propaganda, and other sources.[84][85]
Background
Whites in France have been studied with regard the group's historical involvement inFrench colonialism; how "whites in France have played a major international role in colonizing areas of the globe such as theAfrican continent."[86]
They have been described as a privileged social class within the country, comparatively sheltered from racism and poverty.Der Spiegel has reported how "most white people in France only know the banlieues as a kind of caricature".Banlieues, outer-city regions across the country that are increasingly identified with minority groups, often have residents who are disproportionately affected by unemployment and poverty.[87]
The lack of census data collected by theINED andINSEE for Whites in France has been analyzed, from some academic perspectives, as masking racial issues within the country, or a form of falseracial color blindness. Writing forAl Jazeera, French journalistRokhaya Diallo suggests that "a large portion of White people in France are not used to having frank conversations about race and racism."[88] According to political sociologistEduardo Bonilla-Silva, "whites in France lie to themselves and the world by proclaiming that they do not have institutional racism in their nation."[89] SociologistCrystal Marie Fleming has written; "While many whites in France refuse to acknowledge institutionalized racism andwhite supremacy, there is widespread belief in the specter of 'anti-white racism'".[90][91]
Use in right-wing politics
Accusations of anti-White racism,[90] suggestions of the displacement of,[84] or lack of representation for,[92] the group, and rhetoric surrounding Whites in France experiencing poverty have been, at times, utilised by various right-wing political elements in the country.University of Lyon's political scientist Angéline Escafré-Dublet has written that "the equivalent to aWhite backlash in France can be traced through the debate over the purported neglect of the 'poor Whites' in France".[93]
In 2006, French politicianJean-Marie Le Pen suggested there were too many "players of colour" in theFrance national football team after he suggested that 7 of the 23-player squad were White.[92] In 2020, French politicianNadine Morano stated that French actressAïssa Maïga, who was born inSenegal, should "go back toAfrica" if she "was not happy with seeing so many white people in France".[94]
According to the 2022 Irish census, 4,444,145 or 87.4% of the total population declared their race as "White Irish" and Other White,[96] this was a decline from 92.4% in2016 and 94.24% in2011.[97][98][96][99]
People who identified as "White Irish" in 2022 were 3,893,056 or 76.5% of the total population, a decline from 87.4% in 2006.[96][100]
As of the 2021 census, 89.1% self-identified as Caucasian racial origin.Maltese-born natives make up the majority of the island with 386,280 people out of a total population of 519,562.[101] However, there are minorities, the largest of which by European birthplace were: 15,082 from the United Kingdom, Italy (13,361) and Serbia (5,935). Among racial origins for the non-Maltese, 58.1% of all identified as Caucasian.[101]
Before theIndustrial Revolutions in Europe, whiteness may have been associated with social status. Aristocrats may have had less exposure to the sun and therefore a pale complexion may have been associated with status and wealth.[106] This may be the origin of "blue blood" as a description of royalty, the skin being so lightly pigmented that the blueness of the veins could be clearly seen.[107] The change in the meaning of White that occurred in the colonies (seeabove) to distinguish Europeans from non-Europeans did not apply to the 'home land' countries (England, Ireland,Scotland andWales). Whiteness therefore retained a meaning associated with social status for the time being, and, during the nineteenth century, when theBritish Empire was at its peak, many of thebourgeoisie andaristocracy developedextremely negative attitudes to those of lower social rank.[108]
Just as race reified whiteness in America, Africa, and Asia, capitalism without social welfare reified whiteness with regard to social class in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland; this social distinction of whiteness became, over time, associated with racial differences.[113] For example, George Sims in his 1883 bookHow the poor live wrote of "a dark continent that is within easy reach of the General Post Office ... the wild races who inhabit it will, I trust, gain public sympathy as easily as [other] savage tribes".[113]
At the 2016 census the number of Bermudians who identify as white was 19,466 or 31 percent of the total population.[125] The White population of Bermuda made up the entirety of the Bermuda's population, other than a black and an Indian slave brought in for a very short-lived pearl fishery in 1616,[126] from settlement (which began accidentally in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture) until the middle of the 17th century, and the majority until some point in the 18th century.
In 2010, census data found that White Bermudians accounted for 31% including 10% native Bermudians and 21% foreign-born.[127]
Of the over 36 millionCanadians enumerated in 2021 approximately 25 million reported being "White", representing 69.8 percent of the population.[129][130]
In the 1995 Employment Equity Act, "'members of visible minorities' means persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". In the 2001 Census, persons who selected Chinese, South Asian, African, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arab, West Asian, Middle Eastern, Japanese, or Korean were included in the visible minority population.[131] A separate census question on "cultural or ethnic origin" (question 17) does not refer toskin color.[132]
The 2022 census counted a total population of 5,044,197 people.[133] In 2022, the census also recorded ethnic or racial identity for all groups separately for the first time in more than ninety-five years since the 1927 census. Options included indigenous, Black or Afro-descendant, Mulatto, Chinese,Mestizo, white and other on section IV: question 7.[134]People identifying either as White or Mestizo make up 94% of the population, with these two groups not being differentiated. 3% areblack people, 1% are Amerindians, and 1% are Chinese. White Costa Ricans are mostly of Spanish ancestry,[135] but there are also significant numbers of Costa Ricans descended from British,Italian,German, English,Dutch, French, Irish,Portuguese andPolish families, as well a sizable Jewish (namely Ashkenazi and Sephardic) community.[citation needed]
White people in Cuba make up 64.1% of the total population according to the 2012 census[138][139] with the majority being of diverse Spanish descent. However, after the mass exodus resulting from theCuban Revolution in 1959, the number of white Cubans actually residing in Cuba diminished. Today various records claiming the percentage of Whites in Cuba are conflicting and uncertain; some reports (usually coming from Cuba) still report a less, but similar, pre-1959 number of 65% and others (usually from outside observers) report a 40–45%. Despite most White Cubans being of Spanish descent, many others are of French, Portuguese, German, Italian and Russian descent.[140]
During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early part of the twentieth century, large waves ofCanarians,Catalans,Andalusians,Castilians, andGalicians emigrated to Cuba. ManyEuropean Jews have also immigrated there, with some of them beingSephardic.[141] Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communistregime took power. Historically, Chinese descendants in Cuba were classified as White.[142]
In 1953, it was estimated that 72.8% of Cubans were of European ancestry, mainly of Spanish origin, 12.4% of African ancestry, 14.5% of both African and European ancestry (mulattos), and 0.3% of the population was of Chinese and or East Asian descent (officially called "amarilla" or "yellow" in the census). However, after theCuban revolution, due to a combination of factors, mainly massexodus to Miami, United States, a drastic decrease in immigration, and interracial reproduction, Cuba's demography changed. As a result, those of complete European ancestry and those of pure African ancestry have decreased, the mixed population has increased, and the Chinese (or East Asian) population has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.[143]
The Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at theUniversity of Miami says the present Cuban population is 38% White and 62% Black/Mulatto.[144] TheMinority Rights Group International says that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution. Estimates of the percentage of people of African descent in the Cuban population vary enormously, ranging from 33.9 per cent to 62 per cent".[145][146]
They are 18.7% of theDominican Republic's population, according to a 2022 survey by theUnited Nations Population Fund.[149] The majority of white Dominicans have ancestry from the first European settlers to arrive inHispaniola in 1492 and are descendants of theSpanish andPortuguese who settled in theisland duringcolonial times, as well as theFrench who settled in the 17th and 18th centuries. About 9.2% of the Dominican population claims aEuropean immigrant background, according to the 2021 Fondo de Población de las Naciones Unidas survey.[149]
In 2010, 18.5% of Guatemalans belonged to the White ethnic group, with 41.7% of the population being Mestizo, and 39.8% of the population belonging to the 23Indigenous groups.[152][clarification needed] It is difficult to make an accurate census of Whites inGuatemala, because the country categorizes all non-indigenous people are mestizo orladino and a large majority of White Guatemalans consider themselves as mestizos or ladinos.[153] By the nineteenth century the majority of immigrants wereGermans, many who were bestowedfincas and coffee plantations inCobán, while others went toQuetzaltenango andGuatemala City. Many young Germans marriedmestiza andindigenousQ'eqchi' women, which caused a gradual whitening. There was also immigration ofBelgians toSanto Tomas and this contributed to the mixture ofblack andmestiza women in that region.[citation needed]
Mexico's national census doesn't categorize people by race. TheMexican government has conducted some ethnic censuses that allow individuals to identify as "White", but the specific results of these censuses are not made public.[156] The government has surveyed skin-tone in the country to studydiscrimination based on skin tone, with results varying depending on methodology and which scale is used.[157][158][159]
Europeans began arriving in Mexico during theSpanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the colonial period, most European immigration was Spanish (mostly from northern provinces such asCantabria,Navarra,Galicia and theBasque Country),[160] Intermixing between the European immigrants and the nativeIndigenous peoples resulted inMestizos becoming the majority of Mexico's population in the modern era.[161] One study has shown that the European or Indigenous genetic ancestry of Mestizo people in Mexico can be higher than 90%.[162] Formal definitions of Mestizo vary from study to study. After theMexican Revolution, the Mexican government began defining ethnicity on cultural standards (mainly the language spoken) rather than racial ones, in an effort to unite all Mexicans under a single racial identity.[163]
Estimates of Mexico's White population differ greatly in both methodology and percentages given. TheWorld Factbook estimated Mexico's White population at 10% in 2012.[164]Encyclopædia Britannica estimated 15% in 2000.[165] A 2010 study fromAmerican Sociological Association estimated percentage of 18.8% for the country.[166][non-primary source needed]
According toHoward F. Cline writing in 1963, Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest percentages of white population, with the majority of the people not having native admixture or being of predominantly European ancestry.[167][verification needed]
TheWorld Factbook reports white people being 17% of the Nicaragua's population, with an additional 69% of the population beingMestizo, which is described as mixed indigenous and white.[168] In the nineteenth century,Nicaragua was the subject ofcentral European immigration, mostly fromGermany,England and theUnited States, who often married native Nicaraguan women. SomeGermans were given land to grow coffee inMatagalpa,Jinotega andEsteli, although most Europeans settled inSan Juan del Norte.[169] In the late seventeenth century, pirates fromEngland,France andHolland mixed with the indigenous population and started a settlement at Bluefields (Mosquito Coast).[170]
Puerto Rico had a small stream of predominantly European immigration.[173] Puerto Ricans ofSpanish,Italian and French descent comprise the majority.According to the most recent2020 census, the number of people who identified as "White alone" was 536,044 with an additional non-Hispanic 24,548, for a total of 560,592 or 17.1% of the population.[174]
Previously in 1899, one year after the United States acquired the island, 61.8% or 589,426 people self-identified as White.[173] One hundred years later (2000), the total increased to 80.5% or 3,064,862;[175] due to a change of race perceptions, mainly because of Puerto Rican elites to portray Puerto Rico's image as the "White island of the Antilles", partly as a response to scientific racism.[176]
Between 1960 and 1990, the census questionnaire in Puerto Rico did not ask about race or color.[177] Racial categories therefore disappeared from the dominant discourse on the Puerto Rican nation. However, the2000 census included a racial self-identification question in Puerto Rico and, for the first time since 1950, allowed respondents to choose more than one racial category to indicate mixed ancestry. (Only 4.2% chose two or more races.) With few variations, the census of Puerto Rico used the same questionnaire as in the U.S. mainland. According to census reports, most islanders responded to the new federally mandated categories on race and ethnicity by declaring themselves "White"; few declared themselves to be Black or some other race.[178] However, it was estimated that 20% of White Puerto Ricans may have Black ancestry.[179]
The cultural boundaries separatingWhite Americans from other racial or ethnic categories are contested and always changing. ProfessorDavid R. Roediger of theUniversity of Illinois, suggests that the construction of the White race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.[186] By the eighteenth century,White had become well established as a racial term. Author John Tehranian has noted the changing classifications of immigrant ethnic groups in American history. At various times each of the following groups has been allegedly excluded from being considered White, despite generally having been considered legally White under the US census and US naturalization law:[187][188]Germans,Greeks,White Hispanics,Arabs,Iranians,Afghans,Irish,Italians,Jews ofEuropean andMizrahi descent, Slavs, andSpaniards.[189] On several occasionsFinns were "racially" discriminated against in their early years of immigration[190] and not considered European but "Asian". Some believed that they were ofMongolian ancestry rather than "native"European origin due to the Finnish language belonging to theUralic and not the Indo-European language family.[191]
During American history, the process of officially being defined asWhite by law often came about in court disputes over the pursuit ofcitizenship. The Immigration Act of 1790 offerednaturalization only to "any alien, being a free white person". In at least 52 cases, people denied the status of White by immigration officials sued in court for status as White people. By 1923, courts had vindicated a "common-knowledge" standard, concluding that "scientific evidence" was incoherent. Legal scholar John Tehranian says that this was a "performance-based" standard, relating to religious practices, education, intermarriage, and a community's role in the United States.[189]
In 1923, theSupreme Court decided inUnited States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that people ofIndian descent were not White men, and thus not eligible for citizenship.[192] While Thind was a high casteHindu born in the northernPunjab region and classified by certain scientific authorities as of the Aryan race, the court conceded that he was not White orCaucasian since the word Aryan "has to do with linguistic and not at all with physical characteristics" and "the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences" between Indians and White people.[192] InUnited States v. Cartozian (1925), anArmenian immigrant successfully argued (and the Supreme Court agreed) that his nationality was White in contradistinction to other people of the Near East – Kurds, Turks, and Arabs in particular – on the basis of their Christian religious traditions.[189] In conflicting rulingsIn re Hassan (1942) andEx parte Mohriez, United States District Courts found that Arabs did not, and did qualify as White, respectively, under immigration law.[189]
In the early twenty-first century, the relationship between some ethnic groups and whiteness remains complex. In particular, someJewish andArab individuals both self-identify and are considered as part of the White American racial category, but others with the same ancestry feel they are not White and may not always be perceived as White by American society. TheUnited States Census Bureau proposed but withdrew plans to add a new category forMiddle Eastern and North African peoples in theU.S. Census 2020. Specialists disputed whether this classification should be considered a White ethnicity or a race.[193] According to Frank Sweet, "various sources agree that, on average, people with 12 percent or less admixture appear White to the average American and those with up to 25 percent look ambiguous (with a Mediterranean skin tone)".[194]
The currentU.S. Census definition includes as White "a person having origins in any ofEurope, theMiddle East orNorth Africa."[184] TheU.S. Department of Justice'sFederal Bureau of Investigation describes White people as "having origins in any of the original peoples ofEurope, theMiddle East, orNorth Africa through racial categories used in theUniform Crime Reports Program adopted from theStatistical Policy Handbook (1978) and published by the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce."[195] The "White" category in the UCR includes all Hispanics who do not identify as black, Asian, or Native American, as the "some other race" designation used to classify most nonwhite or mestizo Hispanics is not officially recognized or included.[196]
White Americans made up nearly 90% of the population in 1950.[181] A report from thePew Research Center in 2008 projects that by 2050,non-Hispanic White Americans will make up 47% of the population, down from 67% projected in 2005.[197] According to a study on the genetic ancestry of Americans, White Americans (stated "European Americans") on average are 98.6% European, 0.2% African and 0.2% Native American.[198] Whites born in thoseSouthern states with higher proportions of African-American populations, tend to have higher percentages of African ancestry. For instance, according to the23andMe database, up to 13% of self-identified White American Southerners have greater than 1% African ancestry.[198] White persons born inSouthern states with the highest African-American populations tended to have the highest percentages of hidden African ancestry.[199] Robert P. Stuckert, member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology atOhio State University, has said that today the majority of the descendants of African slaves are White.[200]
Black authorRich Benjamin, in his book,Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, reveals how racial divides and White decline, both real and perceived, shape democratic and economic urgencies in America.[201] The book examines how White flight, and the fear of White decline, affects the country's political debates and policy-making, including housing, lifestyle, social psychology, gun control,[202] and community. Benjamin says that such issues as fiscal policy or immigration or "Best Place to Live" lists, which might be considered race-neutral, are also defined by racial anxiety over perceived White decline.
The "one-drop rule" – that a person with any amount of known black African ancestry (however small or invisible) is considered black – is a classification that was used in parts of the United States.[203] It is a colloquial term for a set of laws passed by 18 U.S. states between 1910 and 1931. Such laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled onanti-miscegenation laws while hearingLoving v. Virginia; it also found thatVirginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, based on enforcing the one-drop rule in classifying vital records, was unconstitutional. The one-drop rule attempted to create a binary system, classifying all persons as either Black or White regardless of a person's physical appearance. Previously persons had sometimes been classified as mulatto ormixed-race, including on censuses up to 1930. They were also recorded as Indian. Some people with a high proportion of European ancestry couldpass as "White", as noted above. This binary approach contrasts with the more flexible social structures present in Latin America (derived from theSpanish colonial eracasta system), where there were less clear-cut divisions between various ethnicities. People are often classified not only by their appearance but by their class.
As a result of centuries of having children with White people, the majority of African Americans have some European admixture,[204] and many people long accepted as White also have some African ancestry.[205][206] Among the most notable examples of the latter is PresidentBarack Obama, who is believed to have been descended from an early African enslaved in America, recorded as "John Punch", through his mother's apparently White line.[207]
In the twenty-first century, writer and editorDebra Dickerson renewed questions about the one-drop rule, saying that "easily one-third of black people have White DNA".[208] She says that, in ignoring their European ancestry, African Americans are denying their fullmulti-racial identities. SingerMariah Carey, who is multi-racial, was publicly described as "another White girl trying to sing black". But in an interview withLarry King, she said that, despite her physical appearance and having been raised primarily by her White mother, she did not "feel White".[209][210]
Since the late twentieth century,genetic testing has provided many Americans, both those who identify as White and those who identify as black, with more nuanced and complex information about their genetic backgrounds.[211]
Argentina, along with other areas of new settlement like Canada, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, the United States or Uruguay, is considered a country of immigrants where the vast majority originated from Europe.[223] White people can be found in all areas of the country, but especially in the central-eastern region (Pampas), the central-western region (Cuyo), the southern region (Patagonia) and the north-eastern region (Litoral). Genetic studies have found that European ancestry predominates in all regions of Argentina except for thenorthwest, with the highest level of European ancestry being found inBuenos Aires.[224]
White Argentines are mainly descendants ofimmigrants who came from Europe and the Middle East in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[225][226][227][228] After the regimented Spanish colonists, waves of European settlers came to Argentina from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Major contributors includedItaly (initially fromPiedmont, Veneto andLombardy, later fromCampania, Calabria, andSicily),[229] andSpain (most areGalicians andBasques, but there areAsturians,Cantabrians,Catalans, andAndalusians). Smaller but significant numbers of immigrants include Germans, primarilyVolga Germans fromRussia, but also Germans from Germany, Switzerland, andAustria; French which mainly came from theOccitania region of France;Portuguese, which already conformed an important community since colonial times; Slavic groups, most of which wereCroats,Bosniaks,Poles, but alsoUkrainians,Belarusians,Russians,Bulgarians,Serbs andMontenegrins; Britons, mainly from England andWales; Irish who migrated due to theGreat Irish Famine or prior famines and Scandinavians fromSweden, Denmark,Finland, andNorway. Smaller waves of settlers from Australia and South Africa, and the United States can be traced in Argentine immigration records.
By the 1910s, after immigration rates peaked, over 30 percent of the country's population was from outside Argentina, and over half ofBuenos Aires' population was foreign-born.[230][231]However, the 1914 National Census revealed that around 80% of the national population were either European immigrants, their children or grandchildren.[232] Among the remaining 20 percent (those descended from the population residing locally before this immigrant wave took shape in the 1870s), around a third were White.[233] European immigration continued to account for over half the nation's population growth during the 1920s and was again significant (albeit in a smaller wave) followingWorld War II.[232] It is estimated that Argentina received over 6 million European immigrants during the period 1857–1940.[234]
Several genetic studies found that the European ancestry in Argentina comes mainly from theIberian Peninsula andItalian Peninsula with a much lower contribution fromCentral Europe andNorthern Europe.[235][236] The Italian component appears strongest in the East and Center-West, while Spanish influence dominates in the North East and North West.[237]
Since the 1960s, increasing immigration from bordering countries to the north (especially fromBolivia andParaguay, which haveAmerindian andMestizo majorities) has lessened that majority somewhat.[232]
Criticism of the national census states that data has historically been collected using the category of national origin rather than race in Argentina, leading to undercountingAfro-Argentines and Mestizos.[238]África Viva (Living Africa) is a black rights group inBuenos Aires with the support of theOrganization of American States, financial aid from theWorld Bank and Argentina's census bureau is working to add an "Afro-descendants" category to the 2010 census. The 1887 national census was the final year where blacks were included as a separate category before it was eliminated by the government.[239]
There is no present day data as the Bolivian census does not count racial identity for white people. However, past census data showed that in 1900, people who self-identified as "Blanco" (white) composed 12.7% or 231,088 of the total population. This was the last time data on race was collected. There were 529 Italians, 420 Spaniards, 295 Germans, 279 French, 177 Austrians, 141 English and 23 Belgians living in Bolivia.[242]
Recent censuses in Brazil are conducted on the basis of self-identification. According to the 2022 Census, they totaled 88,252,121 people and made up 43.5% of the Brazilian population.[245]
As a term, "White" in Brazil is generally applied to people of European descent. The term may also encompass other people, such as Brazilians ofWest Asian descent, and in some contexts, East Asians. Though Brazilians of East Asian descent are, in other contexts, classified as "Yellow" (amarela).[246] The census shows a trend of fewer Brazilians of a different descent (most likely mixed) identifying as White people as their social status increases.[247][248] Nevertheless, light-skinnedMulattoes and Mestizos with European features were also historically deemed as more closely related to "whiteness" than unmixed Blacks.[247]
Scholarly estimates of the White population in Chile vary dramatically, ranging from 20%[249] to 52%.[163] According to a study by theUniversity of Chile about 30% of the Chilean population is Caucasian,[250] while the 2011Latinobarómetro survey shows that some 60% of Chileans consider themselves White.[251]
During colonial times in the eighteenth century, an important flux of emigrants from Spain populated Chile, mostly Basques, who vitalized the Chilean economy and rose rapidly in the social hierarchy and became the political elite that still dominates the country.[252] An estimated 1.6 million (10%) to 3.2 million (20%) Chileans have a surname (one or both) of Basque origin.[253] The Basques liked Chile because of its great similarity to their native land: similar geography, cool climate, and the presence of fruits, seafood, and wine.[254]
Chile was not an attractive place for European migrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries simply because it was far from Europe and difficult to reach. Chile experienced a tiny but steady arrival of Spanish,Italians, Irish,French,Greeks,Germans, English,Scots,Croats andAshkenazi Jews, in addition to immigration from other Latin American countries.[citation needed]
The original arrival of Spaniards was the most radical change in demographics due to the arrival of Europeans in Chile,[254] since there was never a period of massive immigration, in contrast to neighboring nations such as Argentina and Uruguay.[255] Facts about the amount of immigration do not coincide with certain national chauvinistic discourse, which claims that Chile, like Argentina or Uruguay, would be considered one of the "White" Latin American countries, in contrast to the racial mixture that prevails in the rest of the continent. However, it is undeniable that immigrants have played a major role in Chilean society.[255] Between 1851 and 1924 Chile only received 0.5% of the European immigration flow to Latin America, compared to the 46% received by Argentina, 33% by Brazil, 14% by Cuba, and 4% by Uruguay. This was because most of the migration occurred across the Atlantic before the construction of the Panama Canal. Europeans preferred to stay in countries closer to their homelands instead of taking the long trip through the Straits of Magellan or across the Andes.[254] In 1907, European-born immigrants composed 2.4% of the Chilean population,[256] which fell to 1.8% in 1920,[257] and 1.5% in 1930.[258]
Another historically significant immigrant group were Croatian immigrants. TheCroatian Chileans, their descendants today, number at an estimated 380,000 persons, the equivalent of 2.4% of the population.[263][264] Other authors claim on the other hand, that close to 4.6% of the Chilean population have someCroatian ancestry.[265] Over 700,000 Chileans may have British (English, Scottish orWelsh) origin, 4.5% of Chile's population.[266] Chileans ofGreek descent are estimated 90,000 to 120,000.[267] Most of them live either in theSantiago area or in theAntofagasta area, andChile is one of the 5 countries with the most descendants of Greeks in the world.[267] The descendants of theSwiss reach 90,000[268] and it is estimated that about 5% of theChilean population has someFrench ancestry.[269] 184,000–800,000 (estimates) aredescendants of Italians.[270] Other groups of European descendants are found in smaller numbers.
The Colombian government does not carry out official racial censuses, nor does it carry out self-identification racial censuses as is the case inArgentina, so the figures shown are usually based on data from populations considered "non-ethnic", which are those (Whites and Mestizos).[clarification needed] According to the 2018 census, approximately 87.6% of the Colombian population are White or Mestizo.[citation needed]
Many Spanish began their explorations searching for gold, while other Spanish established themselves as leaders of the native social organizations teaching natives theChristian faith and the ways of theircivilization. Catholic priests would provide education for Native Americans that otherwise was unavailable.[271][unreliable source?] 100 years after the first Spanish settlement, 90 percent of all Native Americans in Colombia had died.[272] The majority of the deaths of Native Americans were the cause of diseases such as measles and smallpox, which were spread by European settlers. Many Native Americans were also killed by armed conflicts with European settlers.[271][unreliable source?]
Between 1540 and 1559, 8.9 percent of the residents of Colombia were of Basque origin. It has been suggested that the present-day incidence of business entrepreneurship in the region ofAntioquia is attributable to the Basque immigration and Basque character traits.[273] Few Colombians of distant Basque descent are aware of their Basque ethnic heritage.[273] In Bogota, there is a small colony of thirty to forty families who emigrated as a consequence of the Spanish Civil War or because of different opportunities.[273] Basque priests were the ones who introduced handball into Colombia.[274] Basque immigrants in Colombia were devoted to teaching and public administration.[274] In the first years of the Andean multinational company, Basque sailors navigated as captains and pilots on the majority of the ships until the country was able to train its own crews.[274]
In December 1941 the United States government estimated that there were 4,000 Germans living in Colombia.[275] There were some Nazi agitators in Colombia, such as Barranquilla businessman Emil Prufurt.[275] Colombia invited Germans who were on the U.S. blacklist to leave.[275]SCADTA, a Colombian-German air transport corporation that was established by German expatriates in 1919, was the first commercial airline in the Western Hemisphere.[276]
The Italians arrived on the Colombian coast, and quickly moved towards the expanding agricultural areas. There, some of them achieved success in the commercialization of livestock, agricultural products, and imported goods, which later led to the transfer of their lucrative activities to Barranquilla. Some important buildings were created by Italians in the nineteenth century, like the famousColón Theater of the capital. It is one of the most representative theatres of Colombia, with neoclassic architecture: was built by the Italian architect Pietro Cantini and founded in 1892; has more than 2,400 square metres (26,000 sq ft) for 900 people. This famous Italian architect also contributed to the construction of theCapitolio Nacional of the capital.[277] Oreste Sindici was an Italian-born Colombian musician and composer, who composed the music for the Colombian national anthem in 1887. Oreste Sindici died in Bogotá on 12 January 1904, due to severe arteriosclerosis. In 1937 the Colombian government honored his memory.[278] After the Second World War, Italian emigration to Colombia was directed primarily towardBogota,Cali andMedellin. They have Italian schools inBogota (Institutes "Leonardo da Vinci" and "Alessandro Volta"),[279]Medellín ("Leonardo da Vinci") &Barranquilla ("Galileo Galilei"). The Italian migration government estimates that there are at least 2 million Colombians of Italian descent, making them the second largest and most numerous European group in the country after theSpanish.[280]
The first and largest wave of immigration from the Middle East began around 1880 and remained during the first two decades of the twentieth century. They were mainly Maronite Christians from Greater Syria (Syria and Lebanon) and Palestine, fleeing the then colonized Ottoman territories.[97] Syrians, Palestinians, and Lebanese continued since then to settle in Colombia.[281] Due to poor existing information it is impossible to know the exact number of Lebanese and Syrians that immigrated to Colombia. A figure of 5,000–10,000 from 1880 to 1930 may be reliable.[281] Whatever the figure, Syrians and Lebanese are perhaps the biggest immigrant group next to the Spanish since independence.[281] Those who left their homeland in the Middle East to settle in Colombia left for different reasons such as religious, economic, and political reasons.[281] Some left to experience the adventure of migration. After Barranquilla and Cartagena, Bogota stuck next to Cali, among cities with the largest number of Arabic-speaking representatives in Colombia in 1945.[281] The Arabs that went toMaicao were mostlySunni Muslim with someDruze andShiites, as well as Orthodox and Maronite Christians.[97] The mosque ofMaicao is the second largest mosque in Latin America.[97] Middle Easterns are generally calledTurcos (Turkish).[97]
According to the2017 census 5.9% or 1.3 million (1,336,931) people 12 years of age and above self-identified as White. There were 619,402 (5.5%) males and 747,528 (6.3%) females. This was the first time a question for ethnic origins had been asked. The regions with the highest proportion of self-identified Whites were inLa Libertad (10.5%),Tumbes andLambayeque (9.0% each),Piura (8.1%),Callao (7.7%),Cajamarca (7.5%),Lima Province (7.2%) andLima Region (6.0%).[289]
In 2012, there were 1,667 or 0.3% of the population identified as white.[290]Many Dutch settlers left Suriname after independence in 1975 and this diminished Suriname's Dutch population. Currently there are around 1,000 boeroes left in Suriname, and 3,000 outside Suriname.[291]
Different estimates state that Uruguay's population of 3.4 million is composed of 88% to 93% White Uruguayans.[295][296] Though Uruguay has welcomed immigrants from around the world, its population largely consists of people ofEuropean origin, mainlySpaniards andItalians. Other European immigrants include Jews from Eastern and Central Europe.[297][298][299]According to the 2006 National Survey of Homes by the Uruguayan National Institute of Statistics: 94.6% self-identified as having a White background, 9.1% chose black ancestry, and 4.5% chose an Amerindian ancestry (people surveyed were allowed to choose more than one option).[294]
According to the official Venezuelan census, the term "White" involves external issues such as light skin, shape, and color of hair and eyes, among other factors. Though the meaning and usage of the term "White" has varied in different ways depending on the time period and area, leaving its precise definition as somewhat confusing. The 2011 Venezuelan Census states that "White" in Venezuela is used to describe Venezuelans of European origin.[301] The 2011 National Population and Housing Census states that 43.6% of the Venezuelan population (approx. 13.1 million people) identify as White.[301][302]Genetic research by theUniversity of Brasília shows an average admixture of 60.6% European, 23.0% Amerindian and 16.3% African ancestry in Venezuelan populations.[303] The majority of White Venezuelans are of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German descent. Nearly half a million European immigrants, mostly from Spain (as a consequence of theSpanish Civil War), Italy, and Portugal, entered the country during and after World War II, attracted by a prosperous, rapidly developing country where educated and skilled immigrants were welcomed.
Spaniards were introduced intoVenezuela during the colonial period. Most of them were fromAndalusia,Galicia,Basque Country and from theCanary Islands. Until the last years of World War II, a large part of the European immigrants to Venezuela came from the Canary Islands, and its cultural impact was significant, influencing the development of Castilian in the country, its gastronomy, and customs. With the beginning of oil operations during the first decades of the twentieth century, citizens and companies from the United States, United Kingdom, andNetherlands established themselves in Venezuela. Later, in the middle of the century, there was a new wave of originating immigrants fromSpain (mainly from Galicia, Andalucia and the Basque Country),Italy (mainly from southern Italy and Venice) andPortugal (from Madeira) and new immigrants fromGermany,France,England,Croatia,Netherlands, and other European countries, among others, animated simultaneously by the program of immigration and colonization implanted by the government.[citation needed]
See also
White nationalism – Ideology that seeks to develop a white national identity
White guilt – Guilt felt by some white people for harm resulting from racist treatment of ethnic minorities
^Nirenberg, David (2009)."Was there race before modernity? The example of 'Jewish' blood in late medieval Spain"(PDF). In Eliav-Feldon, Miriam; Isaac, Benjamin H.; Ziegler, Joseph (eds.).The Origins of Racism in the West. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 232–264. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 27 December 2015. Retrieved16 September 2014.On both sides of the chronological divide between the modern and the pre-modern (wherever it may lie), there is today a remarkable consensus that the earlier vocabularies of difference are innocent of race.
^Jablonski, Nina G. (2012).Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 106.ISBN978-0-520-95377-2.
^"chapter VI. The gate of Teka-hra".Book of Gates. Translated by E. A. Wallis Budge. 1905. Archived fromthe original on 10 March 2016.The first are RETH, the second are AAMU, the third are NEHESU, and the fourth are THEMEHU. The RETH are Egyptians, the AAMU are dwellers in the deserts to the east and north-east of Egypt, the NEHESU are theCushites, and the THEMEHU are the fair-skinned Libyans.
^abcJames H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White'?"The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (December 2003 – January 2004), pp. 162ff.
^Michael Witzel, "Rgvedic History" in:The Indo-Aryans of South Asia (1995): "while it would be easy to assume reference to skin color, this would go against the spirit of the hymns: for Vedic poets, black always signifies evil, and any other meaning would be secondary in these contexts."
^Dee, James H. (2004). "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White'?".The Classical Journal.99 (2):157–167.JSTOR3298065.
^abSilverblatt, Irene (2004).Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the colonial origins of the civilized world. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 139.ISBN978-0-8223-8623-0.
^Baum, Bruce David (2006).The rise and fall of the Caucasian race: A political history of racial identity. NYU Press. p. 247.ISBN978-0-8147-9892-8.
^Keevak, Michael (2011).Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking. Princeton University Press. pp. 26–27.
^Keevak, Michael (2011).Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking. Princeton University Press. p. 2.
^Silverblatt, Irene (2004).Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the colonial origins of the civilized world. Durham: Duke University Press. pp. 113–116.ISBN978-0-8223-8623-0.
^abSilverblatt, Irene (2004).Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the colonial origins of the civilized world. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 115.ISBN978-0-8223-8623-0.
^abDuenas, Alcira (2010).Indians and mestizos in the 'lettered city' reshaping justice, social hierarchy, and political culture in colonial Peru. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.ISBN978-1-60732-019-7.
^Jordan, Winthrop (1974).White Over Black: American Attitudes Towards the Negro. p. 97.
^abAllen, Theodore (1994).The Invention of the White Race. Vol. 2. New York: Verso. p. 351.
^Painter, Nell Irvin (2003)."Why White People are Called Caucasian?"(PDF).Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Gilder Lehrman Center International Conference at Yale University. Collective Degradation: Slavery and the Construction of Race – November 7–8, 2003 – Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. p. 20. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 20 October 2013. Retrieved9 October 2006.
^Johann Friedrich Blumenbach:The Anthropological Treatises. Longman Green, London 1865, pp. 99, 265 ff.
^Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (2000). "On the Natural Variety of Mankind". In Robert Bernasconi (ed.).The Idea of Race. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. pp. 27–37.ISBN978-0-87220-458-4.
^Johann Friedrich Blumenbach:The Anthropological Treatises. Longman Green, London 1865, p. 107.
^Brian Regal:Human Evolution. A guide to the debates. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara/CA 2004, p. 72. Also see Johann Friedrich Blumenbach:The Institutions of physiology, translated by John Elliotson. Bensley, London 1817.
^Go MC, Jones AR, Algee-Hewitt B, Dudzik B, Hughes C (2019)."Classification Trends among Contemporary Filipino Crania Using Fordisc 3.1".Human Biology.2 (4). University of Florida Press:293–303.doi:10.5744/fa.2019.1005.S2CID159266278.Archived from the original on 7 January 2021. Retrieved13 September 2020.[Page 1] ABSTRACT: Filipinos represent a significant contemporary demographic group globally, yet they are underrepresented in the forensic anthropological literature. Given the complex population history of the Philippines, it is important to ensure that traditional methods for assessing the biological profile are appropriate when applied to these peoples. Here we analyze the classification trends of a modern Filipino sample (n = 110) when using the Fordisc 3.1 (FD3) software. We hypothesize that Filipinos represent an admixed population drawn largely from Asian and marginally from European parental gene pools, such that FD3 will classify these individuals morphometrically into reference samples that reflect a range of European admixture, in quantities from small to large. Our results show the greatest classification into Asian reference groups (72.7%), followed by Hispanic (12.7%), Indigenous American (7.3%), African (4.5%), and European (2.7%) groups included in FD3. This general pattern did not change between males and females. Moreover, replacing the raw craniometric values with their shape variables did not significantly alter the trends already observed. These classification trends for Filipino crania provide useful information for casework interpretation in forensic laboratory practice. Our findings can help biological anthropologists to better understand the evolutionary, population historical, and statistical reasons for FD3-generated classifications. The results of our study indicate that ancestry estimation in forensic anthropology would benefit from population-focused research that gives consideration to histories of colonialism and periods of admixture.
^Stephanie Mawson, 'Between Loyalty and Disobedience: The Limits of Spanish Domination in the Seventeenth Century Pacific' (Univ. of Sydney M.Phil. thesis, 2014), appendix 3.
^Forced Migration in the Spanish Pacific World: From Mexico to the Philippines, 1765-1811.
^abcUS-PH alliance 'stronger than ever'—envoy By Raymund Antonio (Manila Bulletin)"Beyond the economic and defense partnership, the US and Philippines maintain "meaningful people-to-people ties," which Carlson described is "the foundation of everything we do together." Some four million Filipinos and Filipino-Americans call the United States their home, while more than 750,000 US citizens are currently living in the Philippines, she noted."
^Stephen Castles, "The Australian Model of Immigration and Multiculturalism: Is It Applicable to Europe?,"International Migration Review, Vol. 26, No. 2, Special Issue: The New Europe and International Migration. (Summer, 1992), pp. 549–567.
^Tadros, Edmund (24 April 2007)."Police urged to change ethnic labels".The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved21 March 2025.The council said NSW police should use the national standards, adopted in 1993 by other police forces, which use four terms to describe appearance in public communications about crimes: Aboriginal, Asian, Caucasian and other.
^George Ritzer (2003). "Social Problems; France: Colonialism And Contemporary Racism".Handbook of Social Problems: A Comparative International Perspective.Sage Publications.ISBN978-0-7619-2610-8.France has a long tradition of overseas colonialism. While whites in theUnited States have historically exploited manypeople of color mostly within the country, whites in France have played a major international role in colonizing areas of the globe such as theAfrican continent.
^abCrystal Marie Fleming (2020)."How to Be Less Stupid About Race in France"(PDF). Vol. 12. H-France Salon. p. 3.Finally, as I also argue inHow to Be Less Stupid About Race, those of us engaged in the work ofanti-racism in and outside of the academy, must continually disrupt efforts to establish a false equivalence between whites and racialized minorities. While many whites inFrance refuse to acknowledge institutionalized racism and white supremacy, there is widespread belief in the specter of "anti-white racism,"
^Angéline Escafré-Dublet (2019). "The whiteness of cultural boundaries in France".Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. Vol. 26.Taylor & Francis.
^abGovernment of Canada, Statistics Canada (26 October 2022)."The Canadian census: A rich portrait of the country's religious and ethnocultural diversity".www12.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved10 January 2022.In 2021, just over 25 million people reported being White in the census, representing close to 70% of the total Canadian population. The vast majority reported being White only, while 2.4% also reported one or more other racialized groups.
^Navarrete, Federico."El mestizaje y las culturas" [Mixed race and cultures].México Multicultural (in Spanish). Mexico:UNAM. Archived fromthe original on 23 August 2013. Retrieved19 July 2011.
^Wang, Sijia; Ray, Nicolas; Rojas, Winston; Parra, Maria V.; Bedoya, Gabriel; Gallo, Carla; et al. (21 March 2008)."Geographic Patterns of Genome Admixture in Latin American Mestizos".PLOS Genetics.4 (3) e1000037.doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000037.PMC2265669.PMID18369456.Large differences in the variation of individual admixture estimates were seen across populations, with the variance in Native American ancestry between individuals ranging from 0.005 in Quetalmahue to 0.07 in Mexico City (Figure 4, Figure S1, and Table S2), an observation consistent with previous studies...
^Holmio, Armas K. E. (2001).History of the Finns in Michigan. Wayne State University Press. p. 17.ISBN978-0-8143-4000-4.She had barely reached the front porch when the friend's mother realized that her daughter's playmate was a Finn. Helmi was turned away immediately, and the daughter of the house was forbidden to associate with 'that Mongolian'. John Wargelin, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and a former president of Suomi College, also tells how, when he was a child in Crystal Falls some years earlier, he and his friends were ridiculed and stoned on their way to school. 'Because of our strange language,' he says, 'we were considered an alien race who had no right to settle in this country.'
^Eric Dregni,Vikings in the Attic: In search of Nordic America, p. 176.
^abUnited States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Certificate From The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 202. Argued 11, 12 January 1923. —Decided 19 February 1923, United States Reports, v. 261, The Supreme Court, October Term, 1922, 204–215.
^abBryc, Katarzyna; Durand, Eric Y.; Macpherson, J. Michael; Reich, David; Mountain, Joanna L. (18 September 2014). "The genetic ancestry of African, Latino, and European Americans across the United States".bioRxiv10.1101/009340.."Supplemental Tables and Figures". p. 42. 18 September 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
^Bahamas 2010 census Total Population by Sex, Age Group and Racial Group "In 1722 when the first official census of The Bahamas was taken, 74% of the population was white and 26% black. Three centuries later, and according to the 99% response rate obtained from the race question on the 2010 Census questionnaire, 91% of the population identified themselves as being black, five percent (5%) white and two percent (2%) of a mixed race (black and white) and (1%) other races and (1%) not stated." (pp. 10, 82)
^Enrique Oteiza andSusana Novick hold that «la Argentina desde el siglo XIX, al igual que Australia, Canadá o Estados Unidos, se convierte en un país de inmigración, entendiendo por esto una sociedad que ha sido conformada por un fenómeno inmigratorio masivo, a partir de una población local muy pequeña.»Iigg.fsoc.uba.arArchived 31 May 2011 at theWayback Machine
^El antropólogo brasileñoDarcy Ribeiro incluye a la Argentina dentro de los«pueblos trasplantados» de América, junto con Uruguay, Canadá y Estados Unidos (Ribeiro, Darcy.Las Américas y la Civilización (1985). Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, pp. 449 ss.)
^El historiador argentinoJosé Luis Romero define a la Argentina como un«país aluvial» (Romero, José Luis. «Indicación sobre la situación de las masas en Argentina (1951)», en La experiencia Argentina y otros ensayos, Buenos Aires: Universidad de Belgrano, 1980, p. 64)
^Edward Eric Telles (2004),"Racial Classification",Race in Another America: the significance of skin color in Brazil, Princeton University Press, pp. 273,ISBN0-691-11866-3,The Japanese were sometimes considered white. Lesser (1999) cites Federal Deputy Acylino de Ledo in a speech before the House who stated, "The Japanese colonists are even whiter than the Portuguese."
^"Chile".Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved15 September 2012.Chile's ethnic makeup is largely a product of Spanish colonization. About three fourths of Chileans are mestizo, a mixture of European and Amerindian ancestries. One fifth of Chileans are of white European (mainly Spanish) descent.
^"Online Data Analysis".Latinobarómetro. Corporación Latinobarómetro. 2011. Retrieved23 January 2015.
^"Chile".Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved15 September 2012....Basque families who migrated to Chile in the 18th century vitalized the economy and joined the old Castilian aristocracy to become the political elite that still dominates the country.
Allen, Theodore,The Invention of the White Race, 2 vols. Verso, London 1994.
Baum, Bruce David,The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity. NYU Press, New York and London 2006,ISBN978-0-8147-9892-8.
Smedley, Audrey,Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1999).
Tang, Hua., Tom Quertermous, Beatriz Rodriguez, Sharon L. R. Kardia, Xiaofeng Zhu, Andrew Brown, James S. Pankow, Michael A. Province, Steven C. Hunt, Eric Boerwinkle, Nicholas J. Schork, and Neil J. Risch (2005)Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies Am. J. Hum. Genet.76: 268–275.
Battalora, Jacqueline M. (2021).Birth of a White Nation: The Invention of White People and Its Relevance Today (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.ISBN978-1-000-38281-5.OCLC1227818161.
