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White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view.
Description of populations as "White" in reference to their skin color is occasionally found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient or medieval sources, but these societies did not have any notion of a White race or pan-European identity. The term "White race" or "White people", defined by their light skin among other physical characteristics, entered the major European languages in the later seventeenth century, when the concept of a "unified White" achieved greater acceptance in Europe, in the context of racialization slavery and social status in the European colonies. Scholarship on race distinguishes the modern concept from pre-modern descriptions, which focused on physical complexion rather than the idea of race. Prior to the modern era, no European peoples regarded themselves as "White"; instead they defined their identity in terms of their religion, ancestry, ethnicity, or nationality.
Contemporary and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "White race" as a social construct with no scientific basis.
The Ancient Egyptian (New Kingdom) funerary text known as the Book of Gates distinguishes "four groups" in a procession. These are the Egyptians, the and peoples or "Asiatics", the "Nubians" and the "fair-skinned Ancient Libya". The Egyptians are depicted as considerably darker-skinned than the Levantines (persons from what is now Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan) and Libyans, but considerably lighter than the Nubians (modern Sudan).
The assignment of positive and negative connotations of White and Black to certain persons date to the very old age in a number of Indo-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. Similarly, the Rigveda uses krsna tvac "black skin" as a metaphor for irreligiosity.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." Ancient Egyptians, Mycenaean Greeks and Minoans generally depicted women as having pale or white skin while men were depicted as dark brown or tanned. As a result, men with pale or light skin, leukochrōs (λευκόχρως, "white-skinned") could be considered weak and effeminate by Ancient Greek writers such as Plato and Aristotle. 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." Similarly, Xenophon of Athens describes Persian 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."
Classicist James H. Dee states "the Greeks do not describe themselves as 'White people'or as anything else because they had no regular word in their color vocabulary for themselves."James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (December 2003 – January 2004), pp. 162 ff. People's skin color did not carry useful meaning; what mattered is where they lived. Herodotus described the Scythians Budini as having deep blue eyes and bright red hairHerodotus: Histories, 4.108. and the Egyptians – quite like the Colchians – as melánchroes (μελάγχροες, "Dark skin") and Curly haired.Herodotus: Histories, 2.104.2. He also gives the possibly first reference to the common Greek name of the tribes living south of Egypt, otherwise known as Nubian people, which was Aithíopes (Αἰθίοπες, "burned-faced").Herodotus: Histories, 2.17. Later Xenophanes of Colophon described the as black and the Thracians as having red hair and blue eyes.Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments, J. H. Lesher, University of Toronto Press, 2001, , p. 90. In his description of the Scythians, Hippocrates states that the cold weather "burns their white skin and turns it ruddy."
According to Gregory Jay, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee:
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as White, never as yellow." Michael Keevak's history Becoming Yellow, finds that East Asians were redesignated as being yellow-skinned because "yellow had become a racial designation," and that the replacement of White with yellow as a description came through pseudoscientific discourse.
In the British colonies in British America and the Caribbean, the designation English or Christian 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. Historian Winthrop Jordan reports that, "throughout the thirteen colonies the terms Christian, free, English, and white were ... employed indiscriminately" in the seventeenth century as proxies for one another. In 1680, Morgan Godwyn "found it necessary to explain" to English readers that "in Barbados, 'white' was 'the general name for Europeans.'" Several historians report a shift towards greater use of White as a legal category alongside a hardening of restrictions on free or Christian blacks.Baum (2006), p. 48. Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Towards the Negro 1974, p. 52, puts the shift to white from earlier Christian, free, and English to around 1680. White remained a more familiar term in the American colonies than in Britain well into the 18th century, according to historian Theodore W. Allen.
In 1775, the naturalist Johann 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".
In the various editions of his On 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."Johann Friedrich Blumenbach: The Anthropological Treatises. Longman Green, London 1865, pp. 99, 265 ff. 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 and Immanuel Kant.
In the question of color, he conducts a rather thorough inquiry, considering also factors of diet and health, but ultimately believes that "climate, and the influence of the soil and the temperature, together with the mode of life, have the greatest influence".Johann Friedrich Blumenbach: The Anthropological Treatises. Longman Green, London 1865, p. 107. 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 as solarization and diet. Like other monogenism, Blumenbach held to the "degenerative hypothesis" of racial origins. He claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian race inhabitants of Asia,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. 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 original Caucasian race.
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 of Central Asia and North Asia under the Caucasian label, while Thomas Henry Huxley (1870) classified the same populations as Mongoloid, and Lothrop Stoddard (1920) classified as "brown people" most of the populations of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, and counted as "White" only the European peoples and their descendants, as well as some populations in parts of Anatolia and the northern areas of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Some authorities, following Huxley (1870), distinguished the Xanthochroi or "light Whites" of Northern Europe with the Melanochroi or "dark Whites" of the Mediterranean.
Although modern Neo-Nazism often invoke Nazism iconography on behalf of White nationalism, Nazi Germany repudiated the idea of a unified White race, instead promoting Nordicism. In Nazi propaganda, Eastern European Slavs were often referred to as Untermensch (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.Bendersky, Joseph W. 2007 A concise history of Nazi Germany Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. pp.161–162. Fascist Italy took the same view, and both of these nations justified their colonial ambitions in Eastern Europe on racist, anti-Slavic grounds.Benito Mussolini, Richard Washburn Child, Max Ascoli, Richard Lamb. My rise and fall. Da Capo Press, 1998. pp. 105–106. These nations were not alone in their view; during the long nineteenth century and interwar period, there were numerous casesregardless of the position in the political spectrum of the personwhere 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.
| South Africa | 7.3% | 4,504,252 | 2022 |
| Zimbabwe | 0.2% | 34,111 | 2022 |
| Kenya | 0.07% | 42,868 | 2019 |
The Kingdom of Great Britain captured Cape Town in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars and permanently acquired South Africa from Amsterdam in 1814. The first British immigrants numbered about 4,000 and were introduced in 1820. They represented groups from England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales and were typically more literate than the Dutch. 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. They have been joined in more subsequent decades by former colonials from elsewhere, such as Zambia and Kenya, and poorer British nationals looking to escape famine at home.
Both Afrikaners and English have been politically dominant in South Africa during the past; due to the controversial racial order under apartheid, 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.
There were 4.6 million Whites in South Africa in 2011, down from an all-time high of 5.2 million in 1995 following a wave of emigration commencing in the late twentieth century. Million whites leave SA – study, fin24.com, 24 September 2006 However, many returned over time.
From the late nineteenth century, the Colonial/State and later federal 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 the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, Immigration Restriction Act 1901 . Foundingdocs.gov.au. but was never universally applied. Immigration inspectors were empowered to ask immigrants to take dictation from any European 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 after World War II that large numbers of southern European and eastern European immigrants were admitted for the first time.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. 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 from Latin America or Africa), as were autochthonous inhabitants (such as Maronites, Assyrian people and Mandeans) of various nations from the Middle East, most significantly from Lebanon and to a lesser degree Iraq, Syria and Iran. 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. As at the 2016 census, it was estimated by the Australian 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. The 2021 Australian census form does not use the term "white".
The federal and state police forces use the descriptor Caucasian, along with four others: Aboriginal, Asian, and Other.
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. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating a definite Scottish influence in that region, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region.
In the 1870s, MP Julius 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. 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.
The 2023 New Zealand census form doesn't use the term "white", referring to European New Zealanders instead.
In statistical terms, the French government banned the collection of racial or ethnic information in 1978, and the National 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, and issued rulings, which have identified White people as a demographic group within the country.
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.
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.
The lack of census data collected by the INED and INSEE for Whites in France has been analyzed, from some academic perspectives, as masking racial issues within the country, or a form of false racial color blindness. Writing for Al Jazeera, French journalist Rokhaya Diallo suggests that "a large portion of White people in France are not used to having frank conversations about race and racism." According to political sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, "whites in France lie to themselves and the world by proclaiming that they do not have institutional racism in their nation." Sociologist Crystal Marie Fleming has written; "While many whites in France refuse to acknowledge institutionalized racism and white supremacy, there is widespread belief in the specter of 'anti-white racism'".
In 2006, French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen suggested there were too many "players of colour" in the France national football team after he suggested that 7 of the 23-player squad were White. In 2020, French politician Nadine Morano stated that French actress Aïssa Maïga, who was born in Senegal, should "go back to Africa" if she "was not happy with seeing so many white people in France".
| Ireland | 87.4% | 4,444,145 | 2022 |
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.
| Malta | 89.1% | 462,997 | 2021 |
As of the 2021 census, 89.1% self-identified as Caucasian racial origin. Maltese people-born natives make up the majority of the island with 386,280 people out of a total population of 519,562. 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.
| Northern Ireland | 96.6% | 1,837,600 | 2021 |
| Wales | 93.8% | 2,915,848 | 2021 |
| Scotland | 92.9% | 5,051,875 | 2022 |
| England | 81.0% | 45,783,401 | 2021 |
Edward Lhuyd discovered that Welsh language, Gaelic, Cornish language and Breton language are all part of the same language family, which he termed the "Celtic languages", and was distinct from the Germanic English Language; this can be seen in context of the emerging romantic nationalism, which was also prevalent among those of Celtic descent. (2025). 9780521880053, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521880053
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. For example, George Sims in his 1883 book How 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".
Today the Office for National Statistics uses the term White as an ethnic category. The terms White British, White Irish, Scottish People and White Other are used. These classifications rely on individuals' self-identification, since it is recognised that ethnic identity is not an objective category. Socially, in the UK White usually refers only to people of native British, Irish and European origin.Kissoon, Priya. Asylum Seekers: National Problem or National Solution. 2005. 7 November 2006. As a result of the 2011 census the White population stood at 85.5% in England (White British: 79.8%), 2011 Census: Ethnic group, local authorities in England and Wales, accessed 13 June 2014. at 96% in Scotland (White British: 91.8%), Table 2 – Ethnic groups, Scotland, 2001 and 2011 Scotlands Census published 30 September 2013 , accessed 13 June 2014. at 95.6% in Wales (White British: 93.2%), while in Northern Ireland 98.28% identified themselves as White, amounting to a total of 87.2% White population (or White British and Irish).
| Bermudians (United Kingdom) | 30.5% | 19,466 | 2016 |
In 2010, census data found that White Bermudians accounted for 31% including 10% native Bermudians and 21% foreign-born.
| Canadians | 69.8% | 25,364,140 | 2021 |
Of the over 36 million Canadians enumerated in 2021 approximately 25 million reported being "White", representing 69.8 percent of the population.
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.Human Resources and Social Development Canada, 2001 Employment Equity Data Report A separate census question on "cultural or ethnic origin" (question 17) does not refer to skin color.Census 2001: 2B (Long Form)
| Cubans | 64.1% | 7,160,399 | 2012 |
White people in Cuba make up 64.1% of the total population according to the 2012 census with the majority being of diverse Spanish descent. However, after the mass exodus resulting from the Cuban 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. (from Cuban Genealogy Center)
During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early part of the twentieth century, large waves of Canarian people, Catalan people, Andalusians, Castilian people, and Galician people emigrated to Cuba. Many European Jews have also immigrated there, with some of them being Sephardic Jews. Between 1901 and 1958, more than a million Spaniards arrived to Cuba from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after Castro's communist Cuban Revolution. Historically, Chinese descendants in Cuba were classified as White.
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 the Cuban revolution, due to a combination of factors, mainly mass Emigration 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.
The Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami says the present Cuban population is 38% White and 62% Black/Mulatto. The Minority 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".
| White Dominicans | 18.7% | 1,611,752 | 2022 |
They are 18.7% of the Dominican Republic's population, according to a 2022 survey by the United Nations Population Fund. The majority of white Dominicans have ancestry from the first European settlers to arrive in Hispaniola in 1492 and are descendants of the Spaniards and Portuguese who settled in the Hispaniola during colonial times, as well as the French people who settled in the 17th and 18th centuries. About 9.2% of the Dominican population claims a European immigrant background, according to the 2021 Fondo de Población de las Naciones Unidas survey.
| El Salvador | 12.7% | 730,000 | 2007 |
According to 2007 estimates, white people accounted for 12.7% of the population.
Europeans began arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire; and while during the colonial period, most European immigration was Spanish (mostly from northern provinces such as Cantabria, Navarra, Galicia Spain and the Basque Country,), in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries European and European-derived populations from North America and South America did immigrate to the country. According to most twentieth- and twenty-first-century academics, large-scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native Indigenous peoples resulted in Mestizos becoming the vast majority of Mexico's population by the time of the Mexican Revolution. However, according to church and censal registers from the colonial times, the majority of Spanish men married Spanish women. Said registers also put in question other narratives held by contemporary academics, such as European immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of a small powerful elite, as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities "Household Mobility and Persistence in Guadalajara, Mexico: 1811–1842, p. 62", fsu org, 8 December 2016. Retrieved on 9 December 2018. and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin.
Another ethnic group in Mexico, the Mestizos, is composed of people with varying degrees of European and indigenous ancestry, with some showing a European or Indigenous genetic ancestry higher than 90%. However, the criteria for defining what constitutes a Mestizo varies from study to study, as in Mexico, a large number of people who may have otherwise been considered White or Indigenous have been historically classified as Mestizos, as after the Mexican 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.
Estimates of Mexico's White population differ greatly in both, methodology and percentages given, extra-official sources such as the World Factbook, which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations, calculate Mexico's White population as only 10% (the results of the 1921 census, however, have been contested by many 21st century historians). Some other sources suggest a significantly higher percentage: using the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as White, the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico calculated the percentage of said ethnic group at 23% among students enrolled at the institution. With a similar methodology, the American Sociological Association obtained a percentage of 18.8% for the country as a whole. Another study made by the University College London in collaboration with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History found that the frequencies of blond hair and light eyes in Mexicans are of 18% and 28% respectively.
A study performed in hospitals of Mexico City suggests that socioeconomic factors influence the frequency of among newborns, as evidenced by the higher prevalence of 85% in newborns from a public institution, typically associated with lower socioeconomic status, compared to a 33% prevalence in newborns from private hospitals, which generally cater to families with higher socioeconomic status. The Mongolian spot appears with a very high frequency (85-95%) in Native American, and African children, but can be present in some individuals in the Mediterranean populations. The skin lesion reportedly almost always appears on South American and Mexican children who are racially , while having a very low frequency (5–10%) in European children. According to the Mexican Social Security Institute (shortened as IMSS) nationwide, around half of Mexican babies have the Mongolian spot. "Tienen manchas mongólicas 50% de bebés", El Universal, January 2012. Retrieved on 3 July 2017.
Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest percentages of white population, with the majority of the people being of predominantly European ancestry or having minimal or no Indigenous ancestry. In the north and west of Mexico the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller and unlike those found in central and southern Mexico they were mostly nomadic, therefore remaining isolated from colonial population centers, with hostilities between them and Mexican colonists often taking place. "Nómadas y sedentarios, El pasado prehispánico de Zacatecas", Mesoweb, Mexico, page 10, retrieved on July 7, 2024. This eventually led the northeast region of the country to become the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period albeit recent migration waves from central and southern Mexico have been changing its demographic trends. "Transición migratoria y demográfica de México. Nuevos patrones", page 17, retrieved on September 12, 2024. A number of settlements on which European immigrants have maintained their original culture and language survive to this day and are spread all over Mexican territory; among the most notable groups are the Mennonites who have colonies in states as variated as Chihuahua or Campeche "Menonitas que huyeron de Chihuahua ahora alimentan Asia desde Campeche", El Financiero, 1 March 2018. Retrieved on 8 December 2018. and the town of Chipilo in the state of Puebla, inhabited nearly in its totality by descendants of Italian immigrants that still speak their Venetian-derived dialect.
Previously in 1899, one year after the United States acquired the island, 61.8% or 589,426 people self-identified as White. One hundred years later (2000), the total increased to 80.5% or 3,064,862; 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. How Puerto Rico Became WhiteUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison . (PDF).
Hundreds are from Corsica, France, Italian people, Portugal, Ireland, Scottish people, and Germany, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain. This was the result of granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815), which allowed European Catholics to settle on the island with a certain amount of free land.
| Puerto Rico (United States) | 17.1% | 560,592 | 2020 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 0.7% | – | 2011 Trinidad and Tobago 2011 Census Ethnic Composition: "Caucasian 0.6%, Portuguese 0.1%", Total: 0.7% (p. 15) |
The cultural boundaries separating White Americans from other racial or ethnic categories are contested and always changing. Professor David Roediger of the University of Illinois, suggests that the construction of the White race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, 186; Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York, 1998). 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: German Americans, Greek Americans, White Hispanics, Arab Americans, Iranians, Afghan Americans, Irish Americans, Italians, American Jews of European and Mizrahi Jews descent, Slavs, and Spaniards. On several occasions Finns were "racially" discriminated against in their early years of immigration and not considered European but "Asian". Some believed that they were of Mongoloid ancestry rather than "native" Caucasoid origin due to the Finnish language belonging to the Uralic languages and not the Indo-European language family.Eric Dregni, Vikings in the Attic: In search of Nordic America, p. 176.
During American history, the process of officially being defined as White by law often came about in court disputes over the pursuit of citizenship. The Immigration Act of 1790 offered naturalization 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.
In 1923, the Supreme Court decided in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that people of descent were not White men, and thus not eligible for citizenship. United 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. While Thind was a high caste Hindu born in the northern Punjab region and classified by certain scientific authorities as of the Aryan race, the court conceded that he was not White or Caucasian race 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. In United States v. Cartozian (1925), an Armenians immigrant successfully argued (and the Supreme Court agreed) that his nationality was White in contradistinction to other people of the Near EastKurds, Turks, and Arabs in particularon the basis of their Christian religious traditions. In conflicting rulings In re Hassan (1942) and Ex parte Mohriez, United States District Courts found that Arabs did not, and did qualify as White, respectively, under immigration law.
In the early twenty-first century, the relationship between some ethnic groups and whiteness remains complex. In particular, some Jewish and Arab 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. The United States Census Bureau proposed but withdrew plans to add a new category for MENA peoples in the U.S. Census 2020. Specialists disputed whether this classification should be considered a White ethnicity or a race. 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)".Frank W Sweet, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule, Backintyme (3 July 2013), p. 50.
The current U.S. Census definition includes as White "a person having origins in any of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa." The U.S. Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Investigation describes White people as "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa through racial categories used in the Uniform Crime Reports Program adopted from the Statistical Policy Handbook (1978) and published by the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce." Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook, U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation, p. 97 (2004) 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.Anthony Walsh (2004). " Race and crime: a biosocial analysis". Nova Publishers. p. 23.
White Americans made up nearly 90% of the population in 1950. A report from the Pew 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.Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn: U.S. Population Projections: 2005–2050. Pew Research Center, 11 February 2008. 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.. "Supplemental Tables and Figures". p. 42. 18 September 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2015. Whites born in those Southern states with higher proportions of African-American populations, tend to have higher percentages of African ancestry. For instance, according to the 23andMe database, up to 13% of self-identified White American Southerners have greater than 1% African ancestry. White persons born in Southern states with the highest African-American populations tended to have the highest percentages of hidden African ancestry.Scott Hadly, "Hidden African Ancestry Redux", DNA USA* , 23andMe, 4 March 2014. Robert P. Stuckert, member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ohio State University, has said that today the majority of the descendants of African slaves are White.
Black author Rich Benjamin, in his book, , reveals how racial divides and White decline, both real and perceived, shape democratic and economic urgencies in America. 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, 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.
As a result of centuries of having children with White people, the majority of African Americans have some European admixture, and many people long accepted as White also have some African ancestry. Among the most notable examples of the latter is President Barack 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.
In the twenty-first century, writer and editor Debra Dickerson renewed questions about the one-drop rule, saying that "easily one-third of black people have White DNA".Debra J. Dickerson: The End of Blackness. Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners. Anchor Books, New York and Toronto, 2005. She says that, in ignoring their European ancestry, African Americans are denying their full multi-racial identities. Singer Mariah Carey, who is multi-racial, was publicly described as "another White girl trying to sing black". But in an interview with Larry King, she said that, despite her physical appearance and having been raised primarily by her White mother, she did not "feel White". Mariah Carey: 'Not another White girl trying to sing Black.'. Findarticles.com. Larry King interview with Mariah Carey. Transcripts.cnn.com (19 December 2002).
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.Cf. Jim Wooten, "Race Reversal Man Lives as 'Black' for 50 Years – Then Finds Out He's Probably Not", ABC News (2004).
White Argentines are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from Europe and the Middle East in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Enrique Oteiza and Susana 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.ar El antropólogo brasileño Darcy 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 argentino José 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) After the regimented Spanish colonists, waves of European settlers came to Argentina from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Major contributors included Italy (initially from Piedmont, Veneto and Lombardy, later from Campania, Calabria, and Sicily), Federaciones Regionales feditalia.org.ar and Spain (most are Galician people and Basque people, but there are Asturian people, Cantabrians, Catalan people, and Andalusians). Smaller but significant numbers of immigrants include Germans, primarily Volga Germans from Russia, but also Germans from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; French which mainly came from the Occitania region of France; Portuguese, which already conformed an important community since colonial times; Slavic groups, most of which were Croats, Bosniaks, Polish people, but also Ukrainian people, Belarusians, Russian people, Bulgarian people, Serbs and Montenegrins; Britons, mainly from England and Wales; Irish who migrated due to the Great Irish Famine or prior famines and Scandinavians from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. 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 of Buenos Aires' population was foreign-born. Dinámica migratoria: coyuntura y estructura en la Argentina de fines del XX . Alhim.revues.org (3 November 2004). However, the 1914 National Census revealed that around 80% of the national population were either European immigrants, their children or grandchildren.Rock, David. Argentina: 1516–1982. University of California Press, 1987. 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.Levene, Ricardo. History of Argentina. University of North Carolina Press, 1937. 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) following World War II. It is estimated that Argentina received over 6 million European immigrants during the period 1857–1940. Yale immigration study . Yale.edu.
Several genetic studies found that the European ancestry in Argentina comes mainly from the Iberian Peninsula and Italian Peninsula with a much lower contribution from Central Europe and Northern Europe. The Italian component appears strongest in the East and Center-West, while Spanish influence dominates in the North East and North West.
Since the 1960s, increasing immigration from bordering countries to the north (especially from Bolivia and Paraguay, which have Amerindian and Mestizo majorities) has lessened that majority somewhat.
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 undercounting and Mestizos. Racial Discrimination in Argentina . Academic.udayton.edu. África Viva (Living Africa) is a black rights group in Buenos Aires with the support of the Organization of American States, financial aid from the World 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.
| White Bolivians | 5% | 600,000 | 2017 |
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.
| Brazilian people | 43.5% | 88,252,121 | 2022 |
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.
As a term, "White" in Brazil is generally applied to people of European descent. The term may also encompass other people, such as Brazilians of descent, and in some contexts, East Asians. Though Brazilians of East Asian descent are, in other contexts, classified as "Yellow" (amarela). The census shows a trend of fewer Brazilians of a different descent (most likely mixed) identifying as White people as their social status increases.Gregory Rodriguez, " Brazil Separates Into Black and White ," LA Times, 3 September 2006. Note that the figures belie the title.Rodriguez, Gregory. (3 September 2006) Brazil Separates Into a World of Black and White | The New America Foundation . Newamerica.net. Nevertheless, light-skinned and Mestizos with European features were also historically deemed as more closely related to "whiteness" than unmixed Blacks.
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. An estimated 1.6 million (10%) to 3.2 million (20%) Chileans have a surname (one or both) of Basque origin. 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.
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, Italian Chilean, Irish, French Chilean, Greeks, German Chilean, English, Scottish people, Croatian people and Ashkenazi Jews, in addition to immigration from other Latin American countries.
The original arrival of Spaniards was the most radical change in demographics due to the arrival of Europeans in Chile, since there was never a period of massive immigration, in contrast to neighboring nations such as Argentina and Uruguay. 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. 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. In 1907, European-born immigrants composed 2.4% of the Chilean population, which fell to 1.8% in 1920, and 1.5% in 1930.
After the failed liberal revolution of 1848 in the German states, a significant German immigration took place, laying the foundation for the German-Chilean community. Sponsored by the Chilean government to "civilize" and colonize the southern region, these Germans (including German-speaking Swiss, Silesians, Alsace and Austrians) settled mainly in Valdivia, Llanquihue and Los Ángeles. The Chilean Embassy in Germany estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Chileans are German diaspora.
Another historically significant immigrant group were Croatian immigrants. The Croatian Chileans, their descendants today, number at an estimated 380,000 persons, the equivalent of 2.4% of the population. Other authors claim on the other hand, that close to 4.6% of the Chilean population have some Croatian ancestry. Over 700,000 Chileans may have British (English, Scottish or Welsh people) origin, 4.5% of Chile's population. Chileans of Greek people descent are estimated 90,000 to 120,000. Most of them live either in the Santiago area or in the Antofagasta area, and Chile is one of the 5 countries with the most descendants of Greeks in the world. The descendants of the Swiss people reach 90,000 and it is estimated that about 5% of the Chilean population has some France. 184,000–800,000 (estimates) are Italian Chilean. Other groups of European descendants are found in smaller numbers.
Many Spanish began their explorations searching for gold, while other Spanish established themselves as leaders of the native social organizations teaching natives the Christianity and the ways of their civilization. Catholic priests would provide education for Native Americans that otherwise was unavailable. 100 years after the first Spanish settlement, 90 percent of all Native Americans in Colombia had died. 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.
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 of Antioquia is attributable to the Basque immigration and Basque character traits.Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World by William A. Douglass, Jon Bilbao, p. 167 Few Colombians of distant Basque descent are aware of their Basque ethnic heritage. 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. Basque priests were the ones who introduced handball into Colombia.Possible paradises: Basque emigration to Latin America by José Manuel Azcona Pastor, p. 203 Basque immigrants in Colombia were devoted to teaching and public administration. 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.
In December 1941 the United States government estimated that there were 4,000 Germans living in Colombia.Latin America during World War II by Thomas M. Leonard, John F. Bratzel, p. 117 There were some Nazi agitators in Colombia, such as Barranquilla businessman Emil Prufurt. Colombia invited Germans who were on the U.S. blacklist to leave. SCADTA, a Colombian-German air transport corporation that was established by German expatriates in 1919, was the first commercial airline in the Western Hemisphere.
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 famous Colón 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 the Capitolio Nacional of the capital. 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. After the Second World War, Italian emigration to Colombia was directed primarily toward Bogota, Cali and Medellin. They have Italian schools in Bogota (Institutes "Leonardo da Vinci" and "Alessandro Volta"), 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 the Spanish.
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. Syrians, Palestinians, and Lebanese continued since then to settle in Colombia. 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. Whatever the figure, Syrians and Lebanese are perhaps the biggest immigrant group next to the Spanish since independence. Those who left their homeland in the Middle East to settle in Colombia left for different reasons such as religious, economic, and political reasons. 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. The Arabs that went to Maicao were mostly Sunni Muslim with some Druze and Shiites, as well as Orthodox and Maronite Christians. The mosque of Maicao is the second largest mosque in Latin America. Middle Easterns are generally called Turcos (Turkish).
According to the most-recent 2022 national census, 2.2% of Ecuadorians self-identified as European Ecuadorian, a decrease from 6.1% in 2010.
In 2012, there were 1,667 or 0.3% of the population identified as white.
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.
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. The 2011 National Population and Housing Census states that 43.6% of the Venezuelan population (approx. 13.1 million people) identify as White. Ine.gob.ve Venezuelan population by 30 June 2014 is 30,206,2307 according to the National Institute of Statistics Genetic research by the University of Brasília shows an average admixture of 60.6% European, 23.0% Amerindian and 16.3% African ancestry in Venezuelan populations. 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 the Spanish 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 into Venezuela during the colonial period. Most of them were from Andalusia, Galicia, Basque Country and from the Canary 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, and Netherlands established themselves in Venezuela. Later, in the middle of the century, there was a new wave of originating immigrants from Spain (mainly from Galicia, Andalucia and the Basque Country), Italy (mainly from southern Italy and Venice) and Portugal (from Madeira) and new immigrants from Germany, France, England, Croatia, Netherlands, and other European countries, among others, animated simultaneously by the program of immigration and colonization implanted by the government.
Ecuador
White Ecuadorian 2.2% 374,925 2022
Guyana
In 2016, 0.3% of Guyana were of European descent, predominantly Portuguese Guyanese.
Guyana 0.3% TBD 2016
Paraguay
Paraguay 30% 1,750,000 2005
Peru
According to the 2017 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 in La Libertad (10.5%), Tumbes Region and Lambayeque (9.0% each), Piura Region (8.1%), Callao (7.7%), Cajamarca Region (7.5%), Lima Province (7.2%) and Lima Region (6.0%).
Peruvian people 5.9% 1,336,931 2017
Suriname
Suriname 0.3% 1,667 2012
Uruguay
Different estimates state that Uruguay's population of 3.4 million is composed of 88% to 93% White Uruguayans. Uruguay (07/08). State.gov (2 April 2012). CIA – The World Factbook – Uruguay. Cia.gov. Though Uruguay has welcomed immigrants from around the world, its population largely consists of people of European origin, mainly Spaniards and Italians. Other European immigrants include Jews from Eastern and Central Europe. Uruguay – Population. Countrystudies.us.
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).
Uruguayan people 87.7% 2,800,000 2011
Venezuela
Venezuela 43.6% 13,169,949 2011
See also
Bibliography
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