Asian Latin Americans
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 4,500,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Brazil
|
2,200,000 |
 Peru
|
1,560,000 |
 Venezuela
|
500,000 |
 Argentina
|
195,000 |
 Panama
|
140,000 |
| Languages | |
|
Colonial Languages: |
|
| Religion | |
| Buddhism · Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Shintoism · Sikhism · Taoism | |
Colonial Languages:
Spanish · Portuguese · English · French
Asian Languages:
Asian Latin Americans are Latin Americans of East Asian, Southeast Asian or South Asian descent. Asian Latin Americans have a centuries-long history in the region, starting with Filipinos in the 16th century. The peak of Asian immigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, however. There are currently more than four million Asian Latin Americans, nearly 1% of Latin America's population. Chinese and Japanese are the group's largest ancestries; other major ones include Filipinos, Koreans, and Indians. Brazil is home to the largest population of Asian Latin Americans, at some 2.2 million. The highest ratio of any country in the region is 5%, in Peru. There has been notable emigration from these communities in recent decades, so that there are now hundreds of thousands of people of Asian Latin American origin in both Japan and the United States.
The first Asian Latin Americans were Filipinos who made their way to Latin America (primarily to Cuba and Mexico, and secondarily to Colombia, Panama and Peru) in the 16th century, as sailors, crews, prisoners, slaves, adventurers and soldiers during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. For two and a half centuries (between 1565 and 1815) many Filipinos sailed on the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, assisting in the Spanish Empire's monopoly in trade. Some of these sailors never returned to the Philippines, and many of their descendants can be found in small communities around Baja California, Sonora, Mexico City, Peru and others, thus making Filipinos the oldest Asian ethnic group in Latin-America.
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Wikipedia