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Chilean Americans

Chilean Americans
Flag of Chile.svgFlag of the United States.svg
Total population

(140,045
0.05% of the U.S. population (2012)

Location of Chile)
Regions with significant populations
New York Metro Area, Northern New Jersey, Metropolitan Miami, Greater Los Angeles, Washington Metro Area
Languages
Chilean Dialect (Spanish), American English
Religion
Roman Catholicism (69,95%), Evangeliscalism (9%), European Protestantism (6,14%), Judaism (0,13%)
Related ethnic groups
Andalusians (Spaniards), Extremenians (Spaniards), Mestizos, Basques (Spaniards), Castilian (Spaniards), Germans, Croats, Other Europeans, Indigenous People

(140,045
0.05% of the U.S. population (2012)

Chilean Americans (Spanish: chileno-americanos, norteamericanos de origen chileno or estadounidenses de origen chileno) are Americans who have full or partial origin from Chile.

The Chilean population at the 2010 US Census was 126,810. In the United States, Chileans are the fourth smallest Hispanic group from South America and the fifth smallest overall amongst all Hispanic groups. Chilean Americans live mainly in the New York Metropolitan Area, South Florida, Los Angeles County, San Francisco Bay Area (esp. San Mateo County) and the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, with high population concentrations found in Queens in New York City; Northern New Jersey; Miami, Florida; and Nassau County, New York. Most Chileans migrating to the United States settle in metropolitan areas. In recent history, it is for economic or academic rather than political reasons that Chileans emigrate.

Chileans and other South Americans have been present in the state of California since the 1850s gold rush. Not all Chileans made it to the gold fields. Some remained in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, and where they frequently worked as bricklayers, bakers, or seamen. Some with capital established themselves in various businesses, particularly the importation of flour and mining equipment from Chile. In the cities most tended to congregate and live in specific areas in the poorer sections of town. In the gold fields they lived in separate camp sites. In the summer of 1849 Chileans constituted the majority of the population of Sonora. Chileans frequently worked their mines as group efforts. When the placer gold ran out around Sonora the Chileans were amongst the first miners in California to extract gold from quartz. Historical remnants of those settlements influenced the names of locations such as Chileno Valley in Marin County, Chili Gulch in Calaveras and Chili Bar in Placer which was named after Chilean road builders. Names of Chilean towns and places are often found in the names of streets in Northern California: Valparaiso, Santiago, and Calera.


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