Immigration to Chile

Immigration to Chile has contributed to the demographics and the history of this South American nation. Chile is a country whose inhabitants are mainly of Iberian (mostly of Andalusian and Basque origin) and Native American (mostly descended from Mapadungun-speaking peoples such as Picunche and Mapuche/Araucanians) descent) There are also small populations of Aymara, Quechua, Atacameño, Kolla, Diaguita, Yaghan, Rapa Nui, and Kawaskhar in other parts of the country. Small numbers of European immigrants settled in Chile during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mainly Spanish, as well as German, British, French, Italian and Southern Slavs (mostly Croats and Montenegrins) made additional contributions to the racial complex of Chile. However, this immigration was never in a large scale, contrasting with mass migrations that characterized Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and therefore, anthropologically, its impact without consequence. Between 1880 and 1940, an estimated 43,000 immigrants arrived from Spain and became part of Chilean society. Approximately 2500 were from Andalusia (Spain). Descendants of different European ethnic groups often intermarried in Chile, diluting the cultures and separate identities of the home countries and fusing them with the descendants of the original Basque-Castilian aristocracy of the colonial period. At the same time some separate cultural aspects, such as British afternoon tea, German cakes, and Italian pasta, were preserved. This intermarriage and mixture of cultures and races have shaped the present society and culture of the Chilean middle and upper classes, who, however, frequently deprecate Chilean folk culture, an offshoot of the culture of the Spaniards who settled the country in the colonial period. This fusion is also visible in the architecture of Chilean cities.

Most of the immigrants to Chile during the 19th and 20th centuries came from abroad. Settlers from Europe came from Spain, Italy, France, Croatia, Austria, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland. Refugees from the Spanish Civil War came in the 1930s. Today, most immigrants come from neighboring countries. The largest immigrant group comes from Argentina, followed by Peru. One of the main factors that has driven this migration has been the country's relatively stable political history, compared with the rest of Latin America and, more recently, the significant growth of the Chilean economy in recent decades. Immigrants from other Latin American countries have made important contributions to Chile. For example, one of the founders of the famous Universidad de Chile, was the Venezuelan Andrés Bello. Today, copper and nitrate mines in the Atacama depend on contract workers from neighboring Bolivia.

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Wikipedia