White Latin Americans

White Latin Americans, or European Latin Americans, are Latin Americans who are considered white, typically due to European descent. Latin American countries have often tolerated interethnic marriage since the beginning of the colonial period. Direct descendants of European settlers who arrived in the Americas during the colonial and post-colonial periods can be found throughout Latin America. Most immigrants who settled the region for the past five centuries were Spanish and Portuguese; after independence, the most numerous non-Iberian immigrants were French, Italians, and Germans, followed by other Europeans as well as West Asians (such as Levantine Arabs and Armenians). Composing from 33% of the population , according to some sources, White Latin Americans constitute the second largest racial-ethnic group after mixed race people in the region. White is the self-identification of many Latin Americans in some national censuses. According to a survey conducted by Cohesión Social in Latin America, conducted on a sample of 10,000 people from seven countries of the region, 34% of those interviewed identified themselves as white. Race and ethnicity in Latin America Being white is a term that emerged from a tradition of racial classification that developed as many Europeans colonized large parts of the world and employed classificatory systems to distinguish themselves from the local inhabitants. However, while most present-day racial classifications include a concept of being white that is ideologically connected to European heritage and specific phenotypic and biological features associated with European heritage, there are differences in how people are classified. These differences arise from the various historical processes and social contexts in which a given racial classification is used. As Latin America is characterized by differing histories and social contexts, there is also variance in the perception of whiteness throughout Latin America.