Chilean people

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Chileans
Chilenos

Notable Chileans: Arturo Prat, Gabriela Mistral, Fernando González
Total population
c. 18,000,000 Chileans
Regions with significant populations
Chile        16,763,470
Argentina 400,429  Brazil 65,000  United States 118,849  Sweden 42,396  Canada 37,577  Australia 33,626  Spain 23,911  France 15,782  Germany 10,280  United Kingdom 6,957
Languages
Chilean Spanish
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Evangelical Protestantism, a minority are Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim.
Related ethnic groups
Spaniards, Italians, Germans, British people, Palestinians, Croatians, French and Mapuche.

The Chilean population consists predominantly of Whites and White-mestizos.^[1][2] (The Mestizos are a mixed racial mixture of colonial Spanish, mainly Andalusians, Castilians and Basque), and Amerindian tribes, mainly Picunches, Diaguitas and Mapuches (having disappeared the first two groups during the Colonial period). The white population are descended mainly from Spaniards, including Basques, and to a smaller extent Italians, Irish, French, Germans, English, Swiss and Croats. In ethnic identity, the country is relatively homogenous, stemming from a largely cohesive national identity known locally as Chilenidad.

Chile's ethnic structure can be classified as 30% white, with mestizos of predominantly white (castizo) ancestry further estimated at 65%.^[3] Another recent study estimates that the white population corresponds to 52.7% of Chileans.^[4] The White and Mestizo figures appear combined in some sources, so that Chile's population is classified as 95.4% white and mestizos by the CIA.^[5]

According to the Census 2002, 4.6% of the Chilean population was Indian, although most show varying degrees of miscegenation.^[6]

Contents 1 Immigration 2 Religions 3 Folk Culture 4 Emigration of Chileans 5 See also 6 Notable Chileans 7 References

[edit] Immigration

The largest White ethnic group that makes up the Chilean population are arrived from Spain in the colonial period and Basque regions in the north of Spain and the south of France also during the colonial period and after Independence. Estimated to be descendants of Basques in Chile from 10% (1,600,000) to as high as 27% (4,500,000).^{[7] [8] [9] [10]}

Some non-Spanish European immigrants arrived in Chile - mainly to the northern and southern extremities of the country - during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Britons (includes Scots and Irish) descendants between 350,000 to 420,000.^[11], Italians, French, Germans, Austrians, Dutch, Scandinavians, Portuguese, Greeks and former Yugoslavians (esp. Croats). Another group of immigrants are historically significant, Croatian with 380,000 to 500,000 with the highest number of descendants of Croats.^[12][13] They did transform the country culturally, economically and politically.

In 1848 an important and sizable German immigration took place, laying the foundations of a present German-Chilean community. Sponsored by the Chilean government with aims of colonising the southern region. These Germans (which included German-speaking Swiss, Silesians, Alsatians and Austrians), markedly influenced the cultural composition of the southern provinces of Valdivia, Llanquihue and Osorno. They settled lands opened by the Chilean government in order to populate the region.

In the aftermaths of the Spanish Civil War, 2,200 Spanish Republicans landed in Valparaiso brought by the Winnipeg, a French ship which had been transformed by Pablo Neruda, then Consul in Paris for Immigration. Also worth mentioning are the sizable Middle Eastern population, especially Palestinian Chilean communities, the latter being the largest colony of that people outside of the Arab world,^{[14] [15] [16]} along with Lebanese and Syrians, and a large Middle East Armenian community.

European immigration, and to a lesser degree in the Middle East, produced during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (large "waves" in America), after corresponding to the Atlantic coasts of the Southern Cone ( that is, Argentina, Uruguay and South Brazil), was the most significant Latin America is favored mainly by the intense traffic that is produced through extreme south of the country until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1920, although other numbers came from Argentina, across the Cordillera.

Also, the different European ethnic groups intermarried therefore diluting the cultures and separate identities of the home countries and fusing them together with each other as well as with that of the original Basque-Castilian aristocracy of the colonial period while at the same time preserving elements of them, to form the society and culture of the Chilean middle and upper classes. Therefore they enjoy elements of the original European cultures, such as the British afternoon tea, German cakes and Italian pasta. This can be clearly in the architecture of the cities. They also look down on Chilean folk culture, as it is an offshoot of the culture of the Spaniards who settled the country in the colonial period.

The folk culture of the rural poor continued to be base of the culture of the original Spanish settlers of the colonial period, therefore creating a cultural divide in Chile between rural and urban and poor and rich.

[edit] Religions

Catholic, 70%

Protestant or evangelical, 15.1%

Jehovah's Witnesses, 1%

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 0.9%

Jewish, 0.4% (75,000) ^[17]

Atheist or Agnostic, 8.3%

Others, 4.2%.

Less than 0.1% are either Eastern Orthodox (70,000) or Muslim (10,000).

For the precise numbers of declared religions among the population ages 15 and over as indicated by the results of the latest census, see source *2002 Census data.

[edit] Folk Culture

The folk culture of Chile has mostly Spanish origins, especially the huaso culture of the central part of the country, as it arose in the colonial period due to cattle ranching. It could therefore be considered an offshoot of Spanish popular culture of the 17th an 18th centuries as are the folk cultures of the rest of Latin America and also, its direct descendents, Andalusian and Castilian folk cultures. The Andalusian forms in the huaso dress is apparent to Europeans and the music and dances show Spanish origins, even though both have been adapted and are distinct to dress, music and dance in Spain today.

The ranches called fundos, where the huasos lived and worked show strong similarity with Spanish vernacular architecture, especially in the canal roofs and the interior courtyards. The fundo is now thought of as traditional Chilean architecture and is associated with the huaso.

As well as the huaso culture of the central part of the country can be seen the German, Mapuche, Chilote and Magallanic culture in the south, and the Andean culture in the north.

Chile's Nueva Canción movement in modern Chilean folk culture is adapted from the folk music of the north, not of the brass bands but of the panpipes and quenas. The traditional Chilean folk music of the huasos were also popularised, particularly the tonadas, folk songs sung with a guitar, mainly on the topics of love. Several folk groups who dress in huaso costume became famous nationwide.

The folk culture that is mainly associated with the Chilean national identity is that of the huasos as that is where the Chilean state was form and it spread northwards and southwards in the late 19th century.

Some historians question the validity of a theory which claims that in the mid 19th century thousands of Cherokee Indians fled the Trail of Tears and settled both in Chile and across South America generally. It was thought that 10,000 Cherokee descendants live in Chile today. Joaquin Murrieta the Spanish Mexican bandit of 1850s California is said to be a Chilean immigrant with Cherokee ancestry.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Emigration of Chileans

Emigration of Chileans has decreased during the last decade: It is estimated that 857,781 Chileans live abroad, 50.1% of those being in Argentina (the highest number), 13.3% in the United States, 8.8% in Brazil, 4.9% in Sweden, and around 2% in Australia, with the rest being scattered in smaller numbers across the globe. Other Chilean refugees settled (not ranked by order of size) in Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

Many pro-Allende refugees in the 1970s fled to East Germany, including current president Michelle Bachelet had also lived in Australia.^[18] While anti-Pinochet refugees formed a large expatriate community in Europe and a smaller community in North America (the US and Canada).

Over 100,000 Chileans fleeing from both regimes in the 1970's and 1980's settled in the US, a small number compared to other Latino groups. The highest number settled in Miami, Florida, but smaller enclaves are in Washington, DC; New York City; and California (the Los Angeles area - Beverly Hills and Long Beach); and San Francisco (San Mateo County).

Approximately 2,500 Chilean exiles fled to the UK in the early 1970s and by most recent estimates the Chilean British population is in its tens of thousands, and represents a significant proportion of the UK's one million strong Latin American community. By far the largest concentration of Chileans can be found in London with significant other communities being Birmingham, Sheffield and the Manchester-Liverpool Metropolitan area.^[19]

Historic emigration took place in the early 19th century when Chilean ranchers went to Mexico after their independence. Thousands of miners from Chile went to California, the U.S. during the 1850s California gold rush, as well in other gold rushes in Colorado (1870s) and the Yukon (1890s). Small numbers of Chilean miners also migrated to South Africa and Australia for the same reason.^[20][21]

[edit] See also

• Chilean-American
• Chilean Argentinan
• Chilean Australian
• Chilean Brazilian
• Chilean Canadian
• Chilean French
• Chilean German
• Chilean Italian
• Chilean Mexican
• Chilean Spaniard
• Chilean Swedes

[edit] Notable Chileans

• Marlene Ahrens
• Arturo Alessandri
• Andrés Allamand
• Claudio Arrau
• Cristián Arriagada
• Maricarmen Arrigorriaga
• Patricio Aylwin
• Michelle Bachelet
• Vivianne Blanlot
• Bartolomé Blumen
• Marta Brunet
• Hernán Büchi
• Santiago Cabrera
• Cristian de la Fuente
• Leonardo Farkas
• Alberto Fouilloux
• Hans Gildemeister
• Fernando Gonzalez
• Lucía Hiriart
• Vicente Huidobro
• Alberto Hurtado
• Juan Antonio Iribarren
• Antonio José de Irisarri
• Hermógenes Irisarri
• Sebastián Keitel
• Alberto Larraguibel
• Miguel Littin
• Evelyn Matthei
• Nicolas Massu
• Rafael Olarra
• Manuel Pellegrini
• Diego Portales
• Augusto Pinochet
• Sebastian Rozental
• José Said
• Antonio Skarmeta
• René Schneider
• Rodolfo Stange
• Tonka Tomicic
• José Antonio Vidaurre
• Andrés Zaldívar

[edit] References

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