Figure 1.--Most Uruyyans have Spanish or Italian ethnic origins. This family snapshot shows the Parovel family in Montevideo (1922). The family had emigrated to Uruguay from northeast Italy. Many family snapshots and studio portraits were taken by Italian immigrants in Uruguay to send them to the relatives bck hime in Italy. We know this to be the case because the photo is now in an archive in San Vito al Tagliamento, close to Venice.

Uruguay was a Spanish colony and most of the original Europeans settlers were Spanish. Uruguayans generally describe themselves as a multi-ethnic society, although they are like Argentina, less so than most of the rest of Latin America. In fact Uruguay is the least ethnicaly diverse country in Latin America. There is only a very small Native American / Amer-Indian and Mestizo population. What the Uruguayans meant by multi-ethnic is that the population came largely from different European countrues, but even here the population is largely from two European countries, Spain and to a lesser extent Italy. Uruguay is dominated by a Spanish linguistic and cultural background like neighboring Argentina. A very large portion of Uruguayans are descended from European colonial settlers and immigrants. Nearly 90 percent of Uruguayans is of European descent. The vast majority of the Europeas immigrants were Spanish from colonial times and Italians who immigrated during the late-19th and early-20th century. This is the same pattern as in Argentina. There are also small numbers of French, Germans, Portuguese, British (English and Scots), Irish, Swiss, Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Belgians, Austrians, Croats, Greeks and other Scandinavians. One author also reports small numbers of Turkish, Armenian, Serbs, Georgian, Azeris, Jews, and Lebanese people. This may sound highly diverse, but except for the Spanish and Italians, these other nationalities represent only small numbers of immigrants and their ethnic and cultural impact has addred a bit of color, but the impavr has been minimal. It is only the Spanish and Italians, however, that have had a major impact on Uruguayan ethnicity and culture. And the Italians, rather like the Germans in theUnited States, arrived after the original Spanish (or in America English) cultural impact had been firmly set.

Created: 7:00 PM 10/7/2017
Last updated: 7:00 PM 10/7/2017