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Uruguay Contemporary Ethnic Composition
In 1990 about 88 percent of Uruguay's population was
white
and descended from Europeans, and the nation has always
looked to
Europe for its cultural cues. Eight percent of the
population was
mestizo, and 4 percent was black. Although in 1990 Uruguay
had an
aging population, it was once a young nation of
immigrants.
According to the 1908 census, over two-fifths of the
population
was foreign born. While the descendants of the original
Spanish
colonists (known as criollos) predominated in the
interior, the
origins of the population were varied in the densely
populated
areas of Montevideo and the coast. In these areas,
citizens of
Italian descent were particularly numerous, constituting
as much
as one-third of the population.
In 1990 estimates of the number of Uruguayans of
African
descent ranged from as low as 40,000 to as high as 130,000
(about
4 percent). In Montevideo, many of them traditionally made
a
living as musicians or entertainers. Few had been allowed
to
achieve high social status. As many as three-quarters of
black
women aged eighteen to forty were employed in domestic
service.
In the interior, citizens of African or mixed descent were
concentrated along the Brazilian border. Early in the
twentieth
century, the traditional folkways of Afro-Uruguayans were
captured in the impressionist paintings of Pedro Figari.
Although
vestiges of African culture survived in the annual
carnival
celebrations known as the Llamadas, Uruguay's black
population
was relatively assimilated in 1990.
Uruguay's Indian population had virtually disappeared
and was
no longer in evidence in 1990. Even the mestizo, or
mixed-race,
population was small--8 percent--by Latin American
standards. In
1990 signs of intermarriage between whites and Indians
were
common only in the interior. The slightly derogatory term
chino was still applied by the inhabitants of
Montevideo
to the somewhat darker-skinned migrants from the interior.
Montevideo also had a highly assimilated Jewish
population of
some importance. Estimated at 40,000 in 1970, the Jewish
community had fallen to about 25,000 by the late 1980s as
a
result of emigration, particularly to Israel.
Anti-Semitism was
not uncommon, but it was less virulent than, for example,
in
Argentina.
Data as of December 1990
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