Mexico’s Canal Once (Channel 11) has a short video on the history of the Lebanese in Mexico.
Posted on YouTube: February 2, 2012
It is in Spanish, but you should be able to auto-translate it.
1) Click Settings Wheel and choose Subtitles/CC.
2) Click to turn on: Spanish (auto-generated) .
3) Click – for a second time – to turn on: Subtitles/CC(1) Spanish (auto-generated) .
4) Click auto-translate.
5) Choose English – THIS CAN BE TRICKY – I suggest using up and down arrows to chose English, and then press Enter.
This can be very touchy, and you may have to play with it, but it works. Once you get the hang of it, you can turn the option on in a few seconds.
The numbers for Arab-Mexicans are all over the place, but the video (above) (in the description) makes an estimate at around 400,000 for the Lebanese in Mexico. Given other patterns of immigration that are common in Latin America, this probably means a guess-timate of 600,000 for Arabs of other backgrounds that went to Mexico. Again, this is only an estimate. Almost certainly, almost all of the Arab-Mexicans are Christian, now.
Given the common Christian Lebanese tendency – especially among the Maronite Catholics – to refuse to identify themselves as Arabs, but rather as simply Lebanese or Phoenician Westerners, one can only make an educated guess at best. The numbers in Wikipedia are all over the place. And one can find many cases where Wikipedia shows more Lebanese in a country than Arabs overall, which is an impossibility.
Frankly it has been hard to gather much data on this subject. … [T]he Christian Lebanese immigrants to South America… owe much to their over‑all Arab heritage, even though many of them try to call themselves “Phoenicians”.
Well, Professor Irving (above) noticed the same problem that I do.
The Maronite Catholics were almost genocided by the Muslims, more than once throughout history, which is why so many immigrated early on. Hence, they will often only identify as Lebanese, or as descendants of the Phoenicians.
The Lebanese-Christians do this to distinguish themselves from the Muslims. Muslim Lebanese will readily identify as Arab. This ethnic tension led to the Lebanese Civil War.
So demographers and historians have to guess; and the number of Lebanese in any Western population, and almost certainly the total number of Arabs in any country, is undercounted as a result.
So my educated guess (and that is all that it is) is that there are about 1 million-plus Arab-Mexicans.
We Americans, sadly tend to think of Latin America as a monolithic culture. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The impression that I got in school – even in Spanish class, where I did NOT do so well – was that the countries primarily consisted of a European Spanish or Portuguese elite with a large mestizo class (Spanish + Indian blend). It was/is not that simple.
First, the word mestizo means mixed, and does NOT necessarily contain the derogatory wallop that a term like mulatto used to carry, and might carry still, in the USA. But then there is a subcategory called castizo which means only one-quarter Indian and three quarters European Spanish. That term, castizo, has fallen out of use.
But the racial lines in Latin America are not so clearly delineated. A person who is one-quarter Indian would usually be considered White.
Okay, that part you may have known.
BUT DID YOU KNOW THIS?
The largest ethnic group in Argentina is Italian, not Spanish. And half of those Italians are Northern Italians, not the Mediterranean complected Sicilians. Indeed, though Argentina speaks Spanish, the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area speaks Spanish. but with an Italian accent, and they often say Ciao instead of Adios.
Posted on YouTube: November 3, 2017
Indeed, in the early 20th century, so many Italians were leaving Italy for South America that Italy had to make emigration illegal. About 60% of Argentines have some degree of Italian ancestry, albeit not necessarily pure. Chile is roughly 3.5% Italian, but Uruguay is about 44% Italian in whole or part, while Brazil is about 15% Italian in whole or part.
And then there are the Germans. Somewhere between 6-10% of Argentines are German. The problem is that Germanic immigration started to Argentina before Germany was unified in 1871; and so were not properly registered as German. If you add in the German speaking Swiss, Austrians, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe, the number could go much higher.
Of course, many are intermarried with other ethnicities now.
So NO, the German-Argentines are NOT all descended from those who fled to Argentina after WW 2. There had been a considerable amount of Germans in Argentina before the war, many of them had been there for generations; and some of the then newer German-Argentines had even fled Hitler in the 1930s. Those Nazis who fled after WW 2 were a relatively small group compared to the German-Argentine population and they only fled so they could hide.
Further complicating the matter is that many of the Spanish immigrants to South America were not Spanish, but rather Basque and Galicians, who technically are not ethnic Spaniards, but come from the Whiter regions of Northern Spain.
Okay, you say, so Argentina is relatively White. Well, the same is true of some other Latin Countries. Costa Rica is heavily European White; with two-thirds identifying as White.
The Croatians settled large parts of Chile and Argentina.
Posted on YouTube: December 15, 2017
The current president of Argentina, Javier Milei, is of Croatian and Italian ancestry. A former president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, was of Croatian and Swiss-German ancestry.
Okay, you say, but one does NOT normally see this in Mexico.
Well, most of Mexico and most of Central America is mestizo to be sure. But that is not true of all of Latin America. And even Mexico has some Germans and Arabs.
However, as so common in demographics, Wikipedia (2025) lists more Lebanese-Mexicans than Arab-Mexicans, which is ridiculous. This is a nightmare for historians and demographers, often caused by Lebanese Maronite Christians who refuse to consider themselves Arabs.
Large sections of South America, the southern tip (called the Southern Cone of South America) – Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and South Brazil – are very White, albeit with a looser definition of white. Being one half Indian may not necessarily disqualify a person. Then general rule is: if you are more than half white, you can be considered white. However, I have known a green-eyed Chilean who was majority White in ancestry, and called herself mestiza. South America does have a racial divide, but it is not so sharp as it was historically in the United States.
It could be argued that Argentina is whiter than the USA, except that American Whites are more Northern European in ancestry and usually pure White. Argentina does have Northern European Whites, but most Argentines are Mediterranean in ancestry, and half of Argentine Whites have some degree (small or large) of non-White (usually Indian) ancestry.
BTW: Some Latin Americans often prefer the term indigenes (Indigenous) to Indian, as they sometimes treat the term indio (Indian) as derogatory.
Essentially, ethnically, Argentina is similar to the United States, only with the proportions of each ethnic group varying.
Religiously, another difference between the USA and Latin America used to be religion, with the USA being majority Protestant and Latin America being majority Catholic.
Forget that, now! Evangelical Christianity has made massive inroads into Latin America, with Brazil about one-third Evangelical and growing. In some Central American countries, Evangelicals are approaching or now outnumber Catholics in percentages.
As for Jews, America has more Jews by percentage than Latin America, but Argentina still has a massive number of Jews, and has the seventh largest community of Jews in the world. At one time, the percentage of Jews in Argentina rivalled that of the USA.
Jews made an important contribution to the development of tango.
Unfortunately – and beyond the scope of this post – anti-Black discrimination is still strong in sections of Latin America, particularly Argentina.
So, if you thought that so many Arabs going to Latin America was that unbelievable, think again. Latin America is more of a melting pot than you probably realized.
Mexico is a predominantly Christian country, with adherents of Islam representing a small minority. Due to the secular nature of the state established by Mexico’s constitution, Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country. The country has a population of around 126 million as of 2020 census and according to the Pew Research Center, the Muslim population was 60,000 in 1980, 111,000 in 2010, and is predicted to be 126,000 in 2030; however, according to the 2010 National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) census, there were only 2,500 individuals who identified Islam as their religion. Most Muslims are foreign nationals and the majority are Sunni.
Notice that the official numbers were much lower than the claimed numbers. Most of the Muslims were foreign nationals.
Yet, Mexico may have over a million Lebanese (almost all of whom are Christian),
What we see here is the all too common phenomena of Muslims exaggerating their numbers. Those few Muslims in Mexico may be temporary converts who will become Evangelical or revert to Catholicism in the following year. Mexico, like much of Latin America is in the midst of an Evangelical Revival. Evangelicals may not be growing as rapidly in Mexico as in the other Latin American countries, but they are still growing.
The thing to remember is that, while the Muslim population in Mexico is miniscule, the Arab-Mexican (Christian) population is very large, in the millions. And the Arab-Mexican Christians are significant. Think of Carlos Slim and Salma Hayek. Getting figures for them is unreliable, however, because a lot of them have moved to the United States.
In the case of Islam, practically speaking, Mexico has almost no Muslims. There are exceptions.
The most important thing overlooked is that 31% of Brazil is now Evangelical, and they tend to strongly support Israel. Brazil’s Lulu can only go so far in his criticism of Israel.
Another issue is Latin culture, itself.
Latin/Spanish and Portuguese cultures center on the national liberation struggles against the Islamic/Moorish invaders of Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages … the so-called Reconquista. Latin culture, at its core, is not friendly to Islam.
What is driving this pro-Palestinianism is the large influence of:
A) Palestinian ethnic groups in Latin America, especially Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador.
B) Iran’s propagandizing through HispanTV.
C) Leftist regimes.
And finally, one should take this news report with a grain of salt, as it is posted by AJPlus, a subset of Al Jazeera, which is a Qatari based anti-Israel media outlet.
Remember, not only Brazil, but also Guatemala has a very large pro-Israel Evangelical constituency. Guatemala is 40 percent Evangelical.
Brazilian supporters of Israel
Posted on YouTube: Early October, 2023
Guatemalan support of Israel
Bucking world opinion, Guatemala was one of the few nations which voted against pressuring Israel for a ceasefire in its war against Hamas.
Among the 14 countries that voted against the cease-fire were Israel, the US, Fiji, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Tonga.
So, remember, check out the news with discernment.
