White Argentine
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White Argentines are the descendants of colonists from Spain and Portugal during the colonial period prior to 1810, and mainly of immigrants from Europe and the Middle East in the great immigratory wave during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Although no official census data nor statistically significant studies exist, some international sources claim that they make up between 85.8% and 86.4% of Argentina's population.
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Distribution
White Argentines may live in all regions of the country, but especially in the central-western region called Pampas (the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba and La Pampa), the southern region called Patagonia (the provinces of Río Negro, Neuquén, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego), the central-eastern region called Cuyo (the provinces of Mendoza, San Juan and San Luis) and the north-eastern region called Litoral (the provinces of Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Misiones, Chaco and Formosa).
They may also be found in the major cities of the north-western provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, Catamarca, La Rioja and Santiago del Estero, but they are nearly non-existent in the rural areas. Their presence in this region is lesser due to several reasons: it was the region most densely populated of the country (mainly by Amerindian and Mestizo people) until the immigratory wave of 1870-1940, and it was the area where the European newcomers settled the least. During the last decades, due to internal migration from these northern provinces, and due to immigration especially from Bolivia, Perú and Paraguay (which have Amerindian and Mestizo majorities), the percentage of White Argentines in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires has decreased as well.
History
Colonial and post-independence period
The presence of White people in what is now Argentina began in 1516, when the Spanish Adelantado Juan Díaz de Solís explored the Río de la Plata and named it "Mar Dulce" (Sweet Sea). In 1527, the explorer Sebastián Gaboto founded the fort of Sancti Spiritus, near Coronda, Santa Fe; this was the first Spanish settlement on Argentine soil. The process of Spanish occupation continued with the expedition coming from the Alto Perú (now Bolivia) that founded Santiago del Estero in 1553, and the cities of San Miguel de Tucumán (1565) and Córdoba (1573) later on. Taking Asunción as an operative base, other Spanish expeditions founded the cities of Buenos Aires (1580) and Corrientes (1588).
Although the estimates vary, it is a fact that Spanish immigration from the peninsula towards the New World was scanty during all the colonial period. Some estimates state that less than 200,000 Spaniards arrived in the Americas during the period 1509-1790 . On the other hand, Peter Muschamp Boyd-Bowman -an Emeritus Professor of Spanish Linguistics- estimated that about 437,669 Spaniards went and established in the American possessions between 1506 and 1650; of this total, a figure between 10,500 and 13,125 Peninsulares settled in the Río de la Plata region during the 18th century .
It was not until the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1776, that the first censuses with classification into castas were conducted. The 1778 Census ordered by viceroy Juan José de Vértiz in Buenos Aires revealed that, of a total population of 37,130 inhabitants (including both city and surrounding countryside), the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 25,451, or 68.55% of the total. Another census carried out in the Corregimiento de Cuyo in 1777 showed that the Spaniards and Criollos numbered 4,491 (or 51.24%) out of a population of 8,765 inhabitants. In Córdoba (city and countryside) the Spanish/Criollo people comprised a 39.36% (about 14,170) of 36,000 inhabitants.
* General Manuel Belgrano, creator of the Argentine flag; his father was born in Liguria, and his mother was a criolla from Santiago del Estero.
* José Rondeau, Supreme Director of the United Provinces, was of French and Spanish descent.
Nevertheless, these censuses were generally restricted to the cities and the surrounding rural areas, so little is known about the racial composition of large areas of the Viceroyalty -as the Litoral, for example- though it is supposed that Spaniards and Criollos were always a minority, with the other castas comprising the majority. Furthermore, it is known that, since a person who was classified as Peninsular or Criollo had access to all the privileges of the colonial society, many Castizos (or "White Mestizos") purchased their limpieza de sangre (purity of blood). This passing was common during the colonial period, so some of the figures shown above may include Castizos that "passed" as White.
Although being a minority in demographics terms, the Criollo people played a leading role in the independentist movement that started in 1810 and led to the independence of Argentina from Spain in 1816; Argentine national heroes such as Manuel Belgrano and José de San Martín, military men as Cornelio Saavedra, José Rondeau, Carlos María de Alvear, politicians as Juan José Paso, Mariano Moreno, Juan José Castelli, Domingo Matheu and Gervasio Posadas, were all of Spanish/Criollo, Italian or French descent. Nevertheless, the war effort fell on the Mestizo, Mulatto and Black populations, who composed most of the troops during the wars of independence, and so they suffered heavy losses of lives, as they were frequently used as "cannon fodder".
After the wars for independence, a period of fierce internal struggle followed, and there were neither economical resources nor political stability to carry out any census until the 1850s, when some provincial censuses were organized. Anyway, these censuses did not continued with the classification into castas typical of the pre-independence period. The first post-independence census conducted in Buenos Aires took place in 1855; it showed that there were 26,149 European inhabitants in the city. Among the nationals there is no distinction of race, but it does distinguish literates from illiterates; by that time formal education was a privilege almost exclusive for the upper sectors of society, who were predominantly White. If both groups of European residents and the 21,253 Argentine literates are summed, it might be estimated that about 47,402 White people resided in Buenos Aires in 1855; they would comprised about 51,58% of a total population of 91,895 inhabitants.
The great immigratory wave from Europe (1857-1940)
In February 1856, the municipal government of Baradero granted lands for the settlement of ten Swiss families in an agricultural colony near that town. Later that year, another colony was founded by Swiss immigrants in Esperanza, Santa Fe. In spite of these isolated provincial initiatives, it was not until the Argentine Confederation and the Buenos Aires Province definitively unified in 1862 -and a strong central government could be established- that Presidents Bartolomé Mitre, Domingo Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda implemented policies that encouraged massive European immigration. In 1876, during Avellaneda's presidential period, the Congress voted and sanctioned the new Law 817 of Immigration and Colonization. During the following decades, and until the mid-twentieth century, waves of European settlers came to Argentina. Major contributors included Italy (initially from Piedmont, Veneto and Lombardy, later from Campania, Calabria, and Sicily), and Spain (most were Galicians and Basques, but there were Asturians, Cantabrians, Catalans, and Andalusians).
* General Julio A. Roca, President of the Nation (1880-1886); he led the Conquest of the Desert in 1879, that allowed Argentina to occupy new lands for the immigrants to buy and cultivate. Both Avellaneda and Roca belonged to traditional Criollo families from Tucumán.
* President Carlos Pellegrini (1890-1892); his father was Saboyan and his mother was Irish.
Smaller but significant numbers of immigrants include Germans, primarily Volga Germans from Russia, but also Germans from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; French which mainly came from the Occitania region of France; Slavic groups which most are Croats and Poles, but there are Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Montenegrins; British mainly from England and Wales: Irish who left from the Potato famine or British rule; Scandinavians from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. Smaller waves of settlers from Australia and South Africa, and the United States can be traced in Argentine immigration records.
From the former Ottoman Empire came mainly Greeks, Armenians and Arabs (from what is now Lebanon and Syria). They entered the country with Turkish passport, so they were colloquially nicknamed "turcos". The majority of Argentina's Jewish community derives from immigrants of north and eastern European origin (Ashkenazi Jews), and about 15–20% from Sephardic groups from Syria. Argentina is home to the fifth largest Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. (See also History of the Jews in Argentina).
This migratory influx had mainly two effects on Argentina's demography:
1) The exponential growth of the country's population. In the first National Census of 1869 the Argentine population was just 1,877,490 inhabitants, in 1895 it had doubled up to 4,044,911, in 1914 it had reached 7,903,662, and by 1947 it had doubled again up to 15.893.811. It is estimated that by 1920, more than 50% of the residents in Buenos Aires had been born abroad. According to Zulma Recchini de Lattes' estimate, if this great immigratory wave from Europe and the Middle East had not happened, Argentina's population by 1960 would have been less than 8 millions, while the national census carried out that year revealed an amount of 20.013.793 inhabitants. As it is shown in the chart below, Argentina received a total amount of 6,611,000 European and Middle-Eastern immigrants during the period 1857-1940.
2) A radical change in its ethnic composition; the 1914 National Census revealed that around 80% of the national population were either European immigrants, their children or grandchildren. Among the remaining 20% (those descended from the population residing locally before this immigrant wave took shape), around a third were White. Put down to numbers, this means that about an 86.6% (out of a total population of 7,903,662) or 6,844,000 people residing in Argentina were White. European immigration continued to account for over half the nation's population growth during the 1920s, and was again significant (albeit in a smaller wave) following World War II.
Origin of the immigrants until 1940
 
2nd immigratory wave after World War IIAfter the Second World War, many Europeans fled to Argentina, escaping the hunger and poverty of the post-war period. According to the National Bureau of Migrations, during the period 1941-1950 at least 392,603 Europeans entered the country: 252,045 Italians, 110,899 Spaniards, 16,784 Poles, 7,373 Russians and 5,538 French. Among the Italian immigrants of that period were protest singer Piero De Benedictis (who was born in Tarento in 1945, they parents emigrated in 1948), actor Rodolfo Ranni (born in Trieste in 1937, migrated in 1947), and rock musician Kay Galifi (born in Sicily in 1948; their parents settled in Rosario in 1950).    * Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Guevara (1928-1967), born in Rosario, Santa Fe, his family was of Spanish, Basque and Irish descent.
* Oskar Schindler; German businessman who saved his Jewish workers from the Holocaust, migrated with his wife Emilie to Argentina in 1948. * Kay Galifi, guitarist of rock band Los Gatos; he was born in Sicily in 1948; his parents emigrated with him to Rosario, Santa Fe in 1950. Argentina also received thousands of Germans who came bankrupt -like Oskar Schindler and his wife, for example- and Ashkenazi Jews. Unfortunately, among those "good" Germans there were hundreds of Nazi war criminals; Adolf Eichmann, Erich Priebke and Josef Mengele -among others- entered the country in this period. It is still matter of debate whether the Argentine government of the time was aware of the presence of these criminals on Argentine soil or not; but the consequence was that Argentina was considered a Nazi Haven for several decades. White Argentines, therefore, likely peaked as a percentage of the national population at over 90% on or shortly after the 1947 census. The flow of European immigration continued during the 1950s, but -compared to the previous decade- it is evident that it was diminishing considerably. The Marshall Plan implemented by the United States to help Western Europe recover from the consequences of World War II was working, and emigration was not such a necessity. During the period 1951-1960, only 242,889 Europeans entered Argentina: 142,829 were Italians, 98,801 were Spaniards, 934 were French, and 325 were Poles. The next decade (1961–1970), the total amount of European immigrants barely reached 13,363 (9,514 Spaniards, 1,845 Poles, 1,266 French and 738 Russians).    * Dagmar Hagelin was a Swedish-Argentine born in Buenos Aires in 1959; she was kidnapped and presumably killed by Captain Alfredo Astiz's grupo de tareas in 1977, during the last military dictatorship.
* President de-facto Leopoldo Galtieri (1926-2003), of Italian descent. He ordered the Operation Rosario that began the Malvinas War in 1982. * Raúl Alfonsín (1927-2009) first democratic President after the Proceso (1983-1989). His father had Galician and German ancestry, and his mother was of Welsh descent. During the 1970s, the European immigration was nearly non-existent; the internal struggle inside the Peronism (Montoneros versus Triple A) caused terrorism and guerrilla warfare first, and a brutal repression by the Armed Forces followed after 1976 under the name of Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. Such an internal situation encouraged emigration rather than immigration -at least by the Europeans- and this is also evident in the numbers; during the period 1971-1976 at least 9,971 Europeans left the country. During the period 1976-1983 thousands of White Argentines and some Europeans were kidnapped and killed in clandestine centers by the grupos de tareas (task groups) of the military dictatorship. In 1983-1984, the CONADEP investigated and documented 8,960 cases clarifying that the list was by no means exhaustive; so some other estimates vary between 13,000 and 30,000. Among the White Argentines who were victims of the repression can be mentioned: Dagmar Hagelin, Rodolfo Walsh, Héctor Oesterheld (all presumably assassinated in 1977) and Jacobo Timerman (who was liberated in 1979, exiled in Israel, and returned in 1984). As it was mentioned in the Distribution section, since the 1960s until now, the main source of immigration switched from Europe to the bordering South American countries. During the period in between the Censuses of 1895 and 1914, the immigrants from Europe comprised 88.4% of the total, and the Latin American immigrants represented only the 7.5%. By the decade of 1960-1970, this tendency had completely reverted: the Latin American immigrants were the 76.1% and the Europeans merely comprised an 18.7% of the total. Given that the main sources of South American immigrants since the 1960s have been Bolivia, Paraguay and Perú, most of these immigrants have been either Amerindian or Mestizo, for they represent the ethnic majorities in those countries. The increasing numbers of immigrants from these sources has caused the percentage of White Argentines to be reduced significantly in certain areas of the Greater Buenos Aires; mainly in the partidos of Morón, La Matanza, Escobar and 3 de Febrero, and the porteño neighbourhoods of Flores, Villa Soldati, Villa Lugano and Pompeya. Unfortunately, many Amerindian or Mestizo people of Bolivian/Paraguayan/Peruvian origin have suffered either of racist discrimination and violence; or have been victims of forced labor in textile workshops and sexual slavery. White Latin American immigrants  * Natalia Oreiro is a White Uruguayan actress/singer of Galician, Italian and French descent. She resides in Argentina since 1993, and married Divididos' guitarist Ricardo Mollo.
* Arnaldo André; White Paraguayan actor who has worked and lived in Argentina since 1970. Nevertheless, generalizations must not be made; some White immigrants from Bolivia, Perú and Paraguay have entered Argentina. Among the Paraguayan immigrants, for example, there have been many of German and Slavic descent, with surnames like Hoffmann, Schneider or Surnyak. Another example is well-known actor Arnaldo André, who migrated in the 1970s and has developed a long successful career in Argentina. Uruguayan immigrants represent a very distinct case, for they may pass unnoticed as "foreigners". Uruguay received a great part of the same immigratory influx that changed Argentina´s ethnic profile, so most Uruguayans are White; estimates of White population in Uruguay oscilate from 87.4% to 94.6%. Besides, Uruguayans and Argentinians speak the same language variety; the Rioplatense Spanish, which is heavily influence by the entonation patterns of the Italian language's southern dialects. Unlike the cases of racist discrimination against Bolivians, Paraguayans and Peruvians, Uruguayans have not suffered any type of racism or xenophobia against them. According to the Uruguayan collectivity, 218,000 Uruguayans migrated to Argentina between 1960 and 1980. The official censuses show a slow growth of Uruguayan immigrants: 51,100 in 1970; 114,108 in 1980 and 135,406 in 1991; but the 2001 National Census shows a lower figure: 117,564. Other source estimates the number of White Uruguayans and their descendants in 725,000. Among the Uruguayan immigrants who have settled, developed their professional career, and have had their children in Argentina, we may find: sports journalist Víctor Hugo Morales, actor/comedian Berugo Carámbula, his daughter María and his son Gabriel Carámbula, actress/singer Natalia Oreiro, actress China Zorrilla, and many others. Argentina has also received White people from other Latin American countries, such as Chile and Cuba. Estimates of the White population in Chile greatly vary from 22% or 30%, up to 52.7% or 64%; so about half of all Chilean immigrants (212,429 in 2001) and their descendants in Argentina might be White. Among these immigrants, they can be mentioned: Chilean model/DJ Cecilia Amenábar (who was married with Gustavo Cerati and had two children with him), María Ostoić -former President Néstor Kirchner's mother (born in Punta Arenas in a family of Croatian descent)- and Cuban neurosurgeon Roberto Quiñones (Cuban dissident Hilda Molina's son; he married an Argentine woman and they had two sons). 3rd immigratory wave from Eastern Europe (1994-2000)
In 1992, after the fall of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and its allies, the governments of Western Europe were worried about a possible massive exodus from Eastern Europe and Russia. President Carlos Saúl Menem -in the political framework of relaciones carnales with the Western World- offered to receive part of that emigratory wave in Argentina. On 19 December 1994, Resolution 4632/94 was enacted, allowing a "special treatment" for all the applicants who wished to emigrate from the republics of the ex-Soviet Union. Summarizing, from January 1994 till December 2000, a total 9,399 Eastern Europeans travelled and settled in Argentina. Of the total, 6,720 were Ukrainians (71.5%), 1,598 were Russians (17%), 160 Romanians (1.7%), 122 Bulgarians (1.3%), 94 Armenians (1%), 150 Georgians/Moldovans/Poles (1,6%) and 555 (5.9%) travelled with Soviet passport. An 85% of the newcomers were under age 45, and 51% had terciary level education, so most of them integrated quite rapidly into Argentine society, although some had to work for lower wages than expected at the beginning. Unfortunately, among these well-received immigrants, there were 200 Romanian Gypsy families -arrived in 1998- that did not migrate to find better jobs, but to be living as beggars in the streets of Buenos Aires. Besides, according to a Uruguayan newspaper, there were 140 more Romanian Gypsies who migrated to Uruguay in 1999, but only to enter Argentina later by crossing the Uruguay river through Fray Bentos, Salto or Colonia. Influence on Argentine Culture
As for all Latin America, many cultural products in Argentina are the result of a fusion of European, Amerindian and Black African elements. This is a review of all the European contributions to Argentine culture. MusicMain article: Music of Argentina
TangoArgentine tango is a hybrid genre, result of the fusion of different ethnic and cultural elements, so well intermingled that it is difficult to identify them separately. According to some experts, tango has combined elements from three main sources:   * Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) is the most famous singer-songwriter of classical tango; he was -reportedly- French by birth and her mother took him to Argentina in 1893.
* Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) was the creator of the "New Tango" and one of the finest bandoneonists ever; his parents were Italian immigrants from Trani, Apulia. 1) The music played by the Black African communities of the Río de la Plata region. Its very name might derive from a word in Yoruba -a Bantu language- and its rhythm appears to be based on the candombe. 2) The milonga campera, a popular genre among the gauchos that lived in the Buenos Aires countryside, and later moved to the city looking for better jobs. 3) The music brought by the European immigrants: the Andalucian tanguillo, the polka, the waltz and the tarantella. They heavily influenced its melody and its sound by adding instruments such as piano, violin and -especially- bandoneón. In spite of this tripartite origin, tango mainly developed as a urban music, and it was assimilated and embraced by the European immigrants and their descendants; most icons of the genre were either European or had European ancestry. Among the tango pioneers of the early 20th century we find Juan de Dios Filiberto (his granparents were from Genova), Enrique Delfino and Roberto Firpo. Carlos Gardel, the greatest exponent of classical tango in the 1930s, was -reportedly- born in France, and his songwriting partner Alfredo Le Pera had Calabrian ancestry. 
Any list of important singers, composers, and arrangers of the Golden Age of tango -in the 1940s and 1950s- shows a collection of Italian and French surnames: Enrique Santos Discepolo, Homero Manzi, Pascual Contursi, Sebastián Piana, Enrique Cadícamo, Raúl Garello, Julio De Caro (both his parents were Italian), Osvaldo Fresedo, Ignacio Corsini (born in Sicily), Enrique Francini, Agustín Magaldi and Armando Pontier. The most prestigious orchestra directors were of Italian descent: Aníbal Troilo, Carlos Di Sarli (his father was Italian), Juan D'Arienzo and Osvaldo Pugliese. Singer Alberto Castillo -known for his song Al compás del tamboril- was actually surnamed De Lucca. Juan Carlos Cobián, a prestigious composer and orchestra director, had his father born in Spain. The creator of New Tango in the 1960s, bandoneonist and composer Astor Piazzolla, had direct Italian ancestry, and his songwriting partner Horacio Ferrer was of French descent. Current exponents, such as singer-songwriter Cacho Castaña and singers Susana Rinaldi (nicknamed la Tana) and Adriana Varela also are of Italian descent. FolkloreWhen the Spaniards arrived in what is now Argentina, the Amerindian inhabitants already had their own musical culture: instruments, dances, rhythms and styles. Much of that culture was lost during and after the conquest; only the music played by the Andean peoples survived in the shape of chants such as vidalas and huaynos, and in dances like the carnavalito. The peoples of Gran Chaco and Patagonia -areas that the Spaniards did not effectively occupied- kept their cultures almost untouched until the late 19th century. The major Spanish contribution to music in the Río de la Plata area during the colonial period was the introduction of three instruments: the vihuela or guitarra criolla, the bombo legüero and the charango (a small guitar, similar to the tiple used in the Canary Islands; made with the shell of an armadillo). Once the Criollos obtained their independence from Spain, they had the chance to create new musical styles; dances like pericón, triunfo, gato and escondido, and chants like cielito and vidalita all appeared during the post-independence period, especially in the 1820s.   * Teresa Parodi -born in Corrientes- is one the most famous singers of the chamamé genre. She wrote classics such as Pedro Canoero and Apurate, José.
* Chango Spasiuk is a prestigious composer and accordion player; his grandparents were Ukrainian immigrants who settled in Misiones. The massive European immigration brought important changes in Argentina's popular music, especially in the Litoral; so new genres appeared, like chamamé and purajhei (or Paraguayan polka). Chamamé appeared in the second half of the 18th century -though it was not named like this until the 1930s- as a result of the fusion of ancient Guaraní rhythms with the music brought by the Volga German, Ukrainian, Polish and Ashkenazi Jew immigrants that settled in the region. The newcomers added the melody of their polkas and waltzes to the native rhythmic base, and played it with their accordions and violins. The ethnic change that Argentina was undergoing is also evident in the lyrics of some songs; for example, the waltz La pulpera de Santa Lucía refers to a blond-haired, blue-eyed waitress in a pulpería of Buenos Aires countryside. A chamamé titled La Oma describes a blue-eyed old woman of German origin that lived in the Chaco region. Other native rhythms -like chacarera and zamba- were not so heavily influenced by the immigrants, but they began to be played with other European instruments; one example is Sixto Palavecino's use of the violin to play the chacarera. Regardless of the origin of the different rhythms and styles, European immigrants and their descendants rapidly assimilated the local music as their own, and contributed to those genres creating new songs.   * Carlos DiFulvio is a well-known singer-songwriter of Italian descent, born in Córdoba. His major hits include Campo afuera and Guitarrero.
* Eduardo Falú (right) is a songwriter of popular zambas such as Zamba de la Candelaria and No te puedo olvidar; he was born in Salta and his parents were Syrian immigrants. A list -not exhaustive- of notable White Argentines that have written and/or recorded folklore music includes: Songwriters: Ariel Petrocelli, Artidorio Cresseri, Luis Profili (author of Zamba de mi esperanza), Armando Tejada Gómez, Carlos Guastavino, and songwriting teams such as Ariel Ramírez - Félix Luna and Gustavo Leguizamón - Manuel Castilla. Singer-songwriters: Carlos DiFulvio, Teresa Parodi, Chango Spasiuk, Chango Nieto, Hernán Figueroa Reyes, César Isella, Facundo Saravia, Eduardo Falú, Jorge Rojas. Performers: Soledad Pastorutti, Jorge Cafrune, Antonio Tormo, Lucía Ceresani. Besides, many TV hosts of programs specialized on folklore were of Lebanese or Italian ancestry; Julio Mahárbiz, Quique DaPiaggi and Carlos Giachetti. Andean music was much less influenced by Criollo and European culture, so it has remained quite "pure" -except for the use of charango and Spanish language- and it is most frequently written, performed and recorded by Mestizo and Amerindian Argentines. RockPop/BalladEntertainment   * Carlos Balá is a comedian -specialized in children's entertainment- with Lebanese ancestry.
* Tato Bores (1927-1996) was a comedian, famous for his ironic monologues on politic humor. He was of Ashkenazi Jew descent. * Enrique Pinti is another comedian -with Italian ancestry- famous for his fast-pace monologues on politics and every-day life. SportsMain article: Sport in Argentina
    * Martín Palermo is a famous footballer of Italian descent who currently plays for Boca Juniors.
* Luciana Aymar is the captain of the hockey national team Las Leonas; she has Spanish ancestry. * David Nalbandian is a famous tennis player, descendant of Armenian immigrants. * Manu Ginobili is a well-known NBA basketball player of Italian descent, currently playing for the San Antonio Spurs. Many sports that nowadays are very popular in Argentina were introduced by European immigrants. Football was taught by the British railway workers to their workmates in the free times during the construction of the railways, and it was embraced with passion by the other collectivities. Estimates
As it was explained in the introduction of this article, neither official census data nor statistically significant studies exist on the precise amount or percentage of White Argentines today; this is because Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) does not conduct ethnic/racial censuses, nor includes questions about ethnicity. The Census scheduled to be conducted on 27 October 2010 will only include questions on Indigenous peoples -completing the survey performed in 2005- and on Afro-descendants. Nevertheless, most international sources agree in their claim that White Argentines make up at least 85% of Argentina's population. Worldstatesmen.org -an on-line encyclopedia- estimates an 89.7% (86.4% White/European plus 3.3% Arab), and the World Fact File powered by Dorling Kindersley Books also claims an 85% (83% Indo-European, plus 2% Jewish). The Joshua Project -that provides information on ethnic people groups around the world, with missionary purposes- states that White Argentines and other whites (Europeans and Middle-Easterners) in Argentina comprise 85.8% of the total population. This percentage does not show explicitly, but after doing some mathematics, the results are as follows: Argentinians White -the resulting ethnic group out of the melting pot of immigration in Argentina- sum up 29,031,000 or 72.3% of the population. The other European/Caucasus ethnic groups and Uruguayans White sum up 4,258,500 (10.6%), and Arabs sum 1,173,100 more (2.9%). All together, Whites in Argentina would comprise 34,462,600 or 85,8% out of a total population of 40,133,230. Another work, a very complete and detailed study on the ethnic composition of Ibero-America written by Mexican UAEM scholar Francisco Lizcano Fernández estimates an 87.8% of White people in Argentina; this figure comprises 85% Criollos (the term he uses for Whites) plus 2.8% Arabs, that he classifies as "Asians". The figure of 97% given by the CIA Factbook seems to be exaggerated, or probably counts both White and Mestizo populations all together. Genetic researchWhile the majority of Argentines display primarily Caucasian physical characteristics, recent genetic studies concluded in 2005 have shown that a significant portion of the population has varying degrees of Amerindian and -to a lesser extent- African ancestry. Although these studies were somehow shocking for the Argentine public opinion, this is no strange, for the Americas are one of the regions with more inter-racial admixture in the world. For example, a recent study conducted in the United States in 2007, demonstrated that some White Americans of European descent also have certain degrees of Black African and Amerindian admixture. Furthermore, another genetic study concluded that about 30% of all White Americans, approximately 66 million people, have a median of 2.3% of Black African admixture. In Argentina, the first study on the matter was conducted in 1985; A scientist team from the Facultad de Medicina of University of Buenos Aires analized the blood types of 73,875 doners from the Blood Bank of the Policlínico Ferroviario Central, with the purpose of finding European and Amerindian genetic components. The samples were organized following a map of the country, and the study concluded that "the percentages found in native populación were: European component 81,47%-81,77% and Amerindian component 18,23%-18,57%". Another study of the Amerindian ancestry of Argentines was headed by Argentine geneticist Daniel Corach of the University of Buenos Aires. The results of this study in which DNA from 320 individuals in 9 Argentine provinces was examined showed that 56% of these individuals had at least one Amerindian ancestor. Another study on African ancestry was also conducted by the University of Buenos Aires in the city of La Plata. In this study 4.3% of the 500 study participants were shown to have some degree of African ancestry. Nevertheless, it must be said here that this type of genetic studies -meant only to search for specific lineages in the mtDNA or in the Y-Chromosome, which do not recombine- may be misleading. For example, a person with seven European great-grandparents and only one Amerindian/Mestizo great-grandparent will be included in that 56%, although his/her phenotype will most probably be Caucasian. On the other side, a separate genetic study on genic admixture was conducted by Argentine and French scientists from multiple academic and scientific institutions (CONICET, UBA, Centres D'Anthropologie de Toulouse). This study showed that the average contribution to Argentine ancestry was 79.9% European, 15.8% Amerindian and 4.3% African. Another similar study was conducted in 2006, and its results were also similar. A team led by Michael F. Seldin from the University of California, with members of scientist institutes from Argentina, United States, Sweden and Guatemala, analyzed samples from 94 individuals and concluded that the average genetic estructure of Argentine population contains 78.1% European contribution, 19.4% Amerindian contribution and 2.5% African contribution (using the Bayesian algorithm). These studies demonstrate explicitly the real impact of the European/Middle Eastern immigration on Argentine ethnography. See also
References
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