Asian Latin Americans are Latin Americans of East Asian, Southeast Asian or South Asian descent. Asian Latin Americans have a centuries-long history in the region, starting with Filipinos in the 16th century. The peak of Asian immigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, however. There are currently more than four million Asian Latin Americans, nearly 1% of Latin America's population. Chinese and Japanese are the group's largest ancestries; other major ones include Filipinos, Koreans, and Indians. Brazil is home to the largest population of Asian Latin Americans, at some 2.2 million. The highest ratio of any country in the region is 5%, in Peru. There has been notable emigration from these communities in recent decades, so that there are now hundreds of thousands of people of Asian Latin American origin in both Japan and the United States.
The first Asian Latin Americans were Filipinos who made their way to Latin America (primarily to Cuba and Mexico, and secondarily to Colombia, Panama and Peru) in the 16th century, as sailors, crews, prisoners, slaves, adventurers and soldiers during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. For two and a half centuries (between 1565 and 1815) many Filipinos sailed on the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, assisting in the Spanish Empire's monopoly in trade. Some of these sailors never returned to the Philippines, and many of their descendants can be found in small communities around Baja California, Sonora, Mexico City, Peru and others, thus making Filipinos the oldest Asian ethnic group in Latin-America.
In the 19th century, thousands of Indian labourers of Tamil descent from the Indian French colonial settlements of Madras, Pondichéry, Chandernagor and Karikal were brought to French Guiana, Guadeloupe & Martinique to work in plantations.
Most Chinese-Latin Americans descended from the Coolie slave trade, and most are found in the Caribbean, especially in Cuba, and Peru. They are also closely related to Afro-Asian people in Latin America.
Most Asians, however, arrived in the 19th and 20th century as contract workers or economic migrants. Today, the overwhelming majority of Asian Latin Americans are of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean descent. Japanese migration mostly came to a halt after World War II (with the exception of Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic), while Korean migration mostly came to an end by the 1980s (though it still continues in Guatemala) and Chinese migration remains ongoing in a number of countries.
Settlement of war refugees has been extremely minor: a few dozen ex-North Korean soldiers went to Argentina and Chile after the Korean War, and some Hmong went to French Guiana after the Vietnam War.
Four and a half million Latin Americans (almost 1% of the total population of Latin America) are of Asian descent. The number may be millions higher, even more so if all who have partial ancestry are included. For example, Asian Peruvians are estimated at 5% of the population there, but one source places the number of all Peruvians with at least some Chinese ancestry at 5 million, which equates to 20% of the country's total population.
Most who are of Japanese descent reside in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, and Paraguay while significant populations of Chinese ancestry are found in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Panama, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Costa Rica (where they make up about 1% of the total population). Nicaragua is home to 12,000 ethnic Chinese; the majority reside in Managua and on the Caribbean coast. Smaller communities of Chinese, numbering just in the hundreds or thousands, are also found in Ecuador and various other Latin American countries. The largest Korean communities are in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile. There are around 12,918 living in Guatemala. There is also a Hmong community in Argentina. The French Overseas Departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe & Martinique have large populations of people of Tamil Indian descent. Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, and Venezuela also have small Asian Indian communities.
Japanese Peruvians have a considerable economic position in Peru. Many past and present Peruvian Cabinet members are ethnic Asians, but most particularly Japanese Peruvians have made up large portions of Peru's cabinet members and former president Alberto Fujimori is of Japanese ancestry who is currently the only Asian Latin American to have ever served as the head of any Latin American nation. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan, numbering about 1.7 million with ancestry alone. Brazil is also home to 10 thousand Indians, 5 thousand Vietnamese people, 4.5 thousand Afghans, 2.9 thousand Indonesians and 1 thousand Filipinos.
Canada has been a destination for Asian Latin American emigration. The immigrants usually settle in the largest cities, such as Vancouver and Toronto, and integrate into the overall Asian Canadian communities.
Japanese Brazilian immigrants to Japan numbered 250,000 in 2004, constituting Japan's second-largest immigrant population. Their experiences bear similarities to those of Japanese Peruvian immigrants, who are often relegated to low income jobs typically occupied by foreigners.
Most Asian Latin Americans who have migrated to the United States live in the largest cities, often in Asian American or Hispanic and Latino communities in the Greater Los Angeles area, New York metropolitan area, Chicago metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay area, Greater Houston, the San Diego area, Imperial Valley, California, Dallas-Fort Worth, and South Florida (mainly Chinese Cubans). They and their descendants are sometimes known as Asian Hispanics and Asian Latinos.
In the 2000 US Census, 119,829 Hispanic or Latino Americans identified as being of Asian race alone. In 2006 the Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimated them at 154,694, while its Population Estimates, which are official, put them at 277,704. Some notable Americans of Asian Hispanic/Latino heritage include Harry Shum, Jr., Franklin Chang-Diaz, Carlos Galvan, Kelis, Kirk Acevedo and Chino Moreno. In the United States, there are Facebook groups that are devoted to Asian Hispanics in New York, California and Bay Area.
Argentina
Ignacio Huang, actor; Taiwanese Argentine
Mario Alberto Ishii, politician; Japanese Argentine
Marco, actor; Korean Argentine
Jessica Michibata, fashion model; Japanese Argentine
Leonardo Nam, actor; Korean Argentine
Liu Song, table tennis player; Chinese Argentine
Maria Eugenia Suarez, actress and singer; Japanese Argentine
Bolivia
Pedro Shimose, poet; Japanese Bolivian
Brazil
Erica Awano, manga artist; Japanese Brazilian
Suresh Biswas, adventurer; Indo-Brazilian
Sérgio Echigo, former footballer; Japanese Brazilian
Boris Fausto, historian, political scientist and writer; Turkish Brazilian
Alexandr Fier, chess grandmaster; Japanese Brazilian
Ashok Gandotra, cricketer; Indo-Brazilian
Kaio Felipe Gonçalves, striker; Japanese Brazilian
Luiz Gushiken, union leader and politician; Japanese Brazilian
Sandro Hiroshi, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
Hugo Hoyama, tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
Fabiane Hukuda, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
Kaisei Ichirō, sumo wrestler; Japanese Brazilian
Thereza Imanishi-Kari , professor; Japanese Brazilian
Ryoki Inoue, the world's most prolific writer; Japanese Brazilian
Vânia Ishii, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
Cláudio Kano, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
Nathalia Kaur, model and actress; Indo-Brazilian
Reishin Kawai, aikido practitioner and acupuncturist; Japanese Brazilian
Pedro Ken, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
Allam Khodair, race car driver; Japanese Brazilian
Felipe Kitadai, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
Paulinho Kobayashi, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
Caroline Kumahara, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
Yanna Lavigne, actress and model; Japanese Brazilian
Iara Lee, producer, director and activist; Korean Brazilian
Lovefoxxx, singer; Japanese Brazilian
Manabu Mabe, painter; Japanese Brazilian
Lyoto Machida, mixed martial artist; Japanese-Brazilian
Mitsuyo Maeda, judo master and developer of Brazilian jiu-jitsu; Japanese Brazilian
Daniel Matsunaga, model, host, actor and footballer; Japanese-Brazilian
Jo Matumoto, former pro baseball player; Japanese Brazilian
Froilano de Mello, microbiologist; Indo-Brazilian
Paulo Miyashiro, triathlete; Japanese Brazilian
Carlos Morimoto, author; Japanese Brazilian
Lawrence Lin Murata, technology entrepreneur
Andrews Nakahara, MMA fighter; Japanese Brazilian
Aline Nakashima, model; Japanese-Brazilian
Mariana Ohata, triathlete; Japanese Brazilian
Ruy Ohtake, architect; Japanese Brazilian
Tomie Ohtake, artist; Japanese Brazilian
Oscar Oiwa, painter, visual artist and architect; Japanese Brazilian
Leandro Okabe, model; Japanese Brazilian
Tetsuo Okamoto, swimmer; Japanese Brazilian
Poliana Okimoto, long distance swimmer and gold medalist; Japanese Brazilian
Pedro Okuda, baseball shortstop; Japanese Brazilian
Luís Onmura, judoka; Japanese Brazilian
Hiroo Onoda, former Japanese Army officer; Japanese Brazilian
Angela Park, golfer; Korean Brazilian
Rogério Romero, swimmer; Japanese Brazilian
Lucas Salatta, backstroke swimmer; Japanese Brazilian
Silvio Santos, TV host and entrepreneur; Turkish Brazilian
Akihiro Sato, model; Japanese Brazilian
Luis Shinohara, former judoka; Japanese Brazilian
Lígia Silva, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
Marcos Sugiyama, volleyball player; Japanese Brazilian
Mahau Suguimati, truck hurdler; Japanese Brazilian
Jung Mo Sung, lay theologian; Korean Brazilian
Manabu Suzuki, racer; Japanese Brazilian
Rafael Suzuki, racer; Japanese Brazilian
Rodrigo Tabata, footballer; Japanese Brazilian
Marlon Teixeira, model; Japanese Brazilian
Geovanna Tominaga, TV host and actress; Japanese Brazilian
Milton Trajano, cartoonist; Japanese Brazilian
Gustavo Tsuboi, table tennis player; Japanese Brazilian
Stênio Yamamoto, sports shooter; Japanese Brazilian
Mario Yamasaki, MMA fighter; Japanese Brazilian
Carlos Yoshimura, baseball pitcher; Japanese Brazilian
Chile
Nara Back, singer in electro-pop group Lulu Jam
Liza Chung, pianist; Korean Chilean
J.J. Hwang, film composer; Korean Chilean
Carlos Ominami, economist and politician; Japanese Chilean
Kyoung H. Park, playwright; Korean Chilean
Costa Rica
Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut; Chinese-Spanish Costa Rican
Cheng Siu Chung, retired football player, coach; Chinese Costa Rican
Eduardo Li, president of the Costa Rican football federation; Chinese Costa Rican
Harry Shum, Jr., actor; Chinese Costa Rican
Cuba
Fulgencio Batista, former President of Cuba; of partial Indian and Chinese heritage
Yamil Chade, boxing manager; Lebanese Cuban
Yat-Sen Chang, ballet dancer; Chinese Cuban
Emilio Estefan, musician; Lebanese Cuban
Wifredo Lam, artist; Chinese-African Cuban
Alfredo Abon Lee, army officer; Chinese Cuban
Dominican Republic
Jamie Guzman, architect and blogger; Chinese Dominican
Elías Wessin y Wessin, politician; Lebanese Dominican
Wu Xue, table tennis player; Chinese Dominican
Ecuador
Li Jian - midfielder; Chinese Ecuadorian
Carlos Moncayo - co-founder and CEO of Asiam; Chinese Ecuadorian
French Guiana
Lotus Vingadassamy-Engel, academic; Indo-French Guinean
Guadeloupe
Henri Bangou politician; Indo-Guadeloupean
Guatemala
Myrna Mack, anthropologist; Chinese-Maya Guatemalan
Helen Mack Chang, businesswoman and human rights activist; Chinese Guatemalan
Haiti
Edouard Wah, Haitian painter; Chinese-Haitian
Martinique
Lord Kossity, ragga-zouk musician; Indo-Martiniquais
Serge Letchimy, President of Martinique Regional Council; Indo-Martiniquais
Mexico
Alberto Arai, architect, theorist and writer; Japanese Mexican
Eduardo Auyón, artist and cultural promoter; Chinese Mexican
Jesús Chong, boxer; Chinese Mexican
Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, secretary of the interior of Mexico; Chinese Mexican
Axel Didriksson, writer and professor; Japanese Mexican
Ana Gabriel, Mexican singer and composer; Chinese on her mother's side
Zhenli Ye Gon, businessman and alleged drug trafficker; Chinese Mexican
Xóchitl Hamada, pro wrestler; Japanese Mexican
Hiromi Hayakawa, singer; Japanese Mexican
Gilberto Hirata, state deputy; Japanese Mexican
Tomoki Kameda, undefeated Boxer; Japanese Mexican
Su Muy Key, actress and dancer; Chinese Mexican
Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje, revolutionary, scholar, agricultural scientist and historian; Indo-Mexican
Pablo Larios, goalkeeper; Japanese Mexican
Juan Manuel Ley, founder and chairman of Casa Ley; Chinese Mexican
Alejandro Gómez Maganda, politician and former governor of the state of Guerrero; Filipino Mexican
Eizi Matuda, botanist; Japanese Mexican
Lyn May, actress, exotic dancer and acrobat; Chinese Mexican
Patricia Castañeda Miyamoto, swimmer; Japanese Mexican
Daiwon Moon, martial artist; Korean Mexican
Kenya Mori, actress; Japanese Mexican
Noé Murayama, actor; Japanese Mexican
Úrsula Murayama, actress; Japanese Mexican
Fumiko Nakashima, artist; Japanese Mexican
Carlos Nakatani, artist; Japanese Mexican
Isidoro Montes de Oca, revolutionary soldier; Filipino Mexican
Kiyoto Ota, sculptor; Japanese Mexican
Sanjaya Rajaram, agronomist; Indo-Mexican
M.N. Roy, nationalist revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist; Indo-Mexican
Catarina de San Juan, the China Poblana; Indo-Mexican
Sugi Sito, pro wrestler; Chinese Mexican
Romeo Villalva Tabuena, painter and printmaker; Filipino Mexican
Nancy Taira, actress; Japanese Mexican
Nicaragua
Arlen Siu, martyr of the 1979 Sandinista revolution; Chinese Nicaraguan
Panama
Jorge Cham, creator of the popular comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper; Chinese Panamanian
Bruce Chen, Major League Baseball pitcher; Chinese Panamanian
Juan Tam, writer, historian; Chinese Panamanian
Peru
Ernesto Arakaki, footballer; Japanese Peruvian
José Antonio Chang, former Prime Minister of Peru; Chinese Peruvian
Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru from 1990 to 2000; Japanese Peruvian
Keiko Fujimori, Congresswoman; Japanese Peruvian
Kenji Fujimori, Congressman; Japanese-Peruvian
Susana Higuchi, politician and engineer; Japanese Peruvian
Jorge Hirano, international football player; Japanese Peruvian
Fernando Iwasaki, writer and historian; Japanese Peruvian
Haruki Kanashiro, goalkeeper; Japanese Peruvian
Elena Keldibekova, volleyball player; Kazakh Peruvian
Humberto Lay, architect and cleric; Chinese Peruvian
Iván Miranda, tennis player; Chinese Peruvian
Aldo Miyashiro, artist; Japanese Peruvian
Augusto Miyashiro, engineer and politician; Japanese Peruvian
Kaoru Morioka, futsal player; Japanese Peruvian
José Pereda, retired footballer; Japanese Peruvian
Víctor Polay, one of the founders of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement; Chinese Peruvian
Venancio Shinki, painter; Japanese Peruvian
Hector Takayama, former footballer; Japanese Peruvian
Eduardo Tokeshi, artist; Japanese Peruvian
Tilsa Tsuchiya, artist; Japanese Peruvian
Edwin Vásquez, Olympic shooter; Chinese Peruvian
José Watanabe, poet; Japanese Peruvian
Víctor Joy Way, former Prime Minister of Peru; Chinese Peruvian
Alan Wong, chef; Chinese Peruvian
Erasmo Wong, businessman, owner of various retail chains; Chinese Peruvian
Patty Wong, model; Chinese Peruvian
Ricardo Wong, politician; Chinese Peruvian
Rafael Yamashiro, politician; Japanese Peruvian
César Ychikawa, vocalist; Japanese Peruvian
David Soria Yoshinari, footballer; Japanese Peruvian
Jaime Yoshiyama, politician; Japanese Peruvian
Carlos Yushimito, writer; Japanese Peruvian
Pedro Zulen, philosopher; Chinese Peruvian
Puerto Rico
Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya, writer, performer, and theater director; Indo-Puerto Rican
Eduardo Bhatia, politician and senator; Indo-Puerto Rican
Ruth D. Thorne, author; Indo-Puerto Rican
Uruguay
Barbara Mori, Mexican actress; Japanese Uruguayan
Venezuela
Fred Armisen, American actor, has Venezuelan roots on his mother and Japanese father's side part; Japanese Venezuelan
Alex Cabrera Suzuki, Venezuelan first baseman and right-handed batter who played in Major League Baseball, and Nippon Professional Baseball; Japanese Venezuelan
Federico Chang, journalist; Chinese Venezuelan
Roberto Chang Mota, engineer; Chinese Venezuelan
Pedro Chien, missionary; Chinese Venezuelan
Ivanova Decan, cultural promoter; Indian Venezuelan
Virgilio Decan, lawyer, thoroughbred racing narrator; Indian Venezuelan
Francisco Hung, painter; Chinese Venezuelan
Maria Esperanza Hung, swimmer; Chinese Venezuelan
Seiko Ishikawa, Diplomat; Japanese Venezuelan
Seijiro Iyazawa, trader; Japanese Venezuelan
Hana Kobayashi, singer; Japanese Venezuelan
Takako Kodani de Bracho; painter and sculptor; Japanese Venezuelan
Shanny Lam, Venezuelan model; Chinese Venezuelan
Kamala Lopez, American actress, director, and political activist (born in New York City but raised in Venezuela); Indian Venezuelan
Sadao Muraki, pianist; Japanese Venezuelan
Toru Murata, Professional baseball player; Japanese Venezuelan
Richard Obuchi, economist; Japanese Venezuelan
Naomi Soazo, Venezuelan judoka; Japanese Venezuelan
Hiroyuki Takeuchi, Venezuelan chef; Japanese Venezuelan
Kaori F. Yonekura, cineast; Japanese Venezuelan
Yuzo Yonekura, trader; Japanese Venezuelan
Henry Zakka, Venezuelan actor; Japanese Venezuelan
Omar Zamora Akamatsu, founder of channelTeleven; Japanese Venezuelan
Millard Faris Ziadie, trainer of thorougbreds; Indian Venezuelan
