Scandinavian Venezuelan (Spanish: escandinavo-venezolano) is a Venezuelan person of full or partial Scandinavian ancestry, or a Scandinavian-born person residing in Venezuela.
Contents
The Scandinavian settlement in Venezuela are almost unknown with little information about their colonization. It is believed that one of the first Nordic people to come to Venezuela were the Danish Protestant missionaries from the Alianza Escandinava Mission on 1890. In 1938, former ex-president Eleazar López Contreras made a decree creating the Technical Institute of Immigration and Colonization, in order to organize and control the settlements where they would locate these groups from the European immigration to Venezuela. Among the first beneficiaries of this policy, it came 48 Danish families from northern Europe, composed of 263 people who were installed in Chirgua, with 26 selected Venezuelan families.
After World War II, emigration from Finland to Latin America continued, but to a smaller degree than before. According to Finnish official statistics, about 500 emigrants left for Latin American countries. Venezuela became then a new country to Finnish emigration. In the course of time small Finnish colonies have sprung up within some of South America's major cities, especially in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Caracas.
Religion and culture
On October 1954, the Scandinavian community founded in Caracas, the Scandinavian Congregation (Spanish: Congregación Escandinava) with the help of Pastor Åke Kastlund. Later they founded the Luteran Church of "La Resurrección" in La Castellana district, together with the German, Hungarian and Latvian Protestant communities.
Some of them celebrates Midsommar, which coincides with Venezuelan festivity of Fiesta de San Juan. It is celebrated with the traditional campfire, songs and dances around the midsommarstång.