131-396: Black Muslims and Black Islam denote any black people who are Muslim . This term may be used in reference to: Historically, the term was specifically used in reference to black nationalist organizations that describe themselves as Muslim. Some of these groups are not considered Muslim by adherents of mainstream Islam . These organizations include: Black people Black is
262-705: A coup d'état ), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador are all part of this wave of left-wing politicians who often declare themselves socialists , Latin Americanists , or anti-imperialists , often implying opposition to US policies towards the region . An aspect of this has been the creation of the eight-member ALBA alliance, or " The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America " (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América ) by some of these countries. Following
393-483: A racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color -based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion . Not all people considered "black" have dark skin ; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world , the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It
524-520: A Romance language (a language derived from Latin) predominates. Latin America are the countries and territories in the Americas which speak Spanish or Portuguese, with French being sometimes included. As is customary, Puerto Rico is included and Dominica , Grenada , and Saint Lucia (where French is spoken but not official language) are excluded from Latin America. *: Not a sovereign state Before
655-528: A broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims , especially those of Arab or Berber ancestry, whether living in North Africa or Iberia. Moors were not a distinct or self-defined people. Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name to Muslim Arabs, Berbers, Sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans alike. Isidore of Seville , writing in the 7th century, claimed that the Latin word Maurus
786-770: A central role in both works. The first event happened less than a decade before the publication of Bilbao's and Torres Caicedo's works: the Invasion of Mexico or, in the US, the Mexican–American War , after which the United States annexed more than half of Mexico's territory. The second event, the Walker affair , which happened the same year that both works were written: the decision by US president Franklin Pierce to recognize
917-710: A considerable influence from Dutch and the Portuguese-based creole languages . Amerindian languages are widely spoken in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay and Mexico, and to a lesser degree, in Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile. In other Latin American countries, the population of speakers of Indigenous languages tend to be very small or even non-existent, for example in Uruguay. Mexico
1048-553: A day, life expectancy , murder rates and a measurement of safety through the Global Peace Index . Green cells indicate the best performance in each category, and red the lowest. List of countries by life expectancy at birth for 2022 according to the World Bank Group . This service doesn't provide data for French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Barthélemy. Urbanization accelerated starting in
1179-462: A father who was a lighter-skinned Egyptian . In response to an advertisement for an acting position, as a young man he said, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish". Due to the patriarchal nature of Arab society, Arab men, including during the slave trade in North Africa, enslaved more African women than men. The female slaves were often put to work in domestic service and agriculture. The men interpreted
1310-661: A history of discrimination. These descendants of the Zanj have sought minority status from the government, which would reserve some seats in Parliament for representatives of their population. According to Alamin M. Mazrui et al., generally in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries, most of these communities identify as both black and Arab. Afro-Iranians are people of black African ancestry residing in Iran. During
1441-520: A lesser extent, Amerindian languages, are predominant, and in other areas, the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g., the Caribbean basin – including parts of Colombia and Venezuela ). The term's meaning is contested and not without controversy. Historian Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo explores at length the "allure and power" of the idea of Latin America. He remarks at the outset, "The idea of 'Latin America' ought to have vanished with
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#17327724588441572-508: A printed work to produce the term "Latin America" in 1856 at a conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao in Paris. The conference had the title "Initiative of the America. The idea for a Federal Congress of Republics." The following year, Colombian writer José María Torres Caicedo also used the term in his poem "The Two Americas". Two events related with the United States played
1703-1245: A recent resurgence of left-wing politics in several countries. In many countries in the early 2000s, left-wing political parties rose to power, known as the Pink tide . The presidencies of Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) in Venezuela, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil, Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández in Argentina, Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica in Uruguay, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (removed from power by
1834-542: A role as not everyone is equally capable of taking advantage of its benefits. Differences in opportunities and endowments tend to be based on race , ethnicity, rurality, and gender . Because inequality in gender and location are near-universal, race and ethnicity play a larger, more integral role in discriminatory practices in Latin America. The differences have a strong impact on the distribution of income, capital and political standing. One indicator of inequality
1965-482: A slave; his mother was Fulani and a concubine of his father. In early 1991, non-Arabs of the Zaghawa people of Sudan attested that they were victims of an intensifying Arab apartheid campaign, segregating Arabs and non-Arabs (specifically, people of Nilotic ancestry). Sudanese Arabs, who controlled the government, were widely referred to as practicing apartheid against Sudan's non-Arab citizens. The government
2096-746: A speech delivered in France by the radical liberal Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao in June 1856". By the late 1850s, the term was being used in California (which had become a part of the United States), in local newspapers such as El Clamor Público by Californios writing about América latina and latinoamérica , and identifying as Latinos as the abbreviated term for their "hemispheric membership in la raza latina ". The words "Latin" and "America" were first found to be combined in
2227-509: A term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe. The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" ( Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas ), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao . The term
2358-400: A vicious cycle. Inequality has been reproduced and transmitted through generations because Latin American political systems allow a differentiated access on the influence that social groups have in the decision-making process, and it responds in different ways to the least favored groups that have less political representation and capacity of pressure. Recent economic liberalisation also plays
2489-478: Is a South African woman who was classified as Coloured by authorities during the apartheid era, due to her skin colour and hair texture , although her parents could prove at least three generations of European ancestors. At age 10, she was expelled from her all-white school. The officials' decisions based on her anomalous appearance disrupted her family and adult life. She was the subject of the 2008 biographical dramatic film Skin , which won numerous awards. During
2620-479: Is access to and quality of education. During the first phase of globalization in Latin America, educational inequality was on the rise, peaking around the end of the 19th century. In comparison with other developing regions , Latin America then had the highest level of educational inequality , which is certainly a contributing factor for its current general high inequality. During the 20th century, however, educational inequality started decreasing. Latin America has
2751-480: Is also spoken by some Panamanians of Afro- Antillean descent. Dutch is the official language in Suriname , Aruba , Curaçao and Bonaire . (As Dutch is a Germanic language , the territories are not necessarily considered part of Latin America.) However, the native and co-official language of Aruba , Bonaire , and Curaçao , is Papiamento , a creole language largely based on Portuguese and Spanish that has had
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#17327724588442882-677: Is dominated by blacks, but is sometimes not considered part of Latin America. In the nineteenth century, a number of Latin American countries sought immigrants from Europe and Asia. With the abolition of black slavery in 1888, the Brazilian monarchy fell in 1889. By then, another source of cheap labor to work on coffee plantations was found in Japan. Chinese male immigrants arrived in Cuba, Mexico, Peru and elsewhere. With political turmoil in Europe during
3013-779: Is equally large white populations and smaller black populations, while Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are more Mulatto/Triracial dominated, with significant black and white minorities. Parts of Central America and northern South America are more diverse in that they are dominated by Mestizos and whites but also have large numbers of Mulattos, blacks, and indigenous, especially Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama. The southern cone region, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are dominated by whites and mestizos. The rest of Latin America, including México, northern Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras), and central South America (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay), are dominated by mestizos but also have large white and indigenous minorities. The French Caribbean
3144-488: Is international movement of populations, often fleeing repression or war. Other international migration is for economic reasons, often unregulated or undocumented. Mexicans immigrated to the U.S. during the violence of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and the religious Cristero War (1926–29); during World War II, Mexican men worked in the U.S. in the bracero program . Economic migration from Mexico followed
3275-442: Is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians , though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures. Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing
3406-479: Is only spoken by a few groups in the country's highlands. In Bolivia, Aymara , Quechua and Guaraní hold official status alongside Spanish. Guaraní, like Spanish, is an official language of Paraguay, and is spoken by a majority of the population, which is, for the most part, bilingual, and it is co-official with Spanish in the Argentine province of Corrientes . In Nicaragua, Spanish is the official language, but on
3537-403: Is possibly contains more Indigenous languages than any other Latin American country, but the most-spoken Indigenous language there is Nahuatl. In Peru, Quechua is an official language, alongside Spanish and other Indigenous languages in the areas where they predominate. In Ecuador, while Quichua holds no official status, it is a recognized language under the country's constitution; however, it
3668-822: Is reported that African immigrants in Turkey regularly face economic and social challenges, notably racism and opposition to immigration by locals. The Siddi are an ethnic group inhabiting India and Pakistan . Members are descended from the Bantu peoples of Southeast Africa . Some were merchants, sailors, indentured servants , slaves or mercenaries. The Siddi population is currently estimated at 270,000–350,000 individuals, living mostly in Karnataka , Gujarat , and Hyderabad in India and Makran and Karachi in Pakistan. In
3799-502: Is spoken along the Caribbean coast in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize, mostly by the Garifuna people , a mixed-race Zambo people who were the result of mixing between Indigenous Caribbeans and escaped Black slaves. Primarily an Arawakan language , it has influences from Caribbean and European languages. Archaeologists have deciphered over 15 pre-Columbian distinct writing systems from Mesoamerican societies. Ancient Maya had
3930-645: Is spoken mostly in Brazil, the largest and most populous country in the region. Spanish is the official language of most of the other countries and territories on the Latin American mainland, as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico (where it is co-official with English), and the Dominican Republic. French is spoken in Haiti and in the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe , Martinique , and Guiana . It
4061-648: Is the Spanish diminutive of negro, i.e., "little black person"); it is what the Spaniards called the aborigines that they encountered in the Philippines . The term Negrito itself has come under criticism in countries like Malaysia, where it is now interchangeable with the more acceptable Semang , although this term actually refers to a specific group. They have dark skin, often curly-hair and Asiatic facial characteristics, and are stockily built. Negritos in
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4192-785: The AP Stylebook , changed their guides to capitalize the 'b' in 'black', following the 2020 murder of George Floyd , an African American . The ASA Style Guide says that the 'b' should not be capitalized. Some perceive the term 'black' as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result neither use nor define it, especially in African countries with little to no history of colonial racial segregation . Numerous communities of dark-skinned peoples are present in North Africa , some dating from prehistoric communities. Others descend from migrants via
4323-571: The República de indios [ es ] to paternalistically govern and protect Indigenous peoples. It also created the República de Españoles , which included not only European whites, but all non-Indigenous peoples, such as blacks, mulattoes, and mixed-race castas who were not dwelling in Indigenous communities. In the religious sphere, the Indigenous were deemed perpetual neophytes in
4454-552: The Broad Front candidate. Economically, the 2000s commodities boom caused positive effects for many Latin American economies. Another trend was the rapidly increasing importance of their relations with China . However, with the Great Recession beginning in 2008, there was an end to the commodity boom, resulting in economic stagnation or recession resulted in some countries. A number of left-wing governments of
4585-689: The Caribbean and South America; the latter contains further politico-geographical subdivisions such as the Southern Cone , the Guianas and the Andean states. It may be subdivided on linguistic grounds into Spanish America , Portuguese America , and French America . The term "Latin America" is defined to mean parts of Americas south of the mainland of the United States of America where
4716-649: The Caribbean remains a serious issue despite strong economic growth and improved social indicators. A report released in 2013 by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs entitled Inequality Matters: Report of the World Social Situation , observed that: 'Declines in the wage share have been attributed to the impact of labour-saving technological change and to a general weakening of labour market regulations and institutions.' Such declines are likely to disproportionately affect individuals in
4847-656: The Guaraní in Paraguay and the Mapuche in Chile. The vast majority of Latin Americans are Christians (90%), mostly Roman Catholics belonging to the Latin Church . About 70% of the Latin American population considers itself Catholic. In 2012 Latin America constitutes in absolute terms the second world's largest Christian population , after Europe. According to the detailed Pew multi-country survey in 2014, 69% of
4978-412: The Latin Church , in a struggle with " Teutonic Europe " and " Anglo-Saxon America " with its Anglo-Saxonism , as well as " Slavic Europe " with its Pan-Slavism . Scholarship has political origins of the term. Two Latin American historians, Uruguayan Arturo Ardao and Chilean Miguel Rojas Mix , found evidence that the term "Latin America" was used earlier than Phelan claimed, and the first use of
5109-682: The Makran strip of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces in southwestern Pakistan , these Bantu descendants are known as the Makrani. There was a brief "Black Power" movement in Sindh in the 1960s and many Siddi are proud of and celebrate their African ancestry. Negritos , are a collection of various, often unrelated peoples, who were once considered a single distinct population of closely related groups, but genetic studies showed that they descended from
5240-456: The Mexican drug war . Several right-wing leaders rose to power, including Argentina's Mauricio Macri and Brazil's Michel Temer , following the impeachment of the country's first female president. In Chile , the conservative Sebastián Piñera succeeded the socialist Michelle Bachelet in 2017. In 2019, center-right Luis Lacalle Pou ended a 15-year leftist rule in Uruguay, after defeating
5371-687: The Negev town of Dimona . Unknown numbers of black converts to Judaism reside in Israel, most of them converts from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Additionally, there are around 60,000 non-Jewish African immigrants in Israel, some of whom have sought asylum. Most of the migrants are from communities in Sudan and Eritrea , particularly the Niger-Congo -speaking Nuba groups of
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5502-537: The Netherlands who are of Black African or Afro-Caribbean ancestry. They tend to be from the former and present Dutch overseas territories of Aruba , Bonaire , Curaçao , Sint Maarten and Suriname . The Netherlands also has sizable Cape Verdean and other African communities. As of 2021, there were at least 232,000 people of recent Black-African immigrant background living in Portugal . They mainly live in
5633-602: The Qajar dynasty , many wealthy households imported black African women and children as slaves to perform domestic work. This slave labor was drawn exclusively from the Zanj, who were Bantu -speaking peoples that lived along the African Great Lakes , in an area roughly comprising modern-day Tanzania , Mozambique and Malawi . About 150,000 East African and black people live in Israel , amounting to just over 2% of
5764-403: The Quran to permit sexual relations between a male master and his enslaved females outside of marriage (see Ma malakat aymanukum and sex ), leading to many mixed-race children. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab master's child, she was considered as umm walad or "mother of a child", a status that granted her privileged rights. The child was given rights of inheritance to
5895-521: The Southall Black Sisters , which started with a mainly British Asian constituency, and the National Black Police Association , which has a membership of "African, African-Caribbean and Asian origin". As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered many of their citizens the chance to study in Russia . Over a period of 40 years, about 400,000 African students from various countries moved to Russia to pursue higher studies, including many black Africans. This extended beyond
6026-444: The Western Cape ). The Coloured definition occupied an intermediary political position between the Black and White definitions in South Africa. It imposed a system of legal racial segregation, a complex of laws known as apartheid . The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria in the Population Registration Act of 1945 to determine who belonged in which group. Minor officials administered tests to enforce
6157-580: The arrival of Europeans in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the region was home to many indigenous peoples, including advanced civilizations, most notably from South: the Olmec , Maya , Muisca , Aztecs and Inca . The region came under control of the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal , which established colonies, and imposed Roman Catholicism and their languages. Both brought African slaves to their colonies as laborers, exploiting large, settled societies and their resources. The Spanish Crown regulated immigration, allowing only Christians to travel to
6288-537: The İzmir area through the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, or indirectly from Ayvalık in pursuit of work. Apart from the historical Afro-Turk presence Turkey also hosts a sizeable immigrant black population since the end of the 1990s. The community is composed mostly of modern immigrants from Ghana, Ethiopia, DRC, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia and Senegal. According to official figures 1.5 million Africans live in Turkey and around 25% of them are located in Istanbul . Other studies state
6419-427: The 1990s, economic stress in Ecuador during the La Década Perdida triggered considerable migration to Spain and to the U.S. Some Latin American countries seek to strengthen links between migrants and their states of origin, while promoting their integration in the receiving state. These emigrant policies focus on the rights, obligations and opportunities for participation of emigrated citizens who already live outside
6550-409: The ANC ( African National Congress )". In 2008, the High Court in South Africa ruled that Chinese South Africans who were residents during the apartheid era (and their descendants) are to be reclassified as "Black people," solely for the purposes of accessing affirmative action benefits, because they were also "disadvantaged" by racial discrimination. Chinese people who arrived in the country after
6681-445: The Arab government of Sudan of practicing acts of racism against black citizens. According to Ayittey, "In Sudan... the Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks – Arab apartheid." Many African commentators joined Ayittey in accusing Sudan of practicing Arab apartheid. In the Sahara , the native Tuareg Berber populations kept " negro " slaves. Most of these captives were of Nilo-Saharan extraction, and were either purchased by
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#17327724588446812-399: The Caribbean after World War II; the first symbolic movement was of those who came on the ship the Empire Windrush and, hence, those who migrated between 1948 and 1970 are known as the Windrush generation . The preferred official umbrella term is "black, Asian and minority ethnic" ( BAME ), but sometimes the term "black" is used on its own, to express unified opposition to racism , as in
6943-462: The Caribbean region, creole languages are spoken. The most widely-spoken creole language in Latin America and the Caribbean is Haitian Creole , the predominant language of Haiti, derived primarily from French and certain West African tongues, with Amerindian , English, Portuguese and Spanish influences as well. Creole languages of mainland Latin America, similarly, are derived from European languages and various African tongues. The Garifuna language
7074-541: The Catholic faith, which meant Indigenous men were not eligible to be ordained as Catholic priests; however, Indigenous were also excluded from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition . Catholics saw military conquest and religious conquest as two parts of the assimilation of Indigenous populations, suppressing Indigenous religious practices and eliminating the Indigenous priesthood. Some worship continued underground. Jews and other non-Catholics, such as Protestants (all called "Lutherans") were banned from settling and were subject to
7205-473: The European colonialists acquired control of territory, they generally pushed the mixed-race and African populations into second-class status. During the first half of the 20th century, the white-dominated government classified the population according to four main racial groups: Black , White , Asian (mostly Indian ), and Coloured . The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European ancestry (with some Malay ancestry, especially in
7336-414: The Horn of Africa and then sold off to slave merchants. The earliest representation of this tradition dates from a seventh or eighth century BC inscription belonging to the Kingdom of Damat . These captives and others of analogous morphology were distinguished as tsalim barya (dark-skinned slave) in contrast with the Afroasiatic-speaking nobles or saba qayh ("red men") or light-skinned slave; while on
7467-466: The Indigenous peoples, Europeans, Africans initially brought as slaves, and Asians, as well as new immigrants. Mixing of groups was a fact of life at contact of the Old World and the New, but colonial regimes established legal and social discrimination against non-white populations simply on the basis of perceived ethnicity and skin color. Social class was usually linked to a person's racial category, with European-born Spaniards and Portuguese on top. During
7598-407: The Inquisition. Considerable mixing of populations occurred in cities, while the countryside was largely Indigenous. At independence in the early nineteenth century, in many places in Spanish America formal racial and legal distinctions disappeared, although slavery was not uniformly abolished. Significant black populations exist in Brazil and Spanish Caribbean islands such as Cuba and Puerto Rico and
7729-409: The Latin America and Caribbean region have large-scale school feeding activities, altogether reaching 88% of primary school-age children in the region. Compared to prior generations, Latin American youth have seen an increase in their levels of education. On average, they have completed two more years of school than their parents. However, there are still 23 million children in the region between
7860-422: The Latin American population is Catholic and 19% is Protestant. Protestants are 26% in Brazil and over 40% in much of Central America. More than half of these are converts from Roman Catholicism. The entire hemisphere was settled by migrants from Asia, Europe, and Africa. Native American populations settled throughout the hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and
7991-402: The Latin race just to subject it to her exploitation regime; treacherous, because she speaks of freedom and nationality, when, unable to conquer freedom for herself, she enslaves others instead!" Therefore, as Michel Gobat puts it, the term Latin America itself had an "anti-imperial genesis," and their creators were far from supporting any form of imperialism in the region, or in any other place of
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#17327724588448122-495: The New World. The colonization process led to significant native population declines due to disease, forced labor, and violence. They imposed their culture, destroying native codices and artwork. Colonial-era religion played a crucial role in everyday life, with the Spanish Crown ensuring religious purity and aggressively prosecuting perceived deviations like witchcraft. In the early nineteenth century nearly all of areas of Spanish America attained independence by armed struggle, with
8253-447: The Philippines frequently face discrimination. Because of their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they are marginalized and live in poverty, unable to find employment. While census collection of ethnic background is illegal in France , it is estimated that there are about 2.5 – 5 million black people residing there. As of 2020, there are approximately one million black people living in Germany. Afro-Dutch are residents of
8384-485: The Pink tide lost support. The worst-hit was Venezuela, which is facing severe social and economic upheaval . Charges of against a major Brazilian conglomerate, Odebrecht , has raised allegations of corruption across the region's governments (see Operation Car Wash ). This bribery ring has become the largest corruption scandal in Latin American history. As of July 2017, the highest ranking politicians charged were former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , who
8515-448: The Soviet Union to many countries of the Eastern bloc . Due to the slave trade in the Ottoman Empire that had flourished in the Balkans , the coastal town of Ulcinj in Montenegro had its own black community. In 1878, that community consisted of about 100 people. Indigenous Australians have been referred to as "black people" in Australia since the early days of European settlement . While originally related to skin colour ,
8646-451: The State of Bahia, in the 21st century Afro-multiracials in the Arab world , including Arabs in North Africa, self-identify in ways that resemble multi-racials in Latin America . He claims that darker-toned Arabs, much like darker-toned Latin Americans , consider themselves white because they have some distant white ancestry. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had a mother who was a dark-skinned Nubian Sudanese ( Sudanese Arab ) woman and
8777-542: The Tuareg nobles from slave markets in the Western Sudan or taken during raids. Their origin is denoted via the Ahaggar Berber word Ibenheren (sing. Ébenher ), which alludes to slaves that only spoke a Nilo-Saharan language. These slaves were also sometimes known by the borrowed Songhay term Bella . Similarly, the Sahrawi indigenous peoples of the Western Sahara observed a class system consisting of high castes and low castes. Outside of these traditional tribal boundaries were "Negro" slaves, who were drawn from
8908-436: The U.S. settled in northern Mexico. When the U.S. acquired its southwest by conquest in the Mexican American War , Latin American populations did not cross the border to the U.S., the border crossed them. In the twentieth century there have been several types of migration. One is the movement of rural populations within a given country to cities in search of work, causing many Latin American cities to grow significantly. Another
9039-442: The United Kingdom during the region's political turmoil, compounded by the rise of narcotrafficking and guerrilla warfare . During the Central American wars of the 1970s to the 1990s, many Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans migrated to the U.S. to escape narcotrafficking, gangs, and poverty. As living conditions deteriorated in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro , many left for neighboring Colombia and Ecuador. In
9170-420: The United Kingdom, "black" was historically equivalent with " person of color ", a general term for non-European peoples. While the term "person of color" is commonly used and accepted in the United States , the near-sounding term " colored person " is considered highly offensive, except in South Africa, where it is a descriptor for a person of mixed race . In other regions such as Australasia , settlers applied
9301-495: The United Nations ECLAC , Latin America is the most unequal region in the world. Inequality in Latin America has deep historical roots in the Latin European racially based Casta system instituted in Latin America during colonial times that has been difficult to eradicate because of the differences between initial endowments and opportunities among social groups have constrained the poorest's social mobility , thus causing poverty to transmit from generation to generation, and become
9432-466: The United States and Canada, but a significant number arrived in Latin America. Although Mexico tried to attract immigrants, it largely failed. As black slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, coffee growers recruited Japanese migrants to work in coffee plantations. There is a significant population of Japanese descent in Brazil. Cuba and Peru recruited Chinese labor in the late nineteenth century. Some Chinese immigrants who were excluded from immigrating to
9563-460: The United States, they are also called "black Asians" or "Blasians". Historically, Afro-Asian populations have been marginalized as a result of human migration and social conflict. In the medieval Arab world, the ethnic designation of "Black" encompassed not only Zanj , or Africans, but also communities like Zutt , Sindis and Indians from the Indian subcontinent . Historians estimate that between
9694-513: The adjective "black" to the indigenous population. It was universally regarded as highly offensive in Australia until the 1960s and 70s. "Black" was generally not used as a noun, but rather as an adjective qualifying some other descriptor (e.g. "black ****"). As desegregation progressed after the 1967 referendum, some Aboriginals adopted the term, following the American fashion, but it remains problematic. Several American style guides, including
9825-638: The advent of Islam in 650 CE and the abolition of slavery in the Arabian Peninsula in the mid-20th century, 10 to 18 million black Africans (known as the Zanj) were enslaved by east African slave traders and transported to the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. This number far exceeded the number of slaves who were taken to the Americas. Slavery in Saudi Arabia and slavery in Yemen
9956-558: The ages of 4 and 17 outside of the formal education system. Estimates indicate that 30% of preschool age children (ages 4–5) do not attend school, and for the most vulnerable populations, the poor and rural, this proportion exceeds 40 percent. Among primary school age children (ages 6 to 12), attendance is almost universal; however there is still a need to enroll five million more children in the primary education system. These children mostly live in remote areas, are Indigenous or Afro-descendants and live in extreme poverty. Among people between
10087-502: The apartheid era, those classed as "Coloured" were oppressed and discriminated against. But, they had limited rights and overall had slightly better socioeconomic conditions than those classed as "Black". The government required that Blacks and Coloureds live in areas separate from Whites, creating large townships located away from the cities as areas for Blacks. In the post-apartheid era, the Constitution of South Africa has declared
10218-744: The borders of the country of origin. Research on Latin America shows that the extension of policies towards migrants is linked to a focus on civil rights and state benefits that can positively influence integration in recipient countries. In addition, the tolerance of dual citizenship has spread more in Latin America than in any other region of the world. Despite significant progress, education access and school completion remains unequal in Latin America. The region has made great progress in educational coverage; almost all children attend primary school , and access to secondary education has increased considerably. Quality issues such as poor teaching methods, lack of appropriate equipment, and overcrowding exist throughout
10349-641: The circum-Caribbean mainland (Venezuela, Colombia, Panama), as long as in the southern part of South America and Central America (Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Peru) a legacy of their use in plantations. All these areas also have significant white populations. In Brazil, coastal Indigenous peoples largely died out in the early sixteenth century, with Indigenous populations surviving far from cities, sugar plantations, and other European enterprises. Many mixed-race people in much of Latin America are tri-racial, usually of European, African, and Indigenous blood, where European (mostly Spanish/Portuguese) tends to be
10480-451: The classifications. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether the individual should be considered Coloured or Black, the " pencil test " was used. A pencil was inserted into a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough to hold the pencil, rather than having it pass through, as it would with smoother hair. If so, the person was classified as Black. Such classifications sometimes divided families. Sandra Laing
10611-482: The colonial era, with a dearth initially of European women, European men and Indigenous women and African women produced what were considered mixed-race children. In Spanish America, the so-called Sociedad de castas or Sistema de castas was constructed by white elites to try to rationalize the processes at work. In the sixteenth century the Spanish crown sought to protect Indigenous populations from exploitation by white elites for their labor and land. The crown created
10742-457: The cosmic race ", according to Mexican intellectual José Vasconcelos , thus erasing other populations. There was considerable discrimination against Asians, with calls for the expulsion of Chinese in northern Mexico during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and racially motivated massacres . In a number of Latin American countries, Indigenous groups have organized explicitly as Indigenous, to claim human rights and influence political power. With
10873-704: The country to be a "Non-racial democracy". In an effort to redress past injustices, the ANC government has introduced laws in support of affirmative action policies for Blacks; under these they define "Black" people to include "Africans", "Coloureds" and "Asians". Some affirmative action policies favor "Africans" over "Coloureds" in terms of qualifying for certain benefits. Some South Africans categorized as "African Black" say that "Coloureds" did not suffer as much as they did during apartheid. "Coloured" South Africans are known to discuss their dilemma by saying, "we were not white enough under apartheid, and we are not black enough under
11004-463: The country's Caribbean coast English and Indigenous languages such as Miskito , Sumo , and Rama also hold official status. Colombia recognizes all Indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers of these languages. Nahuatl is one of the 62 Native languages spoken by Indigenous people in Mexico, which are officially recognized by
11135-537: The crash of the Mexican economy in the 1980s. Spanish refugees fled to Mexico following the fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–38), with some 50,000 exiles finding refuge at the invitation of President Lázaro Cárdenas . Following World War II a larger wave of refugees to Latin America, many of them Jews, settled in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Venezuela. Some were only transiting through
11266-444: The end of apartheid do not qualify for such benefits. Other than by appearance, "Coloureds" can usually be distinguished from "Blacks" by language. Most speak Afrikaans or English as a first language , as opposed to Bantu languages such as Zulu or Xhosa . They also tend to have more European-sounding names than Bantu names. " Afro-Asians " or "African-Asians" are persons of mixed sub-Saharan African and Asian ancestry. In
11397-510: The exceptions of Cuba and Puerto Rico . Brazil , which had become a monarchy separate from Portugal, became a republic in the late nineteenth century. Political independence from European monarchies did not result in the abolition of black slavery in the new nations, it resulted in political and economic instability in Spanish America, immediately after independence. Great Britain and the United States exercised significant influence in
11528-412: The father's property, so mixed-race children could share in any wealth of the father. Because the society was patrilineal , the children inherited their fathers' social status at birth and were born free. Some mixed-race children succeeded their respective fathers as rulers, such as Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur , who ruled Morocco from 1578 to 1608. He was not technically considered as a mixed-race child of
11659-472: The forced migration of slaves from Africa. In the post-independence period, a number of Latin American countries sought to attract European immigrants as a source of labor as well as to deliberately change the proportions of racial and ethnic groups within their borders. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil actively recruited labor from Catholic southern Europe, where populations were poor and sought better economic opportunities. Many nineteenth-century immigrants went to
11790-529: The former Spanish colony Equatorial Guinea . Today, there are an estimated 683,000 Afro-Spaniards in Spain . According to the Office for National Statistics , at the 2001 census there were more than a million black people in the United Kingdom; 1% of the total population described themselves as "Black Caribbean", 0.8% as "Black African", and 0.2% as "Black other". Britain encouraged the immigration of workers from
11921-409: The globe. The distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance language- and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Neither area is culturally or linguistically homogeneous; in substantial portions of Latin America (e.g., highland Peru , Bolivia , Mexico, Guatemala ), Native American cultures and, to
12052-1070: The government as "national languages" along with Spanish. Other European languages spoken in Latin America include: English, by half of the current population in Puerto Rico, as well as in nearby countries that may or may not be considered Latin American, like Belize and Guyana , and spoken by descendants of British settlers in Argentina and Chile. German is spoken in southern Brazil, southern Chile, portions of Argentina, Venezuela and Paraguay; Italian in Brazil , Argentina, Venezuela, and Uruguay; Ukrainian , Polish , and Russian in southern Brazil and Argentina; and Welsh , in southern Argentina. Non-European or Asian languages include Japanese in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, Korean in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile, Arabic in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile, and Chinese throughout South America. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil have their own dialects or variations of German and Italian. In several nations, especially in
12183-527: The half-castes belong neither to the aboriginal nor to the whites, yet, on the whole, they have more leaning towards the former; ... One thing is certain and that is that the white population as a whole will never mix with half-castes... the best and kindest thing is to place them on reserves along with the natives, train them in the same schools and encourage them to marry amongst themselves. Latin America Latin America often refers to
12314-535: The highest levels of income inequality in the world. The following table lists all the countries in Latin America indicating a valuation of the country's Human Development Index , GDP at purchasing power parity per capita, measurement of inequality through the Gini index , measurement of poverty through the Human Poverty Index , a measure of extreme poverty based on people living on less than 1.25 dollars
12445-598: The historical trans-Saharan trade or, after the Arab invasions of North Africa in the 7th century, from slaves from the trans-Saharan slave trade in North Africa. In the 18th century, the Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Warrior King" (1672–1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black soldiers, called his Black Guard . According to Carlos Moore , resident scholar at Brazil's University of
12576-645: The larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed. Research has shown that the idea that a part of the Americas has a linguistic and cultural affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier , who postulated that a part of the Americas was inhabited by people of a " Latin race ", and that it could, therefore, ally itself with " Latin Europe ", ultimately overlapping
12707-473: The lives of Indigenous Australians – where they lived, their employment, marriage, education and included the power to separate children from their parents. Aborigines were not allowed to vote and were often confined to reserves and forced into low paid or effectively slave labour. The social position of mixed-race or " half-caste " individuals varied over time. A 1913 report by Baldwin Spencer states that:
12838-456: The majority of Africans in Turkey lives in Istanbul and report Tarlabaşı , Dolapdere , Kumkapı , Yenikapı and Kurtuluş as having a strong African presence. Most of the African immigrants in Turkey come to Turkey to further migrate to Europe. Immigrants from Eastern Africa are usually refugees, meanwhile Western and Central African immigration is reported to be economically driven. It
12969-399: The mid-nineteenth century and widespread poverty, Germans, Spaniards, and Italians immigrated to Latin America in large numbers, welcomed by Latin American governments both as a source of labor as well as a way to increase the size of their white populations. In Argentina, many Afro-Argentines married Europeans. In twentieth-century Brazil, sociologist Gilberto Freyre proposed that Brazil
13100-528: The mid-twentieth century, especially in capital cities , or in the case of Brazil, traditional economic and political hubs founded in the colonial era. In Mexico, the rapid growth and modernization in country's north has seen the growth of Monterrey , in Nuevo León . The following is a list of the ten largest metropolitan areas in Latin America. Entries in "bold" indicate they are ranked the highest. Latin American populations are diverse, with descendants of
13231-427: The middle and bottom of the income distribution , as they rely mostly on wages for income. In addition, the report noted that 'highly-unequal land distribution has created social and political tensions and is a source of economic inefficiency , as small landholders frequently lack access to credit and other resources to increase productivity , while big owners may not have had enough incentive to do so. According to
13362-579: The most sophisticated textually written language, but since texts were largely confined to the religious and administrative elite, traditions were passed down orally. Oral traditions also prevailed in other major Indigenous groups including, but not limited to the Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers, Quechua and Aymara of the Andean regions, the Quiché of Central America, the Tupi-Guaraní in today's Brazil,
13493-503: The nation's population. The vast majority of these, some 120,000, are Beta Israel , most of whom are recent immigrants who came during the 1980s and 1990s from Ethiopia . In addition, Israel is home to more than 5,000 members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem movement that are ancestry of African Americans who emigrated to Israel in the 20th century, and who reside mainly in a distinct neighborhood in
13624-404: The obsolescence of racial theory... But it is not easy to declare something dead when it can hardly be said to have existed," going on to say, "The term is here to stay, and it is important." Following in the tradition of Chilean writer Francisco Bilbao, who excluded Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay from his early conceptualization of Latin America, Chilean historian Jaime Eyzaguirre has criticized
13755-589: The other hand, western racial category standards do not differentiate between saba qayh ("red men"—light-skinned) or saba tiqur ("black men"—dark-skinned) Horn Africans (of either Afroasiatic-speaking, Nilotic-speaking or Bantu origin) thus considering all of them as "black people" (and in some case "negro") according to Western society's notion of race. In South Africa , the period of colonisation resulted in many unions and marriages between European and Africans ( Bantu peoples of South Africa and Khoisans ) from various tribes, resulting in mixed-race children. As
13886-644: The passage of anti-colonial resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly and the signing of resolutions for Indigenous rights, the Indigenous are able to act to guarantee their existence within nation-states with legal standing . Spanish is the predominant language of Latin America. It is spoken as first language by about 60% of the population. Portuguese is spoken by about 30%, and about 10% speak other languages such as Quechua , Mayan languages , Guaraní , Aymara , Nahuatl , English , French , Dutch and Italian . Portuguese
14017-512: The pink tide, there was a Conservative wave across Latin America. In Mexico, the rightwing National Action Party (PAN) won the presidential election of 2000 with its candidate Vicente Fox , ending the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party . He was succeed six-years later by another conservative, Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), who attempted to crack down on the Mexican drug cartels and instigated
14148-657: The post-independence era, resulting in a form of neo-colonialism , where political sovereignty remained in place, but foreign powers exercised considerable power in the economic sphere. Newly independent nations faced domestic and interstate conflicts, struggling with economic instability and social inequality. The 20th century brought U.S. intervention and the Cold War 's impact on the region, with revolutions in countries like Cuba influencing Latin American politics. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw shifts towards left-wing governments, followed by conservative resurgences, and
14279-434: The reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "Black race" as socially constructed . Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified "black", and these social constructs have changed over time. In a number of countries, societal variables affect classification as much as skin color, and the social criteria for "blackness" vary. In
14410-485: The regime recently established in Nicaragua by American William Walker and his band of filibusters who ruled Nicaragua for nearly a year (1856–57) and attempted to reinstate slavery there, where it had been already abolished for three decades In both Bilbao's and Torres Caicedo's works, the Mexican–American War (1846–48) and William Walker's expedition to Nicaragua are explicitly mentioned as examples of dangers for
14541-466: The region, but others stayed and created communities. A number of Nazis escaped to Latin America, living under assumed names, in an attempt to avoid attention and prosecution. In the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, middle class and elite Cubans moved to the U.S., particularly to Florida. Some fled Chile for the U.S. and Europe after the 1973 military coup. Colombians migrated to Spain and
14672-456: The region. For Bilbao, "Latin America" was not a geographical concept, as he excluded Brazil, Paraguay, and Mexico. Both authors also asked for the union of all Latin American countries as the only way to defend their territories against further foreign US interventions. Both also rejected European imperialism, claiming that the return of European countries to non-democratic forms of government was another danger for Latin American countries, and used
14803-415: The region. These issues lead to adolescents dropping out of the educational system early. Most educational systems in the region have implemented various types of administrative and institutional reforms that have enabled reach for places and communities that had no access to education services in the early 1990s. School meal programs are also employed to expand access to education, and at least 23 countries in
14934-708: The regions in the Americas in which Romance languages are the main languages. It is "commonly used to describe South America (with the exception of Suriname , Guyana and the Falkland islands ), plus Central America , Mexico , and most of the islands of the Caribbean ". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America , and often it may also include Brazil ( Portuguese America ). The term "Latin America" may be used more broadly than Hispanic America , which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries; and more narrowly than categories such as Ibero-America ,
15065-550: The regions of Lisbon , Porto , Coimbra . As Portugal doesn't collect information dealing with ethnicity, the estimate includes only people that, as of 2021, hold the citizenship of a Sub Saharan African country or people who have acquired Portuguese citizenship from 2008 to 2021, thus excluding descendants, people of more distant African ancestry or people who have settled in Portugal generations ago and are now Portuguese citizens . The term " Moors " has been used in Europe in
15196-587: The same ancient East Eurasian meta-population which gave rise to modern East Asian peoples , and consist of several separate groups, as well as displaying genetic heterogeneity. They inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia , and are now confined primarily to Southern Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands of India. Negrito means "little black people" in Spanish (negrito
15327-734: The same word to describe the state of European politics at the time: "despotism." Several years later, during the French invasion of Mexico , Bilbao wrote another work, "Emancipation of the Spirit in America", where he asked all Latin American countries to support the Mexican cause against France, and rejected French imperialism in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. He asked Latin American intellectuals to search for their "intellectual emancipation" by abandoning all French ideas, claiming that France was: "Hypocrite, because she [France] calls herself protector of
15458-666: The southern Nuba Mountains ; some are illegal immigrants. Beginning several centuries ago, during the period of the Ottoman Empire , tens of thousands of Zanj captives were brought by slave traders to plantations and agricultural areas situated between Antalya and Istanbul , which gave rise to the Afro-Turk population in present-day Turkey . Some of their ancestry remained in situ , and many migrated to larger cities and towns. Other black slaves were transported to Crete , from where they or their descendants later reached
15589-828: The strongest of the three. In most of Brazil and the Spanish Caribbean, the average ancestral mix is European and African blood, with much smaller amounts of indigenous blood. While the opposite is true in many mainland Spanish-speaking Latin American countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama, where the average ancestral mix is of European and indigenous blood, with smaller amounts of African. But in Mexico, and other places in northern Central America and southern South America, mixed race people tend to be completely of European and indigenous blood. Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil have dominant Mulatto/Triracial populations ("Pardo" in Brazil), in Brazil and Cuba, there
15720-493: The surrounding areas. In Ethiopia and Somalia , the slave classes mainly consisted of captured peoples from the Sudanese-Ethiopian and Kenyan-Somali international borders or other surrounding areas of Nilotic and Bantu peoples who were collectively known as Shanqella and Adone (both analogues to "negro" in an English-speaking context). Some of these slaves were captured during territorial conflicts in
15851-536: The term 'Latin America' had already been used in 1856 by Central Americans and South Americans protesting US expansion into the Southern Hemisphere". Edward Shawcross summarizes Ardao's and Rojas Mix's findings in the following way: "Ardao identified the term in a poem by a Colombian diplomat and intellectual resident in France, José María Torres Caicedo, published on 15 February 1857 in a French based Spanish-language newspaper, while Rojas Mix located it in
15982-583: The term Latin America for "disguising" and "diluting" the Spanish character of a region (i.e. Hispanic America ) with the inclusion of nations that, according to him, do not share the same pattern of conquest and colonization . The Francophone part of North America which includes Quebec , Acadia , and Louisiana is generally excluded from the definition of Latin America. Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, democracy , demographics and culture. The basic geographical subregions are North America, Central America,
16113-469: The term is used today to indicate Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander ancestry in general and can refer to people of any skin pigmentation. Being identified as either "black" or "white" in Australia during the 19th and early 20th centuries was critical in one's employment and social prospects. Various state-based Aboriginal Protection Boards were established which had virtually complete control over
16244-879: The term was in fact in opposition to imperialist projects in the Americas. Ardao wrote about this subject in his book Génesis de la idea y el nombre de América latina (Genesis of the Idea and the Name of Latin America, 1980), and Miguel Rojas Mix in his article "Bilbao y el hallazgo de América latina: Unión continental, socialista y libertaria" (Bilbao and the Finding of Latin America: a Continental, Socialist, and Libertarian Union, 1986). As Michel Gobat points out in his article "The Invention of Latin America: A Transnational History of Anti-Imperialism, Democracy , and Race", "Arturo Ardao, Miguel Rojas Mix, and Aims McGuinness have revealed [that]
16375-415: Was a " racial democracy ", with less discrimination against blacks than in the U.S. Even if a system of legal racial segregation was never implemented in Latin America, unlike the United States, subsequent research has shown that in Brazil there's discrimination against darker citizens, and that whites remain the elites in the country. In Mexico, the mestizo population was considered the true embodiment of "
16506-581: Was abolished in 1962, slavery in Dubai in 1963, and slavery in Oman in 1970. Several factors affected the visibility of descendants of this diaspora in 21st-century Arab societies: The traders shipped more female slaves than males, as there was a demand for them to serve as concubines in harems in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. Male slaves were castrated in order to serve as harem guards. The death toll of black African slaves from forced labor
16637-432: Was accused of "deftly manipulating Arab solidarity" to carry out policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing . Sudanese Arabs are also black people in that they are culturally and linguistically Arabized indigenous peoples of Sudan of mostly Nilo-Saharan , Nubian , and Cushitic ancestry; their skin tone and appearance resembles that of other black people. American University economist George Ayittey accused
16768-488: Was arrested, and former Peruvian presidents Ollanta Humala and Alejandro Toledo , who fled to the United States and was extradited back to Peru. The COVID-19 pandemic proved a political challenge for many unstable Latin American democracies, with scholars identifying a decline in civil liberties as a result of opportunistic emergency powers. This was especially true for countries with strong presidential regimes, such as Brazil . Wealth inequality in Latin America and
16899-815: Was derived from the Greek mauron , μαύρον, which is the Greek word for "black". Indeed, by the time Isidore of Seville came to write his Etymologies , the word Maurus or "Moor" had become an adjective in Latin, "for the Greeks call black, mauron". "In Isidore's day, Moors were black by definition..." Afro-Spaniards are Spanish nationals of West / Central African ancestry. Today, they mainly come from Cameroon , Equatorial Guinea , Ghana , Gambia , Mali , Nigeria and Senegal. Additionally, many Afro-Spaniards born in Spain are from
17030-608: Was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III 's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Latin America to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada , Haiti , French Louisiana , French Guiana , Martinique , Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia , and Dominica , in
17161-450: Was high. The mixed-race children of female slaves and Arab owners were assimilated into the Arab owners' families under the patrilineal kinship system . As a result, few distinctive Afro-Arab communities have survived in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. Distinctive and self-identified black communities have been reported in countries such as Iraq, with a reported 1.2 million black people ( Afro-Iraqis ), and they attest to
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