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Comment by 999900000999 | Hacker News Reader

Latin America actually has a very significant Asian population.

Everyone can be Latino, white , indigenous, black, Asian, etc.

I think that’s overstating it. There are pockets in the largest cities, but that’s about it. Very few Latin Americans would be like, hey let’s go get some Chinese food, outside of the largest cities. It’s not like Canada or the US where even in towns in the middle of nowhere you can find a Chinese joint.

Now, some do call nannies “Chinese”, so presumably, many decades ago, some very poor Chinese took a voyage across the sea to poor countries because China was even more desperately poor. Also some Chinese as well as Philippine folks were brought over to Mexico as slaves and they were all labeled ‘Chinese’ kind of like how chino fabric originated in the Philippines but is called ‘chinos.’

Look up Chaufa, and yes, you can get Chinese food everywhere...

Ok but Asians or people with Asian ancestry don’t even add up to 1% of the Mexican population. It’s miniscule. There are probably more middle easterners than Asians living in Mexico.

You'd be surprised. And sure, in the 1930's about 80% of Asian immigrants got deported out of Mexico. But even before and after, their descendants became very well integrated and mixed with the rest of society. Also, they tend to not identify as Asians, just like Mexicans unless it is very obvious or 2nd generation

A significant part of Peru's government, for instance, has Japanese heritage. And that's just one corner.

Like the wonderful Alberto Fujimori.

A neat fact I share in this regard: the country with the most Japanese people besides Japan? Brazil!

People of Japanese ancestry top out at around 1% of all Brazilians. That’s not a lot or significant portion of the population. If you get to 5 or 7% we can talk about significance. On the other hand they tend to have outsized influence on the country, so you may be projecting that onto pop size.

Brazil is a gigantic country, though. 1% of 220 million is 2.2 million which is around 2% of Japan total population.

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