Do Argentines know their ethnic ancestry?

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Calimecita

I think many of us are aware of our ancestry. It's particularly easy for the many (such as myself) who are descendants from immigrants who came here a relatively short time ago, so that we got to know our European-born great-grandparents or grandparents.

There have been several "waves" of immigration: Europeans (mostly Italians and Spaniards, Germans, British, etc.. and all the people from different Eastern Europe countries who were collectively known as "Russians") before, during and after each World War; more recently, we've received many Korean, and some Chinese and Japanese immigrants, as well as some people from Eastern Europe's war-impoverished countries. Really recently, I've been seeing people who are obviously African, but I don't know from which country/countries.
Also, there's always been a steady migratory exchange with the rest of South America, of course.

So, for the major ancestries, I'd say Spain, Italy, and our neighboring countries are the best represented countries.

And for your last question, yes I do. I'm the result (LOL) of a weird mixture of Welsh, Scottish, Basques, Italians, and Spanish people. I've visited some of my European relatives too :-)

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EDIT: BTW, this is not directly related to your question, but if you're interested in the typical story of immigrants to Argentina, I strongly recomend the miniseries called "Vientos de Agua" (Winds of Water). It was a Spanish-Argentine coproduction filmed some years ago and it's a fantastic introduction to some of the major events in our recent history. It's on IMDB if you're interested :-)

pibe

Yes,Argentines know their ethnic or better their national ancestry.
Argentine people are descendants of as follows:

40% Spanish
30% Italian
10 % Native Indian
15 % European ( Russian, Polish, French, English,Belgian, German and more) There are 300.000 Jews from East
Europe
5% arabs.

I'm Argentine and of course I know very well where I come from

Clarisa A

In my case, my ancestors were Argentine (Spanish who came centuries ago)(less than 3/8), French, Chilean, ?native, Lithuanian (a big chunk), German (1/8), Polish (very little)

yes we know- most common ancestries are Spanish, Italian, native (American Indian), middle eastern, and a tiny little of German, Russian, English, Irish, etc
Africa and Asia are underrepresented

Agustin P

I am sure most do. Most of us are at much fourth generation in this country. I am maybe 60% spanish and 40% italian. It is absolutely true spanish and italian heritage are head to head, but in the last decade there was a big inmigration movement from other neighbour countries. I am sure that CIA mistakes when they say in the World Factbook that white people in this country are 95% of population.

Persian Melon...

here's the list.
Persian
French
Indian
mulatto
and a pinch of Portuguese.
I'm exotic

Mc Dreamy

Of course we know our ethnic ancestry. We are something like an inmigrant country.

I descend from Italians, Spanish and Ukranians, but you can also find people with ancestres from England, Eastern Europe, and in recent history, from Latin American countries, such as Paraguay, Bolivia, PerÃº, etc.

Spanish and Italians are the most common ones.

Ivan D

I am Argentinian and I am swedish, german and austrian descent, take care=)

flyer74422

They derive much of their ancestry from Spanish, British, German, Italian and French as well as Indians in the North.

BA Girl

I am 50% argentine
-one grandparent of mine from argentina is 100% italian.
-my grandmother is an spanish(spain) argentine. from when the spanish took over argentina...
and the rest is a mixture of irish and british from the other side of my family.

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