18/11/2021
In celebration of LatinX Heritage Month (15.09 - 15.10) we hear from on what it means to be LatinX.
Around a quarter of a million Latin Americans live in the UK, with over half (145,000) in London. The Latin American population is one of the fastest-growing migrant populations in London, with two-thirds having arrived since 2000. Latin Americans are the largest and fastest-growing migrant group right here in Lambeth.
Latin American migration to the United Kingdom dates back to the early 19th Century. Up until then, the United Kingdom’s Latin American community was not particularly large. 2,500 exiles from Chile were the first large group of Latin American migrants to arrive in the UK, they settled in London in the early 1970s; they consisted of businessmen, professors, and students who had fled their home country due to the ongoing political instability.
Chile wasn’t the only source of Latin American refugees in the 1970s, many individuals who migrated from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador also requested the right to asylum in the UK.
Due to the Spanish financial crisis, Britain also became one of the favourite European destinations for some of the roughly 1.4 million Latin Americans who had acquired Spanish citizenship. We have seen numbers increase significantly in London throughout the years. Latin Americans can be found in every London borough with most living in Inner London.
The 2011 census was adjusted up to 2013, this showed that there were 145,000 Latin Americans in London making them the second-fastest-growing non-EU migrant population, and 250,000 in the UK. Across both periods, Brazilians and Colombians were the two largest nationality groups with sizeable proportions of Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Peruvians, Argentinians, Mexicans and Venezuelans.
Estimates vary as they are still not a recognised ethnic group but a Foreign and Commonwealth Office report suggested that there were between 700,000 and a million Latin Americans in the UK.
Thanks to for educating us.