Latin Americans as a New Immigrant Group at the Beginning of the Twenty First Century

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s migration flows from Latin America to the European Union became part of the “new migration,” mainly due to its significant increase, diversification of motivations, types of migrants and countries of origin. In the course of a decade, Latin Americans became the largest immigrant group coming from third countries. While most of these migrants have arrived to Southern European countries, mainly Spain, Portugal and Italy, significant numbers have also arrived to other European countries. In this chapter, two important migratory flows will be examined – the first, between the 1960s and the 1980s, and the second from the mid-1990s, reaching its highest level in 2005 – by looking at important historical precedents and socioeconomic conditions that have triggered its increase, dynamism and heterogeneity. The presence of Latin-American migrants was initially unnoticed in Europe and only became apparent during the 1990s, because of their numbers and the regularity of their arrival.