Introduction

Unlike the countries in North America, viz., the US and Canada, the majority of the Caribbean, South and Central American countries belong to the developing global South, mostly ranking between high and medium Human Development Index 2010 (see Annexure 5.1). However, like the North American countries, almost all countries and territories of this region had experienced a large influx of immigrants, mainly from Europe, during the last five centuries or so. People from various countries, initially in Europe and later other continents too, belonging to different ethnic and racial communities migrated to these countries primarily because of the availability of vast fields of land brought under cultivation by the colonial rulers. This trend continued until World War-II (Torrado 1979). Due to large-scale immigration of people from various countries of origin, the Central and South America, also known as Latin America, and the Caribbean, emerged as one of the most diverse regions in the world.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, many countries in the region became source countries of migrants for the countries of the developed global North, with the US, Spain and Canada emerging as the most important destinations. In 2000, there were 6 million immigrants in Latin America and the Caribbean region as a whole but more than 21 million emigrants from the region were living in different parts of the world, including those who migrated to different countries in the region (Table 5.1). Mexico, Columbia, Cuba, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Brazil in Latin America; and Surinam, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago in the Caribbean have emerged as important source countries of migrants in this region. Some Latin American countries such as Argentina, Costa Rica and Venezuela, however, can still be called immigration countries for they host larger proportions of immigrants in comparison to those who emigrated from these countries. While 7.5 per cent, 4.2 per cent and 4.2 per cent of the total populations, respectively, in Costa Rica, Argentina and Venezuela are immigrants, 2.2 per cent, 1.4 per cent and 0.9 per cent populations of these countries, respectively, live abroad.