ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the most prominent immigration patterns in Latin America, especially those during the nineteenth and twentieth century’s, as well as the status of immigrant languages vis-à-vis the dominant societal languages in the region, namely Spanish and Portuguese. For more than five hundred years, Latin America has hosted and incorporated a substantial number of diverse immigrant communities from around the world. In particular, special attention is drawn to demographic information about different generations of immigrant communities and how their languages are manifested as a mark of their heritage. Due to the region's extensive territory, the chapter focuses on the demographics and languages of immigrant communities within a select group of countries, namely, Mexico in North America and Peru, Argentina, and Brazil in South America. It also focuses on the many indigenous communities of Latin America, while contributing to the variety of heritage languages in the region.
