How many people have Lebanese heritage in Latin America ? How Arab/Muslim culture influenced Latin America?

Question

Everybody knows that the Colombian Shakira and the Mexican Salma Hayek are half-Lebanese, and there are also several million people from arab/muslim or arab/christian origin in most of the Latino-American countries.

We know they participated to economy and culture in these countries, but what is exactly their contribution?

Do they consider themselves as Arabs or Latinos ? Or both, as Shakira?

By the way, I noticed that most of the Arabs and Lebanese people in Latin America used to be called "Turcos",because they arrived with ottoman passport ( before 1923).

Answer 1

they pass colombia to buenos aires when the turkish empire collapsed in the first world war

Answer 2

Well spoken,Lynn

Answer 3

Everyone who is born in Latin America is called latino, no matter her heritage, lebanese, german, italian, spanish or whatever. Salma Hayek and Shakira are latinas with arab heritage. I'm from Brasil and there is a city called Foz do Iguaçu who has a lot of lebanese imigrants and decendant. They usually live in the state of Sao Paulo and in south Brasil. I think there are 12 milion of people with arab heritage here in Brazil, i don't know the number in the whole Latin America. Most have lebanese and syrian heritage. Here there are a lot of arabs decendants involved in politics. It is true most are called 'turcos' because when Brasil was still a colony Portugal  used to have trade relations with the Ottoman Empire so it made things easier for them to come here. They usually were running away from the conflicts in their countrys especially the lebenese.