Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/43

Rh In point of numbers the foreign-bornpopulation is negligible. They do not reflect in even a faint degree the extent to which foreign enterprise and foreign capital have entered the country. Mexico never received from the mother country a great stream of immigrants that in a true sense Europeanized her population nor have other lands greatly contributed. How many there are of the foreign-born or of those who keep their foreign nationality through inheritance though born in Mexico cannot be exactly determined. It is generally estimated at a higher figure than the census indicates, though the official enumeration, in this case, may be more nearly correct than for the people as a whole because the foreigners are generally in the industrial areas where the count is more easily made. In 1854 there were 9,864 foreigners in Mexico who had taken out "Letters of Security," of these 59 per cent were Spanish, 22 per cent were French. English, Germans, and Americans formed about 6 per cent each. A generous estimate of those in the country in 1861 places the total foreign population at 25,000.

All told there were enumerated in the census of 1910 only 115,972 foreign born and of these only 658 had accepted the nationality of the land of adopted residence.