Mennonites in Mexico

Mennonites in Mexico
Menonitas (in Spanish)
Mennoniten (in German)
A Mennonite girl in Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua
Total population
74,122 (2022)[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Chihuahua
(municipalities of Cuauhtémoc, Namiquipa, Riva Palacio, etc)		Approx. 90,000 (2012)[2]
 CampecheApprox. 15,000 (2022)[3]
 DurangoApprox. 6,500 (2012)[4]
Religions
Anabaptist
Scriptures
The Bible
Languages
Plautdietsch, Standard German, Spanish, English[5]

According to a 2022 census, there were 74,122 Mennonites living in Mexico,[1] the vast majority of which are established in the state of Chihuahua,[2] followed by Campeche at around 15,000, with the rest living in smaller colonies in the states of Durango,[4] Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Quintana Roo.

Their settlements were first established in the 1920s.[6] In 1922, 3,000 Mennonites from the Canadian province of Manitoba established in Chihuahua.[7] By 1927, Mennonites reached 10,000 and they were established in Chihuahua, Durango and Guanajuato.[7]

Worsening poverty, water shortages and drug-related violence across northern Mexico have provoked significant numbers of Mennonites living in Durango and Chihuahua to relocate abroad in recent years, especially to Canada, and to other regions of the Americas. Between 2012 and 2017 alone, it is estimated that at least 30,000 Mexican Mennonites emigrated to Canada.[8]

  1. ^ a b Post, Die Mennonitische (2022-10-27). "Mexico colony census brings surprises". Anabaptist World. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
  2. ^ a b Fierro, Luis (23 September 2012), Comunidad menonita planea migrar del país (in Spanish), El Universal, archived from the original on 27 September 2012, retrieved 20 September 2013, (...) El gobierno de Chihuahua informó que desconoce los planes de los menonitas, cuya población se estima en alrededor de 90 mil personas en el estado, y sostuvo que las condiciones económicas actuales no son un factor que obligue a ningún productor local a abandonar la región. (...)
  3. ^ "God's will or ecological disaster? Mexico takes aim at Mennonite deforestation". Reuters.
  4. ^ a b Ramírez, Laura (14 March 2012). "Se van mil 500 menonitas por sequía e inseguridad". El Siglo de Durango (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 5 March 2013. Desalentados por la inseguridad y la falta de producción por la sequía de 2011, en los 12 meses recientes, cerca de mil 500 menonitas de una población total de ocho mil de las colonias de Nuevo Ideal y Santiago Papasquiaro emigraron a Canadá y otras entidades del país como Campeche y Chihuahua, donde se emplean en el campo o en talleres mecánicos. (...)
  5. ^ William J. Frawley (2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-19-513977-8. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  6. ^ "The Mennonite Old Colony Vision: Under siege in Mexico and the Canadian Connection" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2007. Retrieved February 17, 2015.
  7. ^ a b Hensen, Lawrence Douglas Taylor (January–June 2005). "Las migraciones menonitas al norte de México entre 1922 y 1940" (PDF). Migraciones Internacionales (in Spanish). Vol. 3, no. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2012. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  8. ^ "A Century Ago, Our Families Left the Prairies and Moved to Mexico. Now We are Coming Home". National Post. 27 June 2017. Retrieved 4 November 2019.