Does hielera mean refrigerator in some parts of Mexico?
 

A lot of Mexican Americans in South Texas including my family have always called refrigerator in Spanish una hielera, do some parts of Mexico call a refrigerator una hielera?

Una hielera can have several translations. Mostly, it's any container that holds ice cubes, with the understanding that the container is portable.

hielera = cubitera
ice bucket
ice cooler
ice chest
cooler chest
cooler

Because these items are portable, they're too small to be a refrigerator.
There are several words in Spanish for a refrigerator, but hielera isn't one of them.

All that said, some in Texas use hielera to mean the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. As I understand, they will add portátil to mean an ice cooler/chest. However, regional usage (in South Texas) makes it right.

I'll defer to someone who lives in Mexico (I would guess the northern parts) to provide a definitive answer to your question.

I assume it is similar to ice box which is an old term commonly used for refrigerator.

I don't think anyone around here would take a "hielera" for a "refrigerador". :thinking:
As Rusty and Poli said, a "hielera" is an insulated box where you put ice and items you want to keep cool, like beverages, food or even some medical products.
A "refrigerador" is not portable, it needs an electrical connection and it has a motor to keep things cool or cold in a house or building.
In some other countries, you will hear "nevera" used as "refrigerador", although most people I know in Mexico would say a "nevera" is only a freezer (like the ones used for ice-cream), while a "refrigerador" is used to keep many kinds of food fresh, not necessarily frozen.

Just to clarify matters, back before electric refrigerators were available, people used an insulated box to refrigerate their perishables. Regularly, an "iceman" came to deliver a large brick of ice. After the arrival of electric refrigerators, many people called their new appliances the antiquated term. icebox. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that hielera was used in a similar way in Spanish than icebox was (and, in some cases, still) used in English.
https://www.pamono.com/mid-century-i...146070997847&u

Oh, interesting. Thanks, Poli. :)
It's not the usage in Central Mexico, but I guess it's not forbidden anywhere. :D