Does hielera mean refrigerator in some parts of Mexico?

[Juerte23]

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?

[Rusty]

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.

[poli]

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

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

I don't think anyone around here would take a "hielera" for a "refrigerador".
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.

[poli]

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

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

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