Latin America

 

the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. The 20 republics are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The term Latin America is also used to include Puerto Rico, the French West Indies, and other islands of the West Indies where a Romance tongue is spoken. Occasionally the term is used to include Belize, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname.

Bibliography

See H. M. Bailey and A. P. Nasatir, Latin America: The Development of its Civilization (3d ed. 1973); J. K. Black, Latin America: Its Problems and Its Promise (1984); J. W. Hopkins, ed., Latin America: Perspectives on a Region (1987); B. Keen, A History of Latin America (1988); A. Gilbert, Latin America (1990); E. A. Cardoso and A. Helwege, Latin America's Economy: Diversity, Trends, and Conflicts (1992); J. A. Crow, The Epic of Latin America (1992); E. Williamson, The Penguin History of Latin America (1992).

Latin America (Portuguese and Spanish: América Latina; French: Amérique Latine) is the region of the Americas where Romance languages, those derived from Latin (particularly Spanish and Portuguese), are primarily spoken. Latin America is contrasted with the lesser known term Anglo-America, that region of the Americas where English predominates.

Definition

There are several definitions of Latin America, none of them perfect or necessarily logically consistent:

• In most common contemporary usage, Latin America refers only to those territories in the Americas where Spanish or Portuguese prevail: Mexico, most of Central and South America, plus Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.
• Strictly and technically speaking, Latin America designates all those countries and territories in the Americas where Romance languages (i.e. languages derived from Latin, and hence the name of Latin America) are spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, French, and their creoles. Indeed, this was the original intent when the term was coined by the French. This would then include former French colonies such as Quebec in Canada, Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, and French Guiana in South America.
• The former Dutch colonies Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba are not usually considered part of Latin America, even though in the latter two, the predominantly Iberian-influenced language Papiamento is spoken by the majority of the population.
• Sometimes, particularly in the United States, the term Latin America is used to refer to all of the Americas south of the U.S., including countries such as Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname where non-Romance languages prevail.
• Indeed, in historical terms, Latin America could be defined as all those parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish, Portuguese and French Empires. Hence much of the US Southwest plus Florida (and also French Louisiana) would be covered by this definition.
• Finally, it's worth noting that the distinction between Latin and Anglo America, and more generally the stress on European heritage, passes over the fact that there are many places in the Americas (e.g. highland Peru or Guatemala) where non-European cultures and languages are still important, as well as the influence of African cultures in other areas (e.g. the Caribbean, including parts of Colombia and Venezuela, and coastal Brazil)

Etymology

Originally a political term, Amérique latine was coined by French emperor Napoleon III, who cited Amérique latine and Indochine as goals for expansion during his reign. While the term helped him stake a claim to those territories, it eventually came to embody those parts of the Americas that speak Romance languages initially brought by settlers from Spain, Portugal and, to a minor extent, France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. An alternate etymology points to Michel Chevalier, who mentioned the term in 1836.^[1]

In the United States, the term was not used until the 1890s, and did not become a common descriptor of the region until early in the twentieth century. Before then, Spanish America was more commonly used.^[2]

Latin America has come to represent an expression equivalent to Latin Europe and implies a sense of supranationality greater than those implied by notions of statehood or nationhood. This supranational identity is expressed through common initiatives and organizations, like the Union of South American Nations. It is important to observe that the terms Latin American, Latin, Latino, and Hispanic differ from each other.

Many people in Latin America do not speak Latin-derived languages, but native ones or languages brought over by immigration. There is also the blend of Latin-derived cultures with indigenous and African ones resulting in a differentiation in relation to the Latin-derived cultures of Europe.

Quebec, other French-speaking areas in Canada and the United States like Acadia, Louisiana, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and other places north of Mexico are traditionally excluded from the sociopolitical definition of Latin America, despite having significant or predominant populations that speak a Latin-derived language, due in part to these territories' not existing as sovereign states or being geographically separated from the rest of Latin America. French Guiana, however, is sometimes included, despite being a dependency of France and not an independent country. Some countries in the region do not speak a "Latin" language but are called "Latin American" countries, its the case of Surinam, who speaks Dutch, and the countries of Belize and Guyana, whose official language is English.

As alluded to above, the term Ibero-America is sometimes used to refer to the nations that were formerly colonies of Spain and Portugal, as these two countries are located on the Iberian peninsula. The Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) takes this definition a step further, by including Spain and Portugal (often termed the Mother Countries of Latin America) among its member states, in addition to their Spanish and Portuguese-speaking, former colonies in America.

History

Main article: History of Latin America

See also: History of South America for a treatment of pre-Columbian civilisations and a general overview of the region's history.

The Americas are thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering strait, from northeast Asia into Alaska more than 10,000 years ago. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continents. By the first millennium AD/CE, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. Some groups formed permanent settlements, such as the Chibchas (or "Muiscas" or "Muyscas") and the Tairona groups. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas of Peru and the Aymaras of Bolivia were the three Indian groups that settled most permanently.

The region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the Aztecs, Toltecs, Caribs, Tupi, Maya, and Inca. The golden age of the Maya began about 250, with the last two great civilizations, the Aztecs and Incas, emerging into prominence later on in the early fourteenth century and mid-fifteenth centuries, respectively.

With the arrival of the Europeans following Christopher Columbus's voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incans and Aztecs, lost power to the Europeans. Hernán Cortés destroyed the Aztec elite's power with the help of local groups who disliked the Aztec elite, and Francisco Pizarro eliminated the Incan rule in Western South America. European powers, most notably Spain and Portugal, colonized the region, which along with the rest of the uncolonized world was divided into areas of Spanish and Portuguese control by the Line of Demarcation in 1493, which gave Spain all areas to the west, and Portugal all areas to the east (the Portuguese lands in America subsequently becoming Brazil). By the end of the sixteenth century, Europeans occupied large areas of Central and South America, extending all the way into the present southern United States. European culture and government was imposed, with the Roman Catholic Church becoming a major economic and political power, as well as the official religion of the region.

Diseases brought by the Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, wiped out a large proportion of the indigenous population, with epidemics of diseases reducing them sharply from their prior populations. Historians cannot determine the number of natives who died due to European diseases, but some put the figures as high as 85% and as low as 20%. Due to the lack of written records, specific numbers are hard to verify. Many of the survivors were forced to work in European plantations and mines. Interracial marriage between the indigenous peoples and the European colonists was very common, and, by the end of the colonial period, people of mixed ancestry (mestizos) formed majorities in several colonies.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese power waned as other European powers took their place, notably Britain and France. Resentment grew over the restrictions imposed by the Spanish government, as well as the dominance of native Spaniards (Iberian-born peninsulares) over the major institutions and the majority population, including the Spanish descended Creoles (criollos). Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 marked the turning point, compelling Creole elites to form juntas that advocated independence. Also, the newly independent Haiti, the second oldest nation in the New World after the United States and the oldest independent nation in Latin America, further fueled the independence movement by inspiring the leaders of the movement, such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martin, and by providing them with considerable munitions and troops. Fighting soon broke out between the Juntas and the Spanish authorities, with initial Creole victories, such as Father Miguel Hidalgo's in Mexico and Francisco de Miranda's in Venezuela, crushed by Spanish troops. Under the leadership of Simón Bolívar, José de San Martin and other Libertadores, the independence movement regained strength, and by 1825, all of Spanish Latin America, except for Puerto Rico and Cuba, gained independence from Spain. Brazil achieved independence with a constitutional monarchy established in 1822. During the same year in Mexico, a military officer, Agustín de Iturbide, led conservatives who created a constitutional monarchy, with Iturbide as emperor (shortly followed by a republic).

Political divisions

Latin America is politically divided into the following countries and territories:

Independent Countries		French dependencies	Netherlands dependencies	United States dependencies
Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Rep. Ecuador El Salvador	Guatemala Haiti Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela	French Guiana Guadeloupe Martinique Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin	Aruba Bonaire Curaçao	US Virgin Islands Puerto Rico

In addition some might add Belize, the Falkland Islands, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname to this list, but they are not culturally or linguistically Latin American — although much of Belize's population is. They maintain economic ties with nearby countries, and are grouped by the United Nations in the predominantly Latin American region (South). However, all except Suriname are also the objects of long-standing territorial claims by their Latin American neighbors.

Population

The population of Latin America is an amalgam of ancestries and ethnic groups. The racial and ethnic composition varies from country to country. This makes the region one of the most diverse in the world. Some have a predominance of a mixed population, some have a high percentage of people of Amerindian origin, some are dominated by inhabitants of European origin and some populations are primarily of African origin. Most or all Latin American countries have Asian minorities.

Demographics

In Bolivia and Peru the Amerindians make up the largest segment of the population, while in Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico, they are sizable minorities. In the rest of the region, most people with a Native American lineage are admixed with one or more other ethnic lineages.

Since the sixteenth century a large number of Iberian colonists left for Latin America: the Portuguese to Brazil and the Spaniards to the rest of the region. Intensive mixing between the Europeans and the Amerindians occurred and their descendants, known as mestizos, make up the majority of the population in half of the Latin American countries: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Venezuela. There's genetic evidence that Puerto Rico may have a mestizo majority as well.^{[citation needed]}

Starting in the late sixteenth century, a large number of African slaves were brought to Latin America, the majority of whom were sent to the neighboring Caribbean region and Brazil. In contrast to most of Latin America with the exception of Haiti, persons of African descendant make up the majority of the population in much of the neighboring Anglophone Caribbean countries. In Colombia a mix between Africans and Amerindians also occurred and their descendants are known as Zambos. Many of the African slaves in Latin America mixed with the Europeans, and their descendants, known as Mulattoes, make up the majority of the population in Dominican Republic, Cuba, and a large proportion of the populations of Brazil, Colombia, and Belize. Many Latin American countries also have a substantial "tri-ethnic" population, their ancestry being a mix of European, Amerindian, and African, most notably in Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Brazil.^{[citation needed]}

Millions of post-colonial era European immigrants arrived in Latin America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of them settling in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Also Chile, Cuba and Costa Rica received some groups of European immigrants, while the rest of the countries of Latin America received fewer. The top five groups of European immigrants were, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Germans and Poles. The descendants of these immigrants and the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese colonial settlers together compose some 90% of the current white Latin American population.^{[citation needed]} Some of the other groups are Russians, Welsh, Ukrainians, French, former Yugoslavians, Irish people and Jews. More than two thirds of Latin America's entire white population resides in a continuous area of South America that consists of Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay. Argentina is home to a large population of people who can claim Irish heritage, thought to number in between 300, 000 and 500, 000. Argentina's largest influx of Irish immigrants occurred in between 1850-1870 during and following the Great Famine in Ireland. (See Immigration to Argentina and Immigration to Brazil.) In this same period, many immigrants came from the Middle-East and Asia, including Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, and, more recently, Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese (mainly to Brazil). In the late nineteenth century, a small wave of Americans, mostly from the former Confederate States of the Southern U.S., settled in Brazil, and fewer across Latin America.

Racial groups

The following table shows the different racial groups and their percentages for all Latin American countries, except Bonaire, Curaçao, French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Martinique.^[3]

Country	Population	White	Mestizo	Mulatto	Amerindian	Black	White and mestizo	Mixed	Other
Argentina	40,301,927	97%							3%
Aruba	100,018							80%	20%
Bolivia	9,119,152	15%	30%		55%
Brazil[4]	190,010,647	49.9%			0.7%	6.3%		43.2%
Chile	16,284,741				3%		95%		2%
Colombia	44,379,598	20%	58%	14%	1%	4%		3%
Costa Rica	4,133,884				1%	3%	94%		2%
Cuba	11,394,043	37%		51%		11%			1%
Dominican Republic	9,365,818	16%				11%		73%
Ecuador	13,755,680		65%		25%	3%			7%
El Salvador	6,948,073	9%	90%		1%
Guatemala	12,728,111				40.5%		59.4%		0.1%
Haiti	8,706,497					95%		5%
Honduras	7,483,763	1%	90%		7%	2%
Mexico[5][6]	108,700,891	9%1	60%		30%				1%
Nicaragua	5,675,356	17%	69%		5%	9%
Panama	3,242,173	10%	70%		6%			14%
Paraguay	6,669,086	30%	65%		1%				4%
Peru	28,674,757	15%	37%		45%				3%
Puerto Rico	3,944,259	80.5%			0.4%	8%		4.1%	7%
U.S. Virgin Islands	108,448	13.1%				76.2%		3.5%	7.2%
Uruguay	3,460,607	88%	8%			4%
Venezuela	26,023,528	41%	49%		1%	7%			2%
Total	561,211,057	33.9%	27%	15.2%	10.9%	4.9%	4.8%	1.7%	1.6%

Notes:
1. Figures do not include mestizos predominantly looking white.

Language

See also: Indigenous languages of the Americas

Spanish is the predominant language in the majority of the countries. Portuguese is spoken primarily in Brazil, where it is both the official and the national language. French is also spoken in smaller countries, in the Caribbean, and in French Guiana. Dutch is the official language on various Caribbean islands and in Suriname on the continent; however, as Dutch is a Germanic language, these territories are generally not considered part of Latin America.

Several nations, especially in the Caribbean, have their own Creole languages such as Haiti in which their Creole is a mixture of French, and African tongues along with Spanish and Indian influences to a lesser extent. The Creole languages of Latin America derived from European languages and various African tongues. Native American languages are spoken in many Latin American nations, mainly Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay, and to a lesser degree in Mexico, Ecuador and Chile. Note that the lesser degree of indigenous speakers in Mexico is proportional to that country's population. In real numbers, however, Mexico harbours the largest population of indigenous speaker of any country in the Americas, surpassing Amerindian majority countries of Guatemala, Bolivia and the Amerindian plurality country of Peru. The population of speakers of indigenous languages in other countries is tiny or non-existent.

In Peru, Quechua holds official language status, alongside Spanish and any other indigenous language in the areas where they predominate. In Ecuador, while holding no official status, the closely-related Quichua is a recognized language of the indigenous people under the country's constitution; however, it is only spoken by a few groups in the country's highlands. In Bolivia, Aymara, Quechua and Guaraní hold official status alongside Spanish. Guarani is, along with Spanish, the official language of Paraguay, and is spoken by a majority of the population who are for the most part mestizos bilingual in Spanish. In Nicaragua, Spanish is the official language, but on the Caribbean coast English and indigenous languages such as Miskito, Sumo, and Rama (among others) hold official status. Colombia, recognizes all indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers. Nahuatl is only one of the 62 native languages spoken by indigenous people in Mexico, which are officially recognized by the government as "national languages", along with Spanish.

European languages, other than Spanish and Portuguese, that are spoken include: Italian in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and to a lesser extent Venezuela; German in southern Brazil, southern Chile, Argentina, and German-speaking villages in northern Venezuela; Welsh in southern Argentina.

Religion

Although most of Latin America is Roman Catholic, membership in the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America is declining while membership in Protestant churches are increasing. Brazil has an active quasi-socialist Roman Catholic movement known as Liberation Theology. Practitioners of the Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Bahá'í, and indigenous denominations and religions exist. Various Afro-Latin American traditions such as Santería and Macumba, a tribal-voodoo religion, are also practiced.

Economy