Is Latin America Western?

Originally posted by pinguin Curious. In southern South America, where I live, we still remember when we received the "poor" of Europe by the million. Well, I guess they want to forget us now. � Fortunatelly for us, our continent today is a lot less poor than in the 40s, we have a better standard of living than in the 70s and we are quite sure in some decades we will be fine. � Latin Americans (Not that I share it, but is what people say)�see the U.S. like an imperialistic and agresive country, and Europe like a place in decline. � Pinguin � �

My parents dont see the US as Imperialistic. But then again they are enjoying the stay in the US and have been doing so for a while. Maybe they would think differently if they still lived in Peru

Except the common point in religion and languages, I don't think that Latin America is similar to Western World...People's mentalities, lifestyles is different from what is called the "Western"...

To which part of the West?

Originally posted by Jagiello Well pinguin,how can one of the quicklyest developing continents,that has recovered from absolute destruction in the WW2 for half a century and continue to develop quickly be declining?

Only parts of Latin America are Western. I would hardly call Brazils "favelas" Western..

 Pinguin:"You don't have idea what you are talking about, but speaking by ignorance of a land you don't know, except by politically motivated TV reports."

Edited by Jagiello - 01-Apr-2007 at 11:06

Latin America is like Russia, in that it is part-time western, depending on the ideology of the observer, and the context in question.

And 100% true.
Latin America is very European inevitably, but moreso continetal than Anglo-Saxon. But the anglophone world has otherised it heavily, thus this schitzophrenic dual exisitence.
From the South Americans i met and knew at the international school i attended, i can't say there was much that set them apart from the various other generic Euopean kids aside from odd quirkies here and there, they fitted in perfectly, sometimes more so than the N. Americans.
More recently i discovered that a guy i figured was plain British was actualy Argintenian, it took a heated political discussion over the Falklands to bring that minor detail up.

I will say that a noticable distinction between L.A. countries and European ones is that they are more noticably internaly diverse, in this sense, N & S America have a lot in common with each other. Many people are happy to imagine a very African carnival in Rio as the stereotyped image of Brazil, but yet there are rural towns in parts of South Eestern Brazil where the people speak German most of the time, as indicative of the town's dominant immigrant character. Its very much like the US in terms of its history that way.

If you are going to make a simplistic dichiotomy, then it makes more sense IMHO to lump the US with latin America, than it does to lump it with Europe at the exclusion of Latin America.


Edited by Cywr - 03-Apr-2007 at 13:48

I think you could divide 'Germanic' up as well, maybe Central European Germanic, Scandinavian, Flemish/Dutch, Anglo-saxon, and then some. The Germans are as different from the Englis has they are from the Spanish easily, save maybe their love for beer and ssuages, but by those standards many Iberians have become partialy Germancised :p
Meh.

As for diversity, i wasn't quite thinking of that, For sure London and Paris probably contain greater diversity than anywhere in the Americas save for a handfull of cities. I was thinking of the diversity created by a different form of migration.
European migration has been defined lagely my rural to urban migration, Italians to English cities in the 1700s, and Greeks to Dutch cities in the 1900s and so on. As such you get a more melting pot diversity that remains somewhat in the cities.

In the Americas you effectivly had rural to rural migration, just over an ocean, and often distinctive patterns formed from that, in parts of Northern central US the popluation is heavily of Finnish decent for whatever reasons (maybe they like the weather), in parts of Luisiana they still speak a varient of French, and so on, and i'm taking rural areas here.
Same thing you'll find in many S. American countries. So within a country you get the kind of internal regional diversity that, to find in any European country, you'd either have to travel from one extreme to another, or more than likely, cross borders.
Its down to the very way in which the countries for Americas developed and were altered beyond recognition by mass migration.

Hi!  I'm Emilia, the girl who wrote the article "Is Latin America Western?"  Thank you first of all for posting it on this forum.  It's been some time since I first wrote it, but seeing it's still being discussed, I would just like to add a few points to it.