The Successof the US and Failiur of Latin America

Originally posted by Al Jassas Hello Pinguin, I hope that I have not become a irritating to you. Since you gave me new insight in your last post I was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions that I have either here or in a new thread:

Al Jassas and Pinguin,

Al Jassas was right when he said that there were Spanish-styled haciendas in the modern American Southwest. Many of the counties in the San Francisco Bay Area are roughly divided according to the old hacienda property lines.

Alameda County, for example, was the former Alameda Hacienda.

Now, I ignore what the nature of these haciendas were like at that time, but they did exist.

At least in the San Francisco Bay Area, these haciendas were partially sold and partially stolen through squatters during the gold rush, so in this place it pretty much died. I don't know what happened with the other ones.

Pinguin,

I would say that in Latin America we do not think in terms of ethnicity, but our behavior does betray the centuries old caste system. I still have to further develop this idea, but I have found that in the countries that I have studied, social classes seem to correlate to ethnicity, and this seems true for Latin America as well. It is also very common that these countries do not see the ethnic difference, yet treat the other ethnicities very poorly.

In the United States the white underclass were the Scots-Irish. I would say that most people don't know what Scots-Irish are, but that doesn't stop most Americans from making prejudicial remarks towards them.

I feel that in Latin America is the same thing, and I have seen a lot of evidence in Mexico and some in Argentina and Peru that shows this. Last year's election in Mexico had the unfortunate side effect of bringing up to the service the deep ethnic hatred of the criollo populations towards the mestizo and Indian one.

Roughly speaking, the criollo population sided with the rightwing party, and the mestizo and Native American one with the center-left one. To the outsider and Mexicans, the poor sided with the left, and the rich with the right.

However, in places with historically huge criollo population, this wasn't the case. Even the dirt-poor sided with the rightwing party. And chances were that they were most likely of criollo ethnicity.

And many of their attacks on Lopez Obrador, the left-center candidate, were focused on his ethnic background: the color of his skin, his "naco", this is, his mainly Native American background, etc. These attacks extended to his supporters.

And of course you are right to say that criollos were genetically mixed; that is a universal reality. Many Americans in the U.S. have black or white ancestors even if they are considered a member of the other race. As I said, there are often exceptions, there is always intermarriage, and most people would fail purity tests. But most people do belong to one or two ethnicities, and those are figured out according to how people think, how they view the world, what they eat, and what customs they have.

For this reason I find the concept of ethnicity a lot more useful than race because it takes into consideration the cultural values and identification of the individual rather than their genetic makeup.

Personally, I still believe that it is better that most people in Latin America are not fully aware of this because it would probably just make things worse when it comes to ethnic strife. But you should be aware that most foreigners can easily see the ethnic divides

LOL. I like the way you phrase things. This is not the gringo vision of the world. The American vision is more based on race and focusing on the one drop rule. And the mainstream worldview doesn't acknowledge different ethinic groups for Whites or for Blacks.

And of course we shouldn't forget about social class; after all, money is power. I wish that more people talked about social class in the U.S.

The funny thing is that ethnicity is taboo in Latin America, and class is taboo in the U.S.

Certainly, a very important topic. One of the main problems we face in America today has to do with Illegal alien problem, much of it coming from Mexico, and South America in general. Anyway, it does seem like you answered most of your questions but here are some of my ideas:


1.  Racism

One of the problems in the development of South America has to do with institutionalized racism. The Spanish instituted a kind of a caste system that is still felt today. Much of the wealth in South American countries are still controlled by small group of white settlers, mainly Spanish. This, I believe, is one of the reasons why so many South American countries are turning to socialism.


2. Education

America was founded by a group of intellectuals, and by in large Americans were educated people.  America broke away from the British rule because it wanted to expand it's empire.  The indigenous people of South America were poorly educated, and by in large the Spaniards had very little interest in educating it's native population.  A very bad mistake.


Also, American colony was for the most part populated by English settlers and Europeans in general, something the South American  countries simply could not match.  South America was never able to draw in as many Europeans as America was. Part of the reason may have to do with the weather.  Temperate weather often plays an important role in development.

Edited by gcle2003 - 19-Sep-2007 at 04:39

Originally posted by Ponce de Leon .... You are absolutely right. That is a resource the british exploited very well and I believe the British profited more from trading tobacco than the spanish bringing over gold from the new world. Spain had territory that could have supported tobacco as well but their industry for some reason was not as profitable as the British one.

Edited by pinguin - 19-Sep-2007 at 09:40

If South America recieved more german immigrants, do you think Latin America would have became more wealthy..