The Latin American Boom (Boom latinoamericano) was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world. The Boom is most closely associated with Julio Cortázar of Argentina, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, and Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia; but it also brought fame to older writers like Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda and Ernesto Sábato. Influenced by European and North American Modernism, but also by the Latin American Vanguardia movement, these writers challenged the established conventions of Latin American literature. Their work is experimental and, owing to the political climate of the Latin America of the 1960s, often very political. "It is no exaggeration", critic Gerald Martin writes, "to state that if the Southern continent was known for two things above all others in the 1960s, these were, first and foremost, the Cuban Revolution and its impact both on Latin America and the Third World generally, and secondly, the Boom in Latin American fiction, whose rise and fall coincided with the rise and fall of liberal perceptions of Cuba between 1959 and 1971."^[1]

The sudden success of the Boom authors was in large part because their works were among the first Latin American novels to be published in Europe, by publishing houses such as Barcelona's avant-garde Seix Barral in Spain.^[2] Indeed, Frederick M. Nunn writes that "Latin American novelists became world famous through their writing and their advocacy of political and social action, and because many of them had the good fortune to reach markets and audiences beyond Latin America through translation and travel—and sometimes through exile."^[3]

Historical background[link]

The 1960s and 1970s were decades of political turmoil all over Latin America, in a political and diplomatic climate strongly influenced by the dynamics of the Cold War. This climate formed the background for the work of the writers of the Latin American Boom, and defined the context in which their sometimes radical ideas had to operate. The Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the subsequent USA attempt to thwart it through the Bay of Pigs Invasion can be seen as the start of this period.^[4] Cuba's vulnerability led it to closer ties with the USSR, resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the US and USSR came dangerously close to nuclear war.^[5] Throughout the 1960s and 1970s military authoritarian regimes ruled in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and many others. For example, on September 11, 1973 the democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown in Chile and replaced by General Augusto Pinochet who would go on to rule until the end of the 1980s.^[6] Chile under Pinochet became "infamous for [...] human rights abuses and torture techniques",^[7] and in Argentina the 1970s brought the Dirty War, notorious for its human rights violations and the disappearances of Argentine citizens.^[8] Many of these governments (which were supported by the US) cooperated with each other in terms of torturing or eliminating political opponents and "disposing of their bodies" in "the so-called Operation Condor."^[9]

The period between 1950 and 1975 saw major changes in the way in which history and literature were approached in terms of interpretation and writing.^[10] It also produced a change in the self perception of Spanish American novelists . The development of the cities, the coming of age of a large middle class, the Cuban Revolution, the Alliance for Progress, an increase in communication between the countries of Latin America, the greater importance of the mass media, and a greater attention to Latin America from Europe and the United States all contributed to this change.^[11] The most important political events of the period were the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the Chilean coup d'état in 1973. The fall of General Perón in Argentina, the protracted violent struggle of the urban guerrillas, brutally repressed in Argentina and Uruguay, and the unending violence in Colombia^[10] also affected writers, as they generated explanations, or testimonies, or provided a troubling background for their work.

The greater attention paid to Spanish American novelists and their international success in the 1960s, a phenomenon that was called the Boom, affected all writers and readers in that period. What mainly brought writers together and focused the attention of the world on Spanish America was the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, which promised a new age. The period of euphoria can be considered closed when in 1971 the Cuban government hardened its party line and the poet Heberto Padilla was forced to reject in a public document his so-called decadent and deviant views. The furor over Padilla's case brought to an end the affinity between Spanish American intellectuals and the Cuban inspirational myth.^[12] The Padilla affair is thought by some to have signalled the beginning of the end of the Boom.^[13] However, in a significant sense, the Boom has not ended; the writers associated with the Boom have continued to publish books that have been read by audiences far larger than those enjoyed by Latin American writers prior to the Boom. The books of such writers as Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa (both of whom are still active as of 2011) are widely distributed and translated into other major European and Asian languages to a much greater extent than those of such significant pre-Boom writers as José María Arguedas, Eduardo Mallea or Manuel Rojas.

Literary influences[link]

The rise of Latin American literature began with the writings of Jose Martí, Ruben Darío and José Asunción Silva's modernist departures from the European literary canon. European modernist writers like James Joyce have also influenced the writers of the Boom, as have the Latin American writers of the Vanguardia movement.^[14] Elizabeth Coonrod Martinez argues that the writers of the Vanguardia were the "true precursors" to the Boom, writing innovative and challenging novels before Borges and others conventionally thought to be the main Latin American inspirations for the mid-20th century movement.^[15]

In 1950, Spanish American novelists were tolerated but marginal in the literary landscape, with Paris and New York representing the center of the literary world; by 1975 they were celebrated as central figures. As well as being a publishing phenomenon, the Boom introduced a series of novel aesthetic and stylistic features to world literature. In general—and considering there are many countries and hundreds of important authors—at the start of the period, Realism prevails, with novels tinged by an existentialist pessimism, with well-rounded characters lamenting their destinies, and a straightforward narrative line. In the 1960s, language loosens up, gets hip, pop, streetwise, characters are much more complex, and the chronology becomes intricate, making of the reader an active participant in the deciphering of the text. Late in the period the political adventure goes sour, while the linguistic sophistication reaches a new height, and novelists turn more to a reflection on their own writing, a fiction on fiction or metafiction, while characters and story lines show the corrosive power of a postmodern society, where all is equally available and insignificant.^[16]

With the success of the Boom, the work of a previous generation of writers gained access to a new and expanded public. These precursors include Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel Ángel Asturias, and Alejo Carpentier, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Juan Rulfo.^[17]

Origins[link]

While most critics agree that the Boom started some time in the 1960s, there is some disagreement as to which work should be considered the first Boom novel. Some (such as Alfred McAdam) would start with Julio Cortázar's Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963) while others prefer Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero which won the Biblioteca Breve Award in 1962.^[18] Fernando Alegria considers Augusto Roa Bastos' Hijo de hombre the inaugural work of the Boom even though, as Shaw notes, "it was published in 1959."^[18] One could, however, even go as far back as Miguel Ángel Asturias's 1949 novel Men of Maize.^[19]

Another variation is articulated by Randolph D. Pope: "The story of the Boom could start chronologically with Miguel Ángel Asturias's El Señor Presidente (published in 1946, but started in 1922). Other starting points could be Sabato's "El túnel" (1948) or Onetti's "El pozo" (1939). Or go even farther back, to the vanguardist movements of the 1920s. However, the writers of the Boom declared themselves orphaned and without any autochthonous model, caught between their admiration for Proust, Joyce, Mann, Sartre and other European writers and their need to have a Spanish American voice, even if they rejected the most respected Spanish American writers Indigenistas, Criollistas, and Mundonovistas."^[12]

The major representatives of the Boom claimed that they were an "orphan" literary generation, without a "Latin American "father" of influence; however, they owe much of their stylistic innovation to the Vanguardists.^[20] Jean Franco writes that the Boom marks "a refusal to be identified with the rural or with anachronistic narratives such as the novela de la tierra."^[21]

Hallmarks[link]

The Boom novels are essentially modernist novels. They treat time as nonlinear, often use more than one perspective or narrative voice and feature a great number of neologisms (the coining of new words or phrases), puns and even profanities. As Pope writes, in reference to the style of the Boom: "It relied on a Cubist superposition of different points of view, it made time and lineal progress questionable, and it was technically complex. Linguistically self assured, it used the vernacular without apologies."^[22] Other notable characteristics of the Boom include the treatment of both "rural and urban settings", internationalism, an emphasis on both the historical and the political, as well as "questioning of regional as well as, or more than, national identity; awareness of hemisphereic as well as worldwide economic and ideological issues; polemicism; and timeliness."^[23] Boom literature breaks down the barriers between the fantastical and the mundane, transforming this mixture into a new reality. Of the Boom writers, Gabriel García Márquez is most closely associated with the use of magical realism; indeed, he is credited with bringing it "into vogue" after the publishing of One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1966.^[24]

Magical realism[link]

In The Ends of Literature, Brett Levinson writes that magical realism, "a key aesthetic mode within recent Latin American fiction ... materializes when Latin American history reveals itself as incapable of accounting for its own origin, an incapacity which traditionally ... represents a demand for a myth: mythos as a means to explain the beginnings which escape history's narrative."^[25] The writings of the Chroniclers of the Indies depicted the exotic "new world" and their accounts of conquering strange new lands became accepted as history.^[26] These often fantastical stories helped to bring about a new aesthetic, which morphed into magical realism and "(as conceived by Alejo Carpentier) marvelous realism or lo real maravilloso. According to this aesthetic, unreal things are treated as if realistic and mundane, and mundane things as if unreal. Plots, while often based on real experiences, incorporate strange, fantastic, and legendary elements, mythical peoples, speculative settings, and characters who, while plausible, could also be unreal, and combine the true, the imaginary, and the nonexistent in such a way that they are difficult to separate."^[16]

Historical fiction[link]

An interest in history is another characteristic of the novels of the Boom period.^[27] The epitome of this is the dictator novel where historical figures and events were portrayed in a way that connections between them and contemporary events in Latin America could not be doubted. An example is Roa Bastos's I, the Supreme, which depicts the 19th century Paraguayan dictatorship of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia but was published at the height of Alfredo Stroessner's regime. Nunn writes that "novelists of the Boom themselves evinced a sophisticated grasp of their genre's ability to depict parallel and alternative history. And they actively participated in the cultural and political debates of the region that questioned the very meaning and worth of history."^[28]

Major representatives[link]

Who is and who is not to be included in the Boom has been widely debated and never settled. On the other hand, a few writers exerted wide and undisputed influence. While the names of many other writers may be added to the list, the following may not be omitted:

Julio Cortázar[link]

Julio Cortázar

Julio Cortázar was born in Argentina in 1914 and lived with his parents in Switzerland until moving to Buenos Aires at the age of four.^[29] Like other Boom writers, Cortázar grew to question the politics in his country: his public opposition to Juan Domingo Perón caused him to leave his professorial position at the University of Mendoza and ultimately, to his exile.^[30] He moved to France, where he spent most of his professional life and, in 1981, he became a French citizen.^[31] Like García Márquez, Cortázar publicly supported the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, as well as leftist Chilean President Salvador Allende and other left-wing movements like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.^[31] In his fiction, however, political elements were generally muted or absent until the publication of the explicitly political novel Libro de Manuel in 1973.

Cortázar was influenced by Borges, as well as by Edgar Allan Poe.^[32] He was perhaps the most radically experimental of all the Boom authors. His most important work, and the one that propelled him to international recognition, is the highly experimental novel Hopscotch (1963).^[31] This consists of 155 chapters, 99 of which are "expendable", which can be read in multiple orders according to the reader's predilection.

His other works include the short story collections Bestiario (1951), Final del juego (1956), Las armas secretas (1959), Todos los fuegos el fuego (1966). He also wrote novels such as Los premios (1960) and Around the Day in Eighty Worlds (1967), and the unclassifiable Historias de cronopios y de famas (1962). Cortázar died in Paris, France in 1985.

Carlos Fuentes[link]

Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes began to publish in the 1950s.^[33] He was the son of a Mexican diplomat and has lived in cities such as Buenos Aires, Quito, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, as well as Washington, D. C..^[34] His experiences with anti-Mexican discrimination in the United States led him to examine Mexican culture more closely.^[35] His novel The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962) describes the life of a former Mexican revolutionary on his deathbed, employing innovative changes in narrative point-of-view. Other important works include Where the Air Is Clear (1959), Aura (1962), Terra Nostra (1975), and the post-Boom novella The Old Gringo (1985).

Fuentes not only wrote some of the most important novels of the period, but was also a critic and publicist of Spanish America. In 1955 Fuentes and Emmanuel Carballo founded the journal Revista Mexicana de Literatura which introduced Latin Americans to the works of European Modernists and the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.^[36] In 1969 he published the important critical work, La nueva novela hispanoamericana. Fuentes held the position of professor of Latin American literature at Columbia University (1978) and at Harvard (1987)^[37] and more recently was associated with Brown University. He once said that "the so-called Boom, in reality, is the result of four centuries that, literarily, reached a moment of urgency in which fiction became the way to organize lessons from the past."^[38] Fuentes died in 2012.

Gabriel García Márquez[link]

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez is undoubtedly the most internationally renowned of the Boom writers. He started out as a journalist and has written many acclaimed non-fiction and short stories; his earliest published writings were short stories which appeared in Bogotá's El Espectador newspaper in the 1940s.^[39]

He is best known for novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), No One Writes to the Colonel (1962), and post-Boom work such as Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). He has achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for introducing what has been labeled magical realism to the literary world. He experimented with more or less traditional approaches to reality, so that "the most frightful, the most unusual things are told with the deadpan expression".^[40] A commonly cited example is the physical and spiritual ascending into heaven of a character while she is hanging the laundry out to dry in One Hundred Years of Solitude. García Márquez is now considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, as is attested by his winning the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mario Vargas Llosa[link]

Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish novelist, short story writer, playwright, journalist and literary and political critic.^[41] He attended Lima's University of San Marcos and subsequently attained a doctorate in Latin American literature in Spain.^[42] In fact, his thesis was on Gabriel García Márquez.^[43] He shot to fame with his novel The Time of the Hero (1963), a scathing indictment of cruelty and corruption in a Peruvian military academy (and, by implication, in Peruvian society).

Vargas Llosa also wrote The Green House (1966), the epic Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973), and post-Boom novels such as Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977). Vargas Llosa returned to Lima in 2000, following the resignation of President Fujimori who won the 1990 Peruvian election, beating Vargas Llosa.^[43] He won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Other figures[link]

Several other writers have been associated with the Boom. Juan Rulfo, the author of two books, only one of them a novel, was the acknowledged master incorporated a posteriori; a writer who balances social concern, verbal experimentation and unique style. Augusto Roa Bastos of Paraguay, wrote Hijo de hombre, considered by some to be the first novel of the Boom. His highly experimental I, the Supreme has been compared to Joyce's Ulysses and is "one of the most highly regarded works of fictional history to ever come out of South America."^[44] Manuel Puig, an Argentine, is a central figure, along with Vargas Llosa, of the Seix-Barral publishing world. The Cuban novelist José Lezama Lima, though not widely known in the English-language publishing world, can also be regarded as a major figure on the basis of his major novel, Paradiso (1966). José Donoso is a Chilean writer of both the Boom and the post-Boom. In his book, Historia Personal del "Boom", Donoso also mentions other writers associated with the movement. Examples are Jorge Amado (although he began writing novels back in the 1930s) of Brazil, Salvador Garmendia and Adriano González León of Venezuela and David Viñas of Argentina, among many others.^[17]

Publishing Latin American Boom novelists[link]

Publishing played a crucial role in the advent of the Boom. Major publishing houses based in Havana, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Asunción or Santiago were responsible for publishing most of the Boom novels, and these cities became strong centers of cultural innovation.^[45]

• Santiago in Chile, is presided over by the criticism of Alone, while the older generation of Benjamín Subercaseaux, Eduardo Barrios, Marta Brunet, and Manuel Rojas were quietly superseded by José Donoso. Other writers, such as Enrique Lafourcade, have a large national readership.
• Cuba is a lively cultural center, first with the group of Orígenes, and then with Lunes de Revolución.^[45]
• In Colombia the rural novels of Caballero Calderon were displaced by García Márquez who was followed by Alvarez Gardeazábal.^[45]
• Mexico continues a tradition of strong regional writers and diverse schools of writing, from Yáñez to Sainz, with novelists such as Luis Spota or Sergio Fernández, the first a popular, the other a refined, writer, both better known in Mexico than abroad.^[16]

It should be noted, however, that this period saw the publishing of Boom novels in Barcelona, reflecting the new interest of Spanish publishing houses in the Spanish American market. However, as Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola notes, the revenue generated by the publishing of these novels gave a boost to the Spanish economy, even as the works were subjected to Franco's censors.^[2] Some of the Seix Barral-published novels include Mario Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero (1963) and his Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973), and Manuel Puig's Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1971).^[46] A crucial figure "in the promotion of Latin American literature in Spain", (and elsewhere) was the "super-agent" Carmen Balcells, whom Vargas Llosa referred to as "The Big Mama of the Latin American novel."^[47]

Critique[link]

A common criticism of the Boom is that it is too experimental and has a "tendency toward elitism."^[48] In his study of the Post-Boom Donald L. Shaw writes that Mario Benedetti was very critical of Boom writers like García Márquez who, in Benedetti's view, "represent a privileged class that had access to universal culture and were thus utterly unrepresentative of average people in Latin America."^[49] In his article on Donoso's break from the Boom Philip Swanson articulates another critique of the "new novel" (i.e. Boom novel): "Though [it] was essentially a reaction against a perceived staleness in conventional realism, many of the formal experiments and innovations of modern fiction have themselves become standardized features of modern writing, leading to another form of traditionalism where one set of stereotypes has been replaced with another."^[50] Also often criticized is the Boom's emphasis on masculinity, both in the fact that all of the movement's representatives were male and the treatment of female characters within the novels. The Boom fiction's emphasis on history and the fantastic has also been the subject of criticism as it was claimed that it is too removed from the realities of Latin American political situations that it criticized.^[51]

Impact[link]

The Boom had an immediate impact as it changed the way Latin American culture was viewed around the world. The commercial success of the Boom writers had the effect of elevating them almost to rock star status in Latin America.^[52] Of course, translation played a major role in the success of the Boom writers because it gave them a much larger audience. These authors continued to produce best-sellers for four decades.^[53] In addition, the Boom opened the door for new Latin American writers in terms of the international scene. A testimony to the Boom's global impact is the fact that "up-and-coming international writers" look upon the likes of Fuentes, García Márquez or Vargas Llosa as their mentors.^[53]

Post-Boom[link]

Since the 1980s it has become common to speak of Post-Boom writers, most of whom were born during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. It is difficult to clearly situate the Post-Boom as many of its writers were active before the end of the Boom. Indeed, some writers, like Jose Donoso could be said to belong to both movements. His novel The Obscene Bird of the Night (1970) is considered, as Philip Swanson notes, "one of the classics of the Boom."^[54] His later work, however, fits more comfortably into the post-Boom.^[55] Manuel Puig and Severo Sarduy are considered writers whose works embody the transition from the Boom to the Post-Boom.^[19] It is important to note that this uneasiness in categorization is perpetuated by the fact that major writers of the Boom (Fuentes, García Márquez and Vargas Llosa) continued writing well after the end of the Boom. The post-Boom is distinct from the Boom in various respects, most notably in the presence of female authors such as Isabel Allende, Luisa Valenzuela, Giannina Braschi, Cristina Peri Rossi, and Elena Poniatowska.^[56] While Valenzuela and Poniatowska were both active writers during the Boom period,^[57] Allende is considered "a product of the Boom."^[58] Shaw also identifies Antonio Skarmeta, Rosario Ferre and Gustavo Sainz as Post-Boom writers.^[59] The Post-Boom writers challenge the perceived elitism of the Boom by using a simpler, more readable style and going back to realism.^[60]

See also[link]

• McOndo

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Aguilar, Mario I. (2004), "Charles Horman versus Henry Kissinger: US Intervention in 1970s Chile and the Case for Prosecutions", in Jones, Adam, Genocide, War Crimes and the West: History and Complicity, London: Zed Books, pp. 186–200, ISBN 1-84277-191-4 

• Coonrod Martinez, Elizabeth (2001), Before the Boom: Latin American Revolutionary Novels of the 1920s, New York: University Press of America, ISBN 0-7618-1948-7 .

• Donoso, José (1972), Historia Personal del "Boom", Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, ISBN 956-239-047-0 .

• Franco, Jean (2006), "Globalisation and Literary History", Bulletin of Latin American Research 25 (4): 441–452, DOI:10.1111/j.1470-9856.2006.00206.x .

• ed. by Roberto González Echevarría ... (1996), González Echevarría, Roberto; Pupo-Walker, Enrique, eds., The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, 2: The Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-41035-5 .

• Herrero-Olaizola, Alejandro (2007), The Censorship Files: Latin American Writers and Franco's Spain, Albany: SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-6985-9 .

• Levinson, Brett (2001), The Ends of Literature: The Latin American "Boom" in the Neoliberal Marketplace, Stanford: Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-4346-0, http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=4345%204346%20 .

• Martin, Gerald (1984), "Boom, Yes; 'New' Novel, No: Further Reflections on the Optical Illusions of the 1960s in Latin America", Bulletin of Latin American Research (Blackwell Publishing) 3 (2): 53–63, DOI:10.2307/3338252, JSTOR 3338252 .

• McMurray, George R. (1987), Critical Essays on Gabriel García Márquez, Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., ISBN 0-8161-8834-3 .

• Nunn, Frederick M. (2001), Collisions With History: Latin American Fiction and Social Science from El Boom to the New World Order, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, ISBN 0-89680-219-1 .

• Ocasio, Rafael (2004), Literature of Latin America, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-32001-2 .

• Pilger, John (2003), The New Rulers of the World, London: Verso, ISBN 1-85984-412-X 

• Pope, Randolph D. (1996), "The Spanish American novel from 1950 to 1975", in González Echevarría, Roberto, The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, Volume 2: The Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 226–279, ISBN 0-521-41035-5 .

• Sens, Allen; Stoett, Peter (2002), Global Politics: Origins, Currents, Directions (2nd ed.), Scarborough, ON:: Nelson Thomson Learning, ISBN 0-17-61690-5 

• Shaw, Donald L. (1998), The Post-Boom in Spanish American Fiction, Albany: SUNY Press, ISBN 0-7914-3826-0 .

• Shaw, Donald L. (April, 1994), "Which Was the First Novel of the Boom?", The Modern Language Review (Modern Humanities Research Association) 89 (2): 360–371, DOI:10.2307/3735239, JSTOR 3735239 .

• Swanson, Philip (Winter, 1987), "Donoso and the Post-Boom: Simplicity and Subversion", Contemporary Literature (University of Wisconsin Press) 28 (4): 520–529, DOI:10.2307/1208315, JSTOR 1208315 .

• Williams, Raymond L. (2002), "Fuentes the Modern; Fuentes the Postmodern", Hispania (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) 85 (2): 209–218, DOI:10.2307/4141048, JSTOR 4141048 

Latin America

Area	21,069,501 km2 (8,134,980 sq mi)
Population	572,039,894
Pop. density	27 /km2 (70 /sq mi)
Demonym	Latin American, American
Countries	19
Dependencies	1
Languages	Spanish, Portuguese, Quechua, Mayan languages, Guaraní, French, Aymara, Nahuatl, Italian and others.
Time Zones	UTC-2 to UTC-8
Largest cities	[1] 1. Mexico City 2. São Paulo 3. Buenos Aires 4. Rio de Janeiro 5. Lima 6. Bogotá 7. Santiago 8. Belo Horizonte 9. Guadalajara 10. Caracas

Latin America (Spanish: América Latina or Latinoamérica; Portuguese: América Latina; French: Amérique latine) is a region of the Americas where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin) – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken.^[2][3] Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² (7,880,000 sq mi), almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area. As of 2010, its population was estimated at more than 590 million^[4] and its combined GDP at 5.16 trillion United States dollars (6.27 trillion at PPP).^[5] The Latin American expected economic growth rate is at about 5.7% for 2010 and 4% in 2011.^[6] According to Phelan (1968, p. 296), the term "Latin America" was baptized in 1861 in La revue des races Latines, a magazine 'dedicated to the cause of Pan-Latinism'.

Subdivisions[link]

Common subregions in Latin America

Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, demographics and culture. The basic geographical subregions are North America, Central America, the Caribbean and South America;^[7] the latter contains further politico-geographical subdivisions such as the Southern Cone and the Andean states. It may be subdivided on linguistic grounds into Hispanic America and Portuguese America.

Etymology and definitions[link]

The idea that a part of the Americas has a linguistic affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of the Americas was inhabited by people of a "Latin race", and that it could, therefore, ally itself with "Latin Europe" in a struggle with "Teutonic Europe", "Anglo-Saxon America" and "Slavic Europe".^[8] The idea was later taken up by Latin American intellectuals and political leaders of the mid- and late-nineteenth century, who no longer looked to Spain or Portugal as cultural models, but rather to France.^[9] The term was first used in Paris in an 1856 conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao^[10] and the same year by the Colombian writer José María Torres Caicedo in his poem "Two Americas.^[11] The term Latin America was supported by the French Empire of Napoleon III during the French invasion of Mexico, as a way to include France among countries with influence in America and to exclude Anglophone countries, and played a role in his campaign to imply cultural kinship of the region with France, transform France into a cultural and political leader of the area, and install Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor of the Second Mexican Empire.^[12] This term was also baptized in 1861 by French scholars in La revue des races Latines, a magazine dedicated to the Pan-Latinism movement.^[13]

In contemporary usage:

• In one sense, Latin America refers to territories in America where the Spanish or Portuguese languages prevail: Mexico, most of Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico — in summary, Hispanic America and Brazil. Latin America is, therefore, defined as all those parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.^[14] By this definition, Latin America is coterminous with Ibero-america ("Iberian America").^[15]
• Particularly in the United States, the term more broadly refers to all of the Americas south of the United States,^{[citation needed]} thus including: English-speaking countries such as Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Bahamas; French-speaking Haiti and Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana; and the Dutch-speaking Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Suriname. (In the former Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Papiamento – a predominantly Iberian-derived creole language – is spoken by the majority of the population.) This definition emphasizes a similar socioeconomic history of the region, which was characterized by formal or informal colonialism, rather than cultural aspects. (See, for example, dependency theory.)^[16] As such, some sources avoid this oversimplification by using the phrase "Latin America and the Caribbean" instead, as in the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas.^[17][18][19]
• In a more literal definition, which remains faithful to the original usage, Latin America designates all of those countries and territories in the Americas where a Romance language (i.e., languages derived from Latin, and hence the name of the region) is spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and the creole languages based upon these. Strictly considering this definition, Quebec, in Canada, is part of Latin America as well. But this region is rarely considered so, since its history, distinctive culture and economy, and British-inspired political institutions are generally deemed too closely intertwined with the rest of Canada.^[20]

The distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance-language and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Neither area is culturally or linguistically homogeneous; in substantial portions of Latin America (e.g., highland Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Paraguay), American Indian cultures and, to a lesser extent, Amerindian languages, are predominant, and in other areas, the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g., the Caribbean basin—including parts of Colombia and Venezuela)—and the coastal areas of Ecuador and Brazil.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

Pre-Columbian history[link]

Parque Nacional Tikal in Peten, Guatemala.

Archaeological site of Chichén-Itzá in Yucatán, Mexico. One of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

The Americas were thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now known as the Bering strait, from northeast Asia into Alaska well over 10,000 years ago. The earliest known settlement, however, was identified at Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt in Southern Chile. Its occupation dates to some 14,000 years ago and there is some disputed evidence of even earlier occupation. 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. The earliest settlements in the Americas are of the Las Vegas Culture^[21] from about 8000 BC and 4600 BC, a sedentary group from the coast of Ecuador, the forefathers of the more known Valdivia culture, of the same era. Some groups formed more permanent settlements such as the Chibchas (or "Muiscas" or "Muyscas") and the Tairona groups. These groups are in the circum Caribbean region. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas and Aymaras of Bolivia and Perú were the three indigenous groups that settled most permanently.

A view of Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian Inca site in Peru. One of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

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. The Aztec empire was ultimately the most powerful civilization known throughout the Americas, until its downfall in part by the Spanish invasion.

European colonization[link]

Romantic Painting of Christopher Columbus arriving to the Americas Primer desembarco de Cristóbal Colón en América, by Dióscoro Puebla 1862.

With the arrival of the Europeans following Christopher Columbus' voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incas and Aztecs, lost power to the heavy European invasion. Hernándo Cortés seized the Aztec elite's power with the help of local groups who did not favor the Aztec elite, and Francisco Pizarro eliminated the Incan rule in Western South America. The European powers of 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 1494, which gave Spain all areas to the west, and Portugal all areas to the east (the Portuguese lands in South America subsequently becoming Brazil).

The Colonial city of Granada in Nicaragua, is one of the most visited sites in Central America.

By the end of the sixteenth century Spain and Portugal had been joined by others, including France, in occupying large areas of North, Central and South America, ultimately extending from Alaska to the southern tips of the Patagonia. European culture, customs and government were introduced, with the Roman Catholic Church becoming the major economic and political power to overrule the traditional ways of the region, eventually becoming the only official religion of the Americas during this period.

Epidemics of diseases brought by the Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, wiped out a large portion of the indigenous population. 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 25%. 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. Intermixing 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.

Independence (1804–1825)[link]

Simón Bolívar, one of the independence movement leaders

Haiti among the Latin American nations, was the first to gain independence, in 1804. This followed from a violent slave revolt led by Toussaint L'ouverture on the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The victors abolished slavery. Haitian independence helped inspire independence movements in Spanish America.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese power waned on the global scene as other European powers took their place, notably Britain and France. Resentment grew among the majority of the population in Latin America over the restrictions imposed by the Spanish government, as well as the dominance of native Spaniards (Iberian-born Peninsulares) in the major social and political institutions. Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 marked a turning point, compelling Criollo 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 of Venezuela, José de San Martín of Argentina and Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile, and by providing them with considerable munitions and troops.

Fighting soon broke out between juntas and the Spanish colonial authorities, with initial victories for the advocates of independence. Eventually these early movements were crushed by the royalist troops by 1812, including those of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in Mexico and Francisco de Miranda in Venezuela. Under the leadership of a new generation of leaders, such as Simón Bolívar "The Liberator", José de San Martín of Argentina, Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile, and other Libertadores in South America, the independence movement regained strength, and by 1825, all Spanish America, except for Puerto Rico and Cuba, had gained independence from Spain. Brazil achieved independence with a constitutional monarchy established in 1822. In the same year in Mexico, a military officer, Agustín de Iturbide, led a coalition of conservatives and liberals who created a constitutional monarchy, with Iturbide as emperor. This First Mexican Empire was short-lived, and was followed by the creation of a republic in 1823.

Consolidation and liberal-conservative conflicts (1825–1900)[link]

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World wars (1914–1945)[link]

Brazil’s participation in World War II[link]

Latin America’s participation in World War II was lead by the country of Brazil. After World War I, in which Brazil was an ally of the United States, Great Britain, and France, the country realized it needed a more capable army but didn’t have the technology to create it. In 1919 the French Military Mission was established by the French Commission in Brazil. Their main goal was to contain the inner rebellions in Brazil. They tried to assist the army by bringing them up to the European military standard but constant civil missions did not prepare them for World War II.

Brazil President, Getulio Vargas, wanted to industrialize Brazil allowing it to be more competitive with other countries. He reached out to Germany, Italy, France, and the United States to act as trade allies. Many Italian and German people immigrated to Brazil many years before World War II began thus creating a Nazi influence. The immigrants held high positions in government and the armed forces. It was recently found that 9,000 war criminals escaped to South America, including Croatians, Ukrainians, Russians and other western Europeans who aided the Nazi murder machine. Most, perhaps as many as 5,000, went to Argentina; between 1,500 and 2,000 are thought to have made it to Brazil; around 500 to 1,000 to Chile; and the rest to Paraguay and Uruguay.^[22] It was not a secret that Vargas had an admiration for Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its Führer. He even let German Luftwaffe build secret air forces around Brazil, but he knew that he could never favor the Nazis because of their racism towards the large black population in Brazil. This alliance with Germany lead to be Brazil’s second best trade alliance behind the United States.

Brazil continued to try to remain neutral to the United States and Germany because it was trying to make sure it could continue to be a place of interest for both opposing countries. Brazil attended continental meetings in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1936), Lima Peru (1938), and Havana, Cuba (1940) that obligated them to agree to defend any part of the Americas if they were to be attacked. Eventually Brazil decided to stop trading with Germany once Germany started attacking offshore trading ships resulting in Germany declaring a blockade against the Americas in the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, Germany also ensured that they would be attacking the Americas soon.

Once the German submarines attacked unarmed Brazilian trading ships, President Vargas met with United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss how they could retaliate. On January 22, 1942, Brazil officially ended all relations with Germany, Japan, and Italy becoming a part of the Allies.

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force was sent to Naples, Italy to fight for democracy. Brazil was the only Latin American country to send troops to Europe. Initially, Brazil wanted to only provide resources and shelter for the war to have a chance of gaining a high postwar status but ended up sending 25,000-men to fight.^[23]

After World War II, the United States and Latin America continued to have a close relationship. For example, USAID created family planning programs in Latin America combining the NGOs already in place, providing the women in largely Catholic areas access to contraception. ^[24]

Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Cuba, Ecuador, and Bolivia’s participation in World War II[link]

There was Nazi influence in certain parts of the country, but Jewish migration from Europe during the war continued. Only a small population of people recognized or knew about the Holocaust.^[25] Furthermore, there were numerous military bases built by the U.S, but also by the Germans, during the war. Even now there are still remaining bombs from the war, which needed to be destroyed. ^[26]

[edit] Cold War (1946–1990)

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Military dictators Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina and Augusto Pinochet of Chile.

Economy[link]

The Great Depression caused Latin America to grow at a slow rate, separating it from leading industrial democracies. The two world wars and U.S. Depression also made Latin American countries favor internal economic development, leading Latin America to adopt the policy of import substitution industrialization. ^[27] Countries also renewed emphasis on exports. Brazil began selling automobiles to other countries, and some Latin American countries set up plants to assemble imported parts, letting other countries take advantage of Latin America’s low labor costs. Columbia began to export flowers and cocaine, becoming the world’s second leading flower exporter and leading supplier of cocaine. ^[28] Economic integration was called for, to attain economies that could compete with the economies of the U.S or Europe. Starting in the 1960’s with the Latin American Free Trade Association and Central American Common Market, Latin American countries worked toward economic integration. ^[29]

Reforms[link]

Large countries like Argentina called for reforms to lessen the disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor, which has been a long problem in Latin America that retards economic growth. ^[30]

Advances in public health caused an explosion of population growth, making it difficult to provide social services. Education expanded, and social security systems introduced, but benefits usually went to the middle class, not the poor. As a result, disparity of wealth increased. Increasing inflation and other factors caused countries to be unwilling to fund social development programs to help the poor.

Bureaucratic authoritarianism[link]

Bureaucratic authoritarianism was practiced in Brazil after 1964, in Argentina, and in Chile under Augusto Pinochet, in a response to harsh economic conditions. It rested on the conviction that no democracy could take the harsh measures to curb inflation, reassure investors, and quicken economic growth quickly and effectively. Though inflation fell sharply, industrial production dropped with the decline of official protection. ^[31]

U.S. Relations[link]

After World War II and the beginning of a Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, U.S. diplomats became interested in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and frequently waged proxy wars against the Soviet Union in these countries. The U.S. sought to stop the spread of communism. Latin Americans generally resented the U.S. superiority over them. Latin America also complained of the U.S. support to locals in overthrowing nationalist governments, and intervention through the CIA. Still, Latin America respected the U.S. during this time, and Latin American countries generally sided with the U.S., even though they complained of being neglected by the U.S.’s concern with communism in Europe and Asia, not Latin America. In 1947, the U.S. Congress passed the National Security Act, which created the National Security Council in response to America’s growing obsession with anti-communism. ^[32]

In 1954, when Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala accepted the support of communists and attacked holdings of the United Fruit Company, the U.S. decided to assist Guatemalan counterrevolutionaries in overthrowing Arbenz. These interventionist tactics featured use of the CIA rather than the military, which would be used in Latin America for the majority of the Cold War in events like the overthrow of Salvador Allende. Latin America was more concerned with issues of economic development, while the United States focused on fighting communism, even though the presence of communism was small in Latin America. ^[33]

Cuban Revolution[link]

By 1959, Cuba was afflicted with slow economic growth and a corrupt dictatorship under Batista, and Fidel Castro ousted Batista that year and set up the first communist state in the hemisphere. The U.S. imposed a trade embargo on Cuba, and combined with Castro’s expropriation of private enterprises, this was detrimental to the Cuban economy. ^[34] Around Cuba, rural guerrilla conflict and urban terrorism increased, inspired by the Cuban example. The United States put down these rebellions by supporting Latin American countries in their counter guerrilla operations through the Alliance for Progress launched by President John F. Kennedy.This thrust appeared to be successful. A Marxist, Salvador Allende, became president of Chile in 1970, but was overthrown three years later. Despite riots and political instability, most Latin American countries besides Cuba adopted democracies.

Bay of Pigs Invasion[link]

Encouraged by the Guatemala success, Kennedy, in 1960, decided to launch an attack on Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion was an abortive invasion of Cuba in 1961, financed by the U.S. through the CIA, to overthrow Castro. The incident proved to be very embarrassing for the new Kennedy administration. ^[35]

Alliance for Progress[link]

President John F. Kennedy initiated the Alliance for Progress in 1961, to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America.The Alliance would provide $20 billion for reform in Latin America, and counterinsurgency measures. Instead, the reform failed because of the simplistic theory that guided it and the lack of experienced American experts who could understand Latin American customs.

Cuban missile crisis[link]

The Cuban Missile crisis nearly brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to war in October of 1962. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had installed several missiles in Cuba that could hit must of the Eastern United States. President Kennedy decided to place a naval blockade on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of missiles. In the end, Khrushchev submitted, taking missiles away. In return, Kennedy agreed never to invade Cuba, and to withdraw nuclear-arms from Turkey. ^[36]

Washington Consensus[link]

The set of specific economic policy prescriptions that were considered the "standard" reform package were promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and the US Treasury Department during the 80s and 90s.

In recent years, several Latin American countries led by socialist or other left wing governments—including Argentina and Venezuela—have campaigned for (and to some degree adopted) policies contrary to the Washington Consensus set of policies. (Other Latin countries with governments of the left, including Brazil, Chile and Peru, have in practice adopted the bulk of the policies). Also critical of the policies as actually promoted by the International Monetary Fund have been some U.S. economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz and Dani Rodrik, who have challenged what are sometimes described as the "fundamentalist" policies of the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury for what Stiglitz calls a "one size fits all" treatment of individual economies.

The term has become associated with neoliberal policies in general and drawn into the broader debate over the expanding role of the free market, constraints upon the state, and US influence on other countries' national sovereignty.

This politico-economical initiative was institutionalized in North America by the 1994 NAFTA, and elsewhere in the Americas through a series of like agreements. The comprehensive Free Trade Area of the Americas project, however, was rejected by most South American countries at the 2005 4th Summit of the Americas.

Turn to the left[link]

Left-leaning leaders of Bolivia, Brazil and Chile at the Union of South American Nations summit in 2008.

In most countries, since the 2000s left-wing political parties have risen to power. Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Lula da Silva in Brazil, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández in Argentina, Ollanta Humala in Peru, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, are all part of this wave of left-wing politicians who also often declare themselves socialists, Latin Americanists, or anti-imperialists (often implying opposition to US policies towards the region). There are also some leaders who, although aren't exactly leftist, are closer to the centre-left in the political spectrum. Examples of this are Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica in Uruguay, Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica, and Mauricio Funes in El Salvador. A development of this has been the creation of the eight-member ALBA alliance, or "The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America" (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América). In the 2010, only three countries in Latin America had right-wing presidents. These were Sebastián Piñera in Chile, Felipe Calderon in Mexico, and Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia.

The return of social movements[link]

In 1982, Mexico announced that it could not meet its foreign debt payment obligations, inaugurating a debt crisis that would discredit Latin American economies throughout the decade.^[37] This debt crisis would lead to neoliberal reforms that would instigate many social movements in the region. A “reversal of development” reigned over Latin America, seen through negative economic growth, declines in industrial production, and thus, falling living standards for the middle and lower classes.^[38] Governments made financial security their primary policy goal over social security, enacting new neoliberal economic policies that implemented privatization of previously national industries and informalization of labor.^[37] In an effort to bring more investors to these industries, these governments also embraced globalization through more open interactions with the international economy. Significantly, as democracy spread across much of Latin America, the realm of government more inclusive (a trend that proved conductive to social movements), the economic ventures remained exclusive to a few elite groups within society. Neoliberal restructuring consistently redistributed income upward while denying political responsibility to provide social welfare rights, and though development projects took place throughout the region, both inequality and poverty increased.^[37] Feeling excluded from these new projects, the lower classes took ownership of their own democracy through a revitalization of social movements in Latin America.

Argentinazo riots in December 2001.

Both urban and rural populations had serious grievances as a result of the above economic and global trends and have voiced them in mass demonstrations. Some of the largest and most violent of these have been protests against cuts in urban services, such as the Caracazo in Venezuela and the Argentinazo in Argentina.^[39]

Children singing the International Communist Hymn, 20th Anniversary of MST.

Rural movements have made diverse demands related to unequal land distribution, displacement at the hands of development projects and dams, environmental and indigenous concerns, neoliberal agricultural restructuring, and insufficient means of livelihood. These movements have benefited considerably from transnational support from conservationists and INGOs. The Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST), is perhaps the largest contemporary Latin American social movement.^[39] As indigenous populations are primarily rural, indigenous movements account for a large portion of rural social movements, including the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), indigenous organizations in the Amazon region of Ecuador and Bolivia, pan-Mayan communities in Guatemala, and mobilization by the indigenous groups of Yanomami peoples in the Amazon, Kuna peoples in Panama, and Altiplano Aymara and Quechua peoples in Bolivia.^[39] Other significant types of social movements include labor struggles and strikes, such as recovered factories in Argentina, as well as gender-based movements such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and protests against maquila production, which is largely a women’s issue because of how it draws on women for cheap labor.^[39]

These various social movements have continued today along with a broader political shift to the left. They are credited with raising social awareness across the globe of important issues affecting indigenous peoples in Latin America and through their work with NGOs and other international organizations. Moreover, they have provided tangible alternatives to the principles of neoliberalism, spurring constitutional changes and legislative policy while demonstrating the merits of active representative democracies.^[40]

Commodity boom and increasing relations with China[link]

The 2000s commodities boom caused positive effects for many Latin American economies. Another trend is the rapidly increasing importance of the relations with China.

Demographics[link]

Ethnic groups[link]

Ethnic Composition by the 21st Century in Latin America.

Benito Juárez was an Amerindian Mexican of Zapotec ancestry.

Juniti Saito, head of the Brazilian Air Force and one of over a million Japanese Brazilians.

Porfirio Díaz was a Mexican Mestizo of Mixtec and Spanish ancestry.

The inhabitants of Latin America are of a variety of ancestries, ethnic groups, and races, making the region one of the most diverse in the world. The specific composition varies from country to country: many have a predominance of European-Amerindian, or Mestizo, population; in others, Amerindians are a majority; some are dominated by inhabitants of European ancestry; and some countries' populations are primarily Mulatto. Black, Asian, and Zambo(mixed Black and Amerindian) minorities are also identified regularly. Europeans/Whites are the largest single group, and along with people of part-European ancestry, they combine to make up approximately 80% of the population,^[41] or even more.^[42]

Language[link]

Linguistic map of Latin America. Spanish in green, Portuguese in orange, and French in blue.

Spanish and Portuguese are the predominant languages of Latin America. Portuguese is spoken only in Brazil, the biggest and most populous country in the region. Spanish is the official language of most of the rest of the countries on the Latin American mainland, as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico (where it is co-official with English), and the Dominican Republic. French is spoken in Haiti and in the French Overseas department Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and the French Overseas territory (France) of Saint Pierre and Miquelon; it is also spoken by some Panamanians of Afro-Antillean descent. Dutch is the official language in Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. (As Dutch is a Germanic language, these territories are not necessarily considered part of Latin America.)

Native American languages are widely spoken in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay and, to a lesser degree, in Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, and Chile amongst other countries. In Latin American countries not named above, the population of speakers of indigenous languages is either small or non-existent.

In Peru, Quechua is an official language, 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. Guaraní, along with Spanish, is an official language of Paraguay, and is spoken by a majority of the population (who are, for the most part, bilingual), and it is co-official with Spanish in the Argentine province of Corrientes. In Nicaragua, Spanish is the official language, but on the country's Caribbean coast English and indigenous languages such as Miskito, Sumo, and Rama also hold official status. Colombia recognizes all indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers of these languages. Nahuatl is 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.

Other European languages spoken in Latin America include: English, by some groups in Argentina, Nicaragua, Panama, and Puerto Rico, as well as in nearby countries that may or may not be considered Latin American, like Belize and Guyana; German, in southern Brazil, southern Chile, Argentina, portions of northern Venezuela, and Paraguay; Italian, in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Venezuela; and Welsh,^{[43][44][45][46][47][48]} in southern Argentina.

In several nations, especially in the Caribbean region, creole languages are spoken. The most widely spoken creole language in Latin America and the Caribbean is Haitian Creole, the predominant language of Haiti; it is derived primarily from French and certain West African tongues with some Amerindian and Spanish influences as well. Creole languages of mainland Latin America, similarly, are derived from European languages and various African tongues.

Religion[link]

Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels located in Cartago, Costa Rica.

The vast majority of Latin Americans are Christians, mostly Roman Catholics.^[49] About 70% of the Latin American population consider themselves Catholic.^[50] Membership in Protestant denominations is increasing, particularly in Brazil and Venezuela.

Migration[link]

Due to economic, social and security developments that are affecting the region in recent decades, the focus is now the change from net immigration to net emigration. About 10 million Mexicans live in the United States.^[51] 28.3 million Americans listed their ancestry as Mexican as of 2006.^[52] According to the 2005 Colombian census or DANE, about 3,331,107 Colombians currently live abroad.^[53] The number of Brazilians living overseas is estimated at about 2 million people.^[54] An estimated 1.5 to two million Salvadorans reside in the United States.^[55] At least 1.5 million Ecuadorians have gone abroad, mainly to the United States and Spain.^[56] Approximately 1.5 million Dominicans live abroad, mostly in the United States.^[57] More than 1.3 million Cubans live abroad, most of them in the United States.^[58] It is estimated that over 800,000 Chileans live abroad, mainly in Costa Rica, Mexico and Sweden. Other Chilean nationals may be located in countries like Spain and Sweden.^[59] An estimated 700,000 Bolivians were living in Argentina as of 2006 and another 33,000 in the United States.^[60] Central Americans living abroad in 2005 were 3,314,300,^[61] of which 1,128,701 were Salvadorans,^[62] 685,713 were Guatemalans,^[63] 683,520 were Nicaraguans,^[64] 414,955 were Hondurans,^[65] 215,240 were Panamanians,^[66] 127,061 were Costa Ricans ^[67] and 59,110 were Belizeans.

For the period 2000–2005, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, and Venezuela were the only countries with global positive migration rates, in terms of their yearly averages.^[68]

Education[link]

World map indicating literacy by country (2011 Human Development Report) Grey = no data

Despite significant progress, education coverage remains unequal in Latin America. The region has made great progress in educational coverage; almost all children attend primary school and access to secondary education has increased considerably. Most educational systems in the region have implemented various types of administrative and institutional reforms that have enabled reach for places and communities that had no access to education services in the early 90's.

However, there are still 23 million children in the region between the ages of 4 and 17 outside of the formal education system. Estimates indicate that 30% of preschool age children (ages 4 –5) do not attend school, and for the most vulnerable populations, the poor and rural, - this calculation exceeds 40 percent. Among primary school age children (ages 6 to 12), coverage is almost universal; however there is still a need to incorporate 5 million children in the primary education system. These children live mostly in remote areas, are indigenous or Afro-descendants and live in extreme poverty.^[69]

Among people between the ages of 13 and 17 years, only 80% are full time students in the education system; among them only 66% advance to secondary school. These percentages are lower among vulnerable population groups: only 75% of the poorest youth between the ages of 13 and 17 years attend school. Tertiary education has the lowest coverage, with only 70% of people between the ages of 18 and 25 years outside of the education system. Currently, more than half of low income children or living in rural areas fail to complete nine years of education.^[69]

Crime and violence[link]

Colombian policemen standing by drug lord Pablo Escobar's dead body.

Crime and violence prevention and public security are now important issues for governments and citizens in Latin America and the Caribbean region. In 2004, violence was the main cause of death in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico and Honduras.^[70][71] Homicide rates in Latin America are among the highest in the world. From the early 1980s through the mid-1990s, homicide rates increased by 50 percent. The major victims of such homicides are young men, 69 percent of whom are between the ages of 15 and 19 years old. Many analysts agree that the prison crisis will not be resolved until the gap between rich and poor is addressed. They say that growing social inequality is fuelling crime in the region. But there is also no doubt that, on such an approach, Latin American countries still have a long way to go.^[72] Countries with the highest homicide rate per year per 100,000 inhabitants were: Guatemala 57.9, El Salvador 49.1, Venezuela 48, Honduras 59, Colombia 33, Belize 30.8, Brazil 25.7, Dominican Republic 23.56, Puerto Rico 18.8, and Ecuador 16.9.^{[citation needed]} More than 500,000 people have been killed by firearms in Brazil between 1979 and 2003.^[73][74] Countries with relatively low crime are Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay.^[75]

Economy[link]

Standard of living, consumption, and the environment[link]

The Panama Canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade.

According to Goldman Sachs' BRIC review of emerging economies, by 2050 the largest economies in the world will be as follows: China, United States, India, Brazil, and Mexico.^[76] On a per capita basis most Latin American countries, including the largest ones (Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and Colombia), have per capita GDPs greater than that of China in 2009. As of 2010 Latin America included five nations classified as high-income countries: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and Panama.^{[citation needed]}

The following table lists all the countries in Latin America indicating a valuation of the country's GDP (Gross domestic product) based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP), GDP per capita also adjusted to the (PPP), a measurement of inequality through the Gini index (the higher the index the more unequal the income distribution is), the Human Development Index (HDI), the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), and the Quality-of-life index. GDP and PPP GDP statistics come from the International Monetary Fund with data as of 2006. Gini index, the Human Poverty Index HDI-1, the Human Development Index, and the number of internet users per capita come from the UN Development Program. The number of motor vehicles per capita come from the UNData base on-line. The EPI index comes from the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Quality-of-life index from The Economist Intelligence Unit. Green cells indicate the 1st rank in each category, while yellow indicate the last rank.

Summary of socio-economic performance indicators for Latin American countries

Country	GDP (PPP)[77] (2012 estimates) Billions of USD	GDP per capita (PPP)[78] (2012 estimates) USD	Income equality[79] (2000–2010) Gini index	Poverty Index[80] (2009) HPI-1 %	Human Develop.[81] (2011) HDI	Envirnm. Perform.[82] (2010) EPI	Real GDP growth[83] (2010) %	Emissions per capita[84] (2008) ton CO2
Argentina	732.223	18,411	48.8	3.7	0.797 (VH)	61.0	7.5	4.4
Bolivia	51.796	5,084	57.2	11.6	0.663 (M)	44.3	4.0	1.3
Brazil	2,310.998	11,767	55.0	8.7	0.718 (H)	63.4	7.5	1.9
Chile	311.546	17,482	49.1	3.2	0.805 (VH)	73.3	5.0	4.4
Colombia	519.866	10,445	58.5	7.6	0.710 (H)	76.8	4.7	1.4
Costa Rica	56.130	12,332	48.9	4.6	0.744 (H)	86.4	3.8	1.5
Cuba	111.1[85]	9,700[85]	N/A	4.7	0.776 (H)	78.1	1.4[85]	2.7
Dominican Republic	95.391	9,648	48.4	9.1	0.689 (M)	68.4	5.5	2.0
Ecuador	133.825	8,952	54.4	7.9	0.720 (H)	69.3	2.9	1.9
El Salvador	48.640	8,442	46.9	14.6	0.674 (M)	69.1	1.0	1.0
Guatemala	72.958	5,071	53.7	19.7	0.574 (M)	54.0	2.4	0.8
Haiti	11.056	1,122	59.5	31.5	0.454 (L)	39.5	-8.5	0.2
Honduras	38.537	4,405	55.3	13.7	0.625 (M)	49.9	2.4	1.1
Mexico	1,849.671	15,766	51.6	5.9	0.770 (H)	67.3	5.0	3.8
Nicaragua	17.269	3,370	52.3	17.0	0.589 (M)	57.1	3.0	0.7
Panama	43.725	14,398	54.9	6.7	0.768 (H)	71.4	6.2	1.9
Paraguay	31.469	5,915	53.2	10.5	0.665 (M)	63.5	9.0	0.6
Peru	324.276	10,781	50.5	10.2	0.725 (H)	69.3	8.3	1.2
Uruguay	54.140	16,242	47.1	3.0	0.783 (H)	59.1	8.5	2.3
Venezuela	346.973	12,589	43.4	6.6	0.735 (H)	62.9	-1.3	5.2
Total	6,270.231	12,519		10.1		76.2	4	2.3

Notes: (H) High human development; (M) Medium human development; (L) Low human development

Poverty and inequality[link]

Slums on the outskirts of a wealthy urban area in São Paulo, Brazil: an example of poverty common in Latin America.

Poverty continues to be one of the region's main challenges; according to the ECLAC, Latin America is the most unequal region in the world.^[86] Inequality is undermining the region's economic potential and the well-being of its population, since it increases poverty and reduces the impact of economic development on poverty reduction.^[87] Inequality in Latin America has deep historical roots that have been difficult to eradicate since the differences between initial endowments and opportunitites among social groups have constrained the poorest's social mobility, thus making poverty to be transmitted from generation to generation, becoming a vicious cycle. High inequality is rooted in exclusionary institutions that have been perpetuated ever since colonial times and that have survived different political and economic regimes. Inequality has been reproduced and transmitted through generations because Latin American political systems allow a differentiated access on the influence that social groups have in the decision making process, and it responds in different ways to the least favored groups that have less political representation and capacity of pressure.^[88] Recent economic liberalisation also plays a role as not everyone is equally capable of taking advantage of its benefits.^[89] Differences in opportunities and endowments tend to be based on race, ethnicity, rurality and gender. Those differences have a strong impact on the distribution of income, capital and political standing.

According to a study by the World Bank,the richest decile of the population of Latin America earn^[90] 48% of the total income, while the poorest 10% of the population earn only 1.6% of the income. In contrast, in developed countries, the top decile receives 29% of the total income, while the bottom decile earns 2.5%. The countries with the highest inequality in the region (as measured with the Gini index in the UN Development Report^[79]) in 2007 were Haiti (59.5), Colombia (58.5), Bolivia (58.2), Honduras (55.3), Brazil (55.0), and Panama (54.9), while the countries with the lowest inequality in the region were Venezuela (43.4), Uruguay (46.4) and Costa Rica (47.2).

According to the World Bank the poorest countries in the region were (as of 2008):^[91] Haiti, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Honduras. Undernourishment affects to 47% of Haitians, 27% of Dominicans and Nicaraguans, 23% of Bolivians and 22% of Hondurans.

Many countries in Latin America have responded to high levels of poverty by implementing new, or altering old, social assistance programs such as conditional cash transfers. These include Mexico's Progresa Oportunidades, Brazil's Bolsa Escola and Bolsa Familia, and Chile's Chile Solidario.^[92] In general, these programs provide money to poor families under the condition that those transfers are used as an investment on their children's human capital, such as regular school attendance and basic preventive health care. The purpose of these programs is to address the inter-generational transmission of poverty and to foster social inclusion by explicitly targeting the poor, focusing on children, delivering transfers to women, and changing social accountability relationships between beneficiaries, service providers and governments.^[93] These programs have helped to increase school enrollment and attendance and they also have shown improvements in children's health conditions.^[94] Most of these transfer schemes are now benefiting around 110 million people in the region and are considered relatively cheap, costing around 0.5% of their GDP.^[95]

Trade blocs[link]

Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Fernández, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Nicanor Duarte, and Hugo Chávez at the signing of the founding charter of the Bank of the South.

The major trade blocs (or agreements) in the region are the Union of South American Nations, composed of the integrated Mercosur and Andean Community of Nations (CAN). Minor blocs or trade agreements are the G3 Free Trade Agreement, the Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). However, major reconfigurations are taking place along opposing approaches to integration and trade; Venezuela has officially withdrawn from both the CAN and G3 and it has been formally admitted into the Mercosur (pending ratification from the Paraguayan legislature). The president-elect of Ecuador has manifested his intentions of following the same path. This bloc nominally opposes any Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, although Uruguay has manifested its intention otherwise. Chile has already signed an FTA with Canada, and along with Peru, Colombia and Mexico are the only four Latin American nations that have an FTA with the United States, the latter being a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Metropolitan economies[link]

The following table provides estimated GDP figures for the largest metropolitan areas in Latin America in 2008.^[96]

Mexico City

Panama City

Rank	Metropolitan area	Country	GDP (PPP) Billions of USD	Metro. pop. in 2006[97] Millions	GDP (PPP) per capita USD
1	Mexico City	Mexico	390	19.24	20,300
2	São Paulo	Brazil	388	18.61	20,800
3	Buenos Aires	Argentina	362	13.52	28,000
4	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	201	11.62	17,300
5	Santiago	Chile	120	5.70	21,100
6	Brasilia	Brazil	110	3.48	31,600
7	Lima	Peru	109	8.35	13,100
8	Caracas	Venezuela	105	5.98	25,500
9	Bogotá	Colombia	112	7.80	15,800
10	Monterrey	Mexico	102	3.58	28,500

Note: The GDP data are for 2008 while the population data are for 2006. The GDP per capita figures were obtained by dividing these two sets of data, so the results may not accurately reflect the GDP per capita for 2008.

Tourism[link]

Patagonia Located in Argentina and Chile.

Income from tourism is key to the economy of several Latin American countries.^[98] Mexico receives the largest number of international tourists, with 22.3 million visitors in 2010, followed by Argentina, with 5.2 million in 2010; Brazil, with 5.1 million; Dominican Republic, with 4.1 million;, Puerto Rico, with 3.6 million and Chile with 2.7 million.^[99] Places such as Cancún, Galápagos Islands, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Cartagena de Indias, Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Margarita Island, São Paulo, Salar de Uyuni, Punta del Este, Santo Domingo, Labadee, San Juan, La Habana, Panama City, Iguazu Falls, Puerto Vallarta, Poás Volcano National Park, Punta Cana, Viña del Mar, Mexico City, Quito, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Lima, Maceió, Florianópolis, Cuzco and Patagonia are popular among international visitors in the region.^{[citation needed]}

Performance indicators for international tourism in Latin America

Country	International tourist arrivals 2010[100] x1000	International tourism receipts 2010[100] Millions of USD	Receipts per arrival (2)/(1) 2010 (USD/Tourist)	Receipts per capita 2009[100][101] USD	Revenues as % of exports goods and services[98] 2003	Tourism revenues as % GDP[98] 2003	% Direct & indirect employment in tourism[98] 2005	World Ranking Tourism Compet.[102] TTCI 2011	Index value TTCI[102] 2011
Argentina	5,288	4,930	932	120	7.4	1.8	9.1	60	4.20
Bolivia	671*	279*	415	28	9.4	2.2	7.6	117	3.35
Brazil	5,161	5,919	1,146	29	3.2	0.5	7.0	52	4.36
Chile	2,766	1,636	591	98	5.3	1.9	6.8	57	4.27
Colombia	2,385	2,083	873	47	6.6	1.4	5.9	77	3.94
Costa Rica	2,100	2,111	1,005	496	17.5	8.1	13.3	44	4.43
Cuba	2,507	2,080*	829*	181*	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Dominican Republic	4,125	4,240	1,027	439	36.2	18.8	19.8	72	3.99
Ecuador	1,047	781	745	53	6.3	1.5	7.4	87	3.79
El Salvador	1,150	390	339	54	12.9	3.4	6.8	96	3.68
Guatemala	1,219	1,378	1,130	103	16.0	2.6	6.0	86	3.82
Haiti*	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	19.4	3.2	4.7	N/A	N/A
Honduras	896	650	725	82	13.5	5.0	8.5	88	3.79
Mexico	22,395	11,872	530	106	5.7	1.6	14.2	43	4.43
Nicaragua	1,011	309	305	52	15.5	3.7	5.6	100	3.56
Panama	1,317	1,676	1,272	498	10.6	6.3	12.9	56	4.30
Paraguay	465	217	466	31	4.2	1.3	6.4	123	3.26
Peru	2,299	2,274	989	76	9.0	1.6	7.6	69	4.04
Uruguay	2,352	1,496	636	428	14.2	3.6	10.7	58	4.24
Venezuela	615*	618	1,004	23	1.3	0.4	8.1	106	3.46

• Note (1): Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba, marked with * do not have all statistical data available for 2010. Data shown is for 2009
• Note (3): Green shadow denotes the country with the best indicator. Yellow shadow denotes the country with the lowest performance for that indicator.

Culture[link]

Procession in Comayagua, Honduras.

Toucans such as this Keel-billed Toucan are common in Nicaragua's rainforests

Latin American culture is a mixture of many cultural expressions worldwide. It is the product of many diverse influences:

• Indigenous cultures of the people who inhabited the continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Ancient and very advanced civilizations developed their own political, social and religious systems. The Maya, the Aztecs and the Incas are examples of these.
• Western civilization, in particular the culture of Europe, was brought mainly by the colonial powers—the Spanish, Portuguese and French—between the 16th and 19th centuries. The most enduring European colonial influence is language and Roman Catholicism. More recently, additional cultural influences came from the United States and Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, due to the growing influence of the former on the world stage and immigration from the latter. The influence of the United States is particularly strong in northern Latin America, especially Puerto Rico, which is a United States territory. Prior to 1959 Cuba, who fought for its independence along American soldiers in the Spanish-American War, was also known to have a close socioeconomic relation with the United States. In addition, the United States also helped Panama become an independent state from Colombia and built the twenty-mile-long Panama Canal Zone in Panama which held from 1903 (the Panama Canal opened to transoceanic freight traffic in 1914) to 1999, when the Torrijos-Carter Treaties restored Panamanian control of the Canal Zone. South America experienced waves of immigration of Europeans, especially Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Germans. With the end of colonialism, French culture was also able to exert a direct influence in Latin America, especially in the realms of high culture, science and medicine.^[103] This can be seen in any expression of the region's artistic traditions, including painting, literature and music, and in the realms of science and politics.
• African cultures, whose presence derives from a long history of New World slavery. Peoples of African descent have influenced the ethno-scapes of Latin America and the Caribbean. This is manifested for instance in dance and religion, especially in countries like Belize, Brazil, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Haiti, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, and Cuba.

Art[link]

Casapueblo, Carlos Páez Vilaró's citadel–sculpture near Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Palacio de Bellas Artes, Cd. de México.

Beyond the rich tradition of indigenous art, the development of Latin American visual art owed much to the influence of Spanish, Portuguese and French Baroque painting, which in turn often followed the trends of the Italian Masters. In general, this artistic Eurocentrism began to fade in the early twentieth century, as Latin-Americans began to acknowledge the uniqueness of their condition and started to follow their own path.

From the early twentieth century, the art of Latin America was greatly inspired by the Constructivist Movement. The Constructivist Movement was founded in Russia around 1913 by Vladimir Tatlin. The Movement quickly spread from Russia to Europe and then into Latin America. Joaquín Torres García and Manuel Rendón have been credited with bringing the Constructivist Movement into Latin America from Europe.

An important artistic movement generated in Latin America is muralism represented by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo in Mexico and Santiago Martinez Delgado and Pedro Nel Gómez in Colombia. Some of the most impressive Muralista works can be found in Mexico, Colombia, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Painter Frida Kahlo, one of the most famous Mexican artists, painted about her own life and the Mexican culture in a style combining Realism, Symbolism and Surrealism. Kahlo's work commands the highest selling price of all Latin American paintings.^[104]

Colombian sculptor and painter Fernando Botero is also widely known by his works which, on first examination, are noted for their exaggerated proportions and the corpulence of the human and animal figures.

Film[link]

Latin American film is both rich and diverse. Historically, the main centers of production have been Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba.

Latin American film flourished after sound was introduced in cinema, which added a linguistic barrier to the export of Hollywood film south of the border. The 1950s and 1960s saw a movement towards Third Cinema, led by the Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. More recently, a new style of directing and stories filmed has been tagged as "New Latin American Cinema."

Guadalajara International Film Festival the festival is considered the most prestigious film festival in Latin America and among the most important Spanish language film festivals in the world.

Mexican cinema started out in the silent era from 1896–1929 and flourished in the Golden Era of the 1940s. It boasted a huge industry comparable to Hollywood at the time with stars such as María Félix, Dolores del Río, and Pedro Infante. In the 1970s, Mexico was the location for many cult horror and action movies. More recently, films such as Amores Perros (2000) and Y tu mamá también (2001) enjoyed box office and critical acclaim and propelled Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñarritu to the front rank of Hollywood directors. Alejandro González Iñárritu directed in (2006) Babel and Alfonso Cuarón directed (Children of Men in (2006), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in (2004)). Guillermo del Toro close friend and also a front rank Hollywood director in Hollywood and Spain, directed Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and produce El Orfanato (2007). Carlos Carrera (The Crime of Father Amaro), and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga are also some of the most known present-day Mexican film makers. Rudo y Cursi released in December (2008) in Mexico directed by Carlos Cuarón.

Argentine cinema has also been prominenent since the first half of the 20th century and today averages over 60 full-length titles yearly. The industry suffered during the 1976–1983 military dictatorship; but re-emerged to produce the Academy Award winner The Official Story in 1985. A wave of imported U.S. films again damaged the industry in the early 1990s, though it soon recovered, thriving even during the Argentine economic crisis around 2001. Many Argentine movies produced during recent years have been internationally acclaimed, including Nueve reinas (2000), El abrazo partido (2004), El otro (2007) and the 2010 Foreign Language Academy Award winner El secreto de sus ojos.

In Brazil, the Cinema Novo movement created a particular way of making movies with critical and intellectual screenplays, a clearer photography related to the light of the outdoors in a tropical landscape, and a political message. The modern Brazilian film industry has become more profitable inside the country, and some of its productions have received prizes and recognition in Europe and the United States, with movies such as Central do Brasil (1999), Cidade de Deus (2002) and Tropa de Elite (2007).

Cuban cinema has enjoyed much official support since the Cuban revolution and important film-makers include Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

It is also worth noting that many Latin Americans have achieved significant success within Hollywood, for instance Carmen Miranda (Portuguese-Brazilian), Salma Hayek (Mexican), and Benicio del Toro (Puerto Rican), while Mexican Americans such as Robert Rodriguez have also made their mark.

Literature[link]

Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez signing a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude in Havana, Cuba.

Chilean Poet Gabriela Mistral, first Latin American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945.

Pre-Columbian cultures were primarily oral, though the Aztecs and Mayans, for instance, produced elaborate codices. Oral accounts of mythological and religious beliefs were also sometimes recorded after the arrival of European colonizers, as was the case with the Popol Vuh. Moreover, a tradition of oral narrative survives to this day, for instance among the Quechua-speaking population of Peru and the Quiché (K'iche') of Guatemala.

From the very moment of Europe's "discovery" of the continent, early explorers and conquistadores produced written accounts and crónicas of their experience—such as Columbus's letters or Bernal Díaz del Castillo's description of the conquest of Mexico. During the colonial period, written culture was often in the hands of the church, within which context Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote memorable poetry and philosophical essays. Towards the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the 19th, a distinctive criollo literary tradition emerged, including the first novels such as Lizardi's El Periquillo Sarniento (1816).

The 19th century was a period of "foundational fictions" (in critic Doris Sommer's words), novels in the Romantic or Naturalist traditions that attempted to establish a sense of national identity, and which often focussed on the indigenous question or the dichotomy of "civilization or barbarism" (for which see, say, Domingo Sarmiento's Facundo (1845), Juan León Mera's Cumandá (1879), or Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões (1902)). The 19th century also witnessed the realist work of Machado de Assis, who made use of surreal devices of metaphor and playful narrative construction, much admired by critic Harold Bloom.

Argentine Jorge Luis Borges in L'Hôtel, Paris in 1969.

At the turn of the 20th century, modernismo emerged, a poetic movement whose founding text was Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío's Azul (1888). This was the first Latin American literary movement to influence literary culture outside of the region, and was also the first truly Latin American literature, in that national differences were no longer so much at issue. José Martí, for instance, though a Cuban patriot, also lived in Mexico and the U.S. and wrote for journals in Argentina and elsewhere.

Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa

However, what really put Latin American literature on the global map was no doubt the literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s, distinguished by daring and experimental novels (such as Julio Cortázar's Rayuela (1963)) that were frequently published in Spain and quickly translated into English. The Boom's defining novel was Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad (1967), which led to the association of Latin American literature with magic realism, though other important writers of the period such as the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes do not fit so easily within this framework. Arguably, the Boom's culmination was Augusto Roa Bastos's monumental Yo, el supremo (1974). In the wake of the Boom, influential precursors such as Juan Rulfo, Alejo Carpentier, and above all Jorge Luis Borges were also rediscovered.

Contemporary literature in the region is vibrant and varied, ranging from the best-selling Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende to the more avant-garde and critically acclaimed work of writers such as Diamela Eltit, Giannina Braschi, Ricardo Piglia, or Roberto Bolaño. There has also been considerable attention paid to the genre of testimonio, texts produced in collaboration with subaltern subjects such as Rigoberta Menchú. Finally, a new breed of chroniclers is represented by the more journalistic Carlos Monsiváis and Pedro Lemebel.

The region boasts six Nobel Prize winners: in addition to the two Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral (1945) and Pablo Neruda (1971), there is also the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (1982), the Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967), the Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz (1990), and the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa (2010).

Music and dance[link]

Celebrating the annual "Alegria por la vida" Carnaval in Managua, Nicaragua

Latin America has produced many successful worldwide artists in terms of recorded global music sales. Among the most successful have been Gloria Estefan (Cuba) and Roberto Carlos (Brazil), both of whom have sold over 100 million records, Carlos Santana (Mexico) with over 75 million, Luis Miguel (Mexico), Shakira (Colombia) and Vicente Fernández (Mexico) with over 50 million records sold worldwide.^[105]

Salsa dancing

Caribbean Hispanic music, such as merengue, bachata, salsa, and more recently reggaeton, from such countries as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico,Trinidad, Cuba, and Panama has been strongly influenced by African rhythms and melodies. Haiti's compas is a genre of music that draws influence and is thus similar to its Caribbean Hispanic counterparts, with an element of jazz and modern sound as well.^[106][107]

Another well-known Latin American musical genre includes the Argentine and Uruguayan tango, as well as the distinct nuevo tango, a fusion of tango, acoustic and electronic music popularized by bandoneón virtuoso Ástor Piazzolla. Samba, North American jazz, European classical music and choro combined to form bossa nova in Brazil, popularized by guitarrist João Gilberto and pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Other influential Latin American sounds include the Antillean soca and calypso, the Honduras (Garifuna) punta, the Colombian cumbia and vallenato, the Chilean cueca, the Ecuadorian boleros, and rockoleras, the Mexican ranchera, the Nicaraguan palo de Mayo, the Peruvian marinera and tondero, the Uruguayan candombe, the French Antillean zouk (derived from Haitian compas) and the various styles of music from pre-Columbian traditions that are widespread in the Andean region.

A couple dances Argentine Tango.

The classical composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) worked on the recording of native musical traditions within his homeland of Brazil. The traditions of his homeland heavily influenced his classical works.^[108] Also notable is the recent work of the Cuban Leo Brouwer and guitar work of the Venezuelan Antonio Lauro and the Paraguayan Agustín Barrios. Latin America has also produced world-class classical performers such as the Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau, Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire and the Argentine pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.

Arguably, the main contribution to music entered through folklore, where the true soul of the Latin American and Caribbean countries is expressed. Musicians such as Yma Súmac, Chabuca Granda, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara, Facundo Cabral, Mercedes Sosa, Jorge Negrete, Luiz Gonzaga, Caetano Veloso, Susana Baca, Chavela Vargas, Simon Diaz, Julio Jaramillo, Toto la Momposina as well as musical ensembles such as Inti Illimani and Los Kjarkas are magnificent examples of the heights that this soul can reach.

Latin pop, including many forms of rock, is popular in Latin America today (see Spanish language rock and roll).^[109]

More recently, Reggaeton, which blends Jamaican reggae and dancehall with Latin America genres such as bomba and plena, as well as that of hip hop, is becoming more popular, in spite of the controversy surrounding its lyrics, dance steps (Perreo) and music videos. It has become very popular among populations with a "migrant culture" influence – both Latino populations in the U.S., such as southern Florida and New York City, and parts of Latin America where migration to the U.S. is common, such as Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Mexico.^[110]

Bibliography[link]

• Azevedo, Aroldo. O Brasil e suas regiões. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1971. (Portuguese)
• Enciclopédia Barsa. Volume 4: Batráquio – Camarão, Filipe. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopædia Britannica do Brasil, 1987. (Portuguese)
• Coelho, Marcos Amorim. Geografia do Brasil. 4th ed. São Paulo: Moderna, 1996. (Portuguese)
• Galeano, Eduardo. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. 1973
• Edwards, Sebastián. Left Behind: Latin America and the False Promise of Populism. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
• Moreira, Igor A. G. O Espaço Geográfico, geografia geral e do Brasil. 18. Ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1981. (Portuguese)
• Vesentini, José William. Brasil, sociedade e espaço – Geografia do Brasil. 7th Ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1988. (Portuguese)
• Julio Miranda Vidal: (2007) Ciencia y tecnología en América Latina Edición electrónica gratuita. Texto completo en http://www.eumed.net/libros/2007a/237/

See also[link]

	Latin America portal
	North America portal
	South America portal

Notes[link]

References[link]