Latin America is a geographical, geopolitical, and cultural concept defined by the common characteristics of some of the countries located on the American continent. Most well-known is the use of Latin-derived languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, and French as their official languages, resulting from a history of colonization. Latin America comprises a diverse conglomeration of racial or ethnic groups, including Indigenous communities, Afro-descendant peoples, Mestizo, white, and even Asian people.
What Does “Latin America” Mean?
The term “Latin America” was introduced in 1836 by French economist Michel Chevalier to differentiate countries on the American continent speaking Latin-derived languages from Anglo-Saxon America (USA and Canada). Latin America gained relevance as a cultural concept because it provided an alternative to previous categories that emphasized the region’s colonial legacy. It was also used to bring more visibility and unity to Latin American countries as a cultural and geopolitical block against imperialist and colonialist interests from North America and Europe. Similar terms previously in use included “Hispanoamerica,” which refers to all the countries where Spanish is used as an official language and that were previously colonies of the Spanish Empire, and “Iberoamerica,” which includes Brazil as an ex-colony of Portugal, the other country that, together with Spain, shapes the Iberian Peninsula in the most Western part of Europe.
Today, the most widely accepted interpretation of “Latin America” encompasses the Central American, Caribbean, and South American sub-regions. However, another more generous definition of the term, based on cultural markers, includes some states of the US highly populated by Latin Americans, such as California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida. This ambiguity is reflected in how Mexico, a border country, has historically and linguistically been disputed between Latin America and Anglo Saxon America. For instance, while Mexico is considered geographically to be part of North America, culturally, it is viewed as part of Latin America among the region’s Spanish-speaking countries.
Another region of the Americas often in dispute when considering geographical and cultural definitions of what Latin America means or includes is the Caribbean. Some islands share cultural characteristics closer to those of North America, while others align more strongly with Central and South America. For instance, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas are culturally closer to the US, while the Dominican Republic and Cuba can be considered closer to the Latin world. In Spanish-speaking countries, it is more common for the Caribbean islands to be included as a separate but related region and referred to as a single unit, Latinoamérica y el Caribe (Latin America and the Caribbean).
Although geographical boundaries between countries are largely well-defined, in terms of culture, borders can become fuzzy, often in regard to specific regions within national territories. For instance, although South American countries such as Colombia and Venezuela are considered part of Latin America, many cultural traits on their northern coasts are more closely related to the Caribbean region.
The Evolution of Latin America
The American continent was first populated by Paleo-Indians (the ancestors of current indigenous communities) in the late Pleistocene (16,500–13,500 BCE). They migrated from Siberia through a landed path in the Bering Strait. In the Archaic Period, around 6000 BCE, different small communities of hunter-gatherers were spread across the American continent. By 1200 BCE, archaeologists found the earliest evidence of the Olmec culture, the first more established sedentary civilization on the continent. Until the end of the 15th century and the arrival of European colonial powers, a number of civilizations thrived across the continent: the Adena or Anasazi in North America, the Aztecs and Mayas in Mesoamerica, and the Incas and Muiscas in South America, among many others.
After the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Bahamas in 1492, Spanish colonizers spread from Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south between the 16th and 19th centuries. Before individual countries were established, what is today Latin America was first divided into different political divisions: the Virreinato de Nueva España (Viceroyalty of New Spain) in what is now the south of the US through Central America, the Virreinato del Perú (Viceroyalty of Peru) spreading southwards through the Andean Cordillera, the Virreinato de Nueva Granada (Viceroyalty of New Granada) in what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, northern Peru, and Panama, and the Virreinato de la Plata (Viceroyalty of la Plata) in what is now Argentina. The Portuguese arrived in 1500 and settled mainly in what is now Brazil.
Influenced by the French Revolution (1789-1799), the independence of British colonies in North America (1776), and the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), different revolutionary and independence civil wars took place across the continent throughout the 19th century. The Spanish crown, weakened by the French invasion of Spain, faced various confrontations in the Americas between independence forces (called patriotas or patriots) and the Spanish army (called realistas or loyalists), resulting in a long process of independence for the various Latin American countries between 1808 and 1825.
The 20th century in Latin America saw the consolidation of democracies via peaceful or confrontational strategies while the region gained more relevance in the world’s economic trade. During World War II, most Latin American countries aligned with the Allies. After the war, many populist regimes flourished across the continent, promoting internal economic growth. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, different rural guerrilla groups developed, advocating communist agendas, and were highly persecuted by the governments’ military forces.
After the Cold War, the concept of the “Third World” was created to refer to countries unaligned with either of the two blocks. Latin America, along with different African and Southeast Asian countries, were considered part of it. Today, “Third World” is still used anachronistically to refer to countries as “underdeveloped” or with various social instabilities compared to a supposedly more stable and privileged “First World.”
The history of Latin America has been one of conflict and social inequality, primarily originating in the prolonged confrontation between different worldviews and political ideologies since the 16th century’s colonialism. Today, Latin America can present itself to the world as a region that, although still dealing with many internal social and economic complexities, has made significant advancements in terms of human rights, critical academic development, and unity across countries that is not common in other parts of the world.
Latin America: A People and Their Cultures
The website Statista calculated that by 2022, Latin Americans would comprise 659 million people living in the subregions of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico. “Latin American,” however, encompasses a broad range of races, ethnicities, and cultural practices.
The arrival of the Spanish in the so-called New World resulted in a rapid decline in the indigenous population due to warfare and disease. This led the Spanish to replace them by bringing enslaved Africans to work in the new settlements. It is calculated that around 12 million Africans were transported to the American continent between the 16th and the 19th century, with 2 to 60 million dying because of the transatlantic slave trade. The coexistence of European colonists, indigenous communities, and Africans during colonial times resulted in a mixture of ethnic and cultural traits throughout Latin America.
During this time, the mixing of different ethnic groups was considered harmful as it was believed that races could be disrupted if combined. This idea was influenced by scientific racism employed by different European thinkers since the 17th century who believed that some races were superior to others. These arguments were spread by the Spanish crown, who, during the colonial period, established a legal differentiation between Hispanic society and Indigenous people through a system of castes. Every possible combination was assigned a name to organize people by racial traits and rank, but all mixed-race peoples were viewed with disdain and considered inferior to the white Spanish.
Although it is unlikely that this system was rigid enough to shape a fixed ethnically differentiated society, paintings from the 18th century show how the mixing between races was categorized into separate legal definitions. Mestizo would refer to the mix between a Spanish man and an Indigenous woman; castizo, a mix between a mestizo man and a Spanish woman; and mulatto, a mix between a Spanish man and an African woman, among others.
Though this system was designed to organize and control people, it ultimately had different implications for the development of racial and cultural differences between communities on the continent, which can still be seen today. Although most Latin Americans today are mixed-race or mestizos, combining white, Black, and Indigenous heritage, some regions in Latin America have remained ethnically divided, segregated, or marginalized. One example is Colombia, where most Afro-Colombians are concentrated on the Pacific Coast. Enslaved Africans settled in the region during colonial times, and it has recently been subject to high social instability and armed conflict. In the same country, most indigenous communities in the Amazon Rainforest have been historically excluded from central cities by the purposeful failure to establish transportation routes.
Abya Yala: The “New” Latin America?
“Abya Yala” is a concept that recently has gained more visibility among indigenous and feminist Latin American movements, intending to create more cultural and ethnic inclusiveness. This concept comes from the Kuna community, located between Colombia and Panama, who used it to refer to the American continent in their native language. Many social movements have joined in advocating the use of this term instead of “America,” seeking to create distance from the colonial past that both the words “Latino” and “America” belong to. “Latino” refers to a family of languages that were introduced through colonial power, and “America” comes from Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who long ago proposed that the lands in the west recently “discovered” by Christopher Columbus were, in fact, an entire continent unknown to Europeans.
The concept “Abya Yala” means something close to “mature or flourishing soil” and was first introduced by Bolivian indigenous leader Takir Mamani and accepted in 1977 by the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. However, the concept is subject to debate. Some critics argue there is no evidence that the Kuna people knew about the whole extension of the continent when they conceived the term and that, therefore, it would be inappropriate to include the continent’s entire landmass. Of course, when the continent was “discovered” during Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci’s explorations, Europeans were also unaware of the whole extension of the “American” lands—Columbus thought he had arrived in India, and Vespucci had explored only the eastern side of the Caribbean and South America.
Despite criticism, “Abya Yala” continues to gain popularity because it creates a sense of historical awareness about the Americas’ colonial past and serves as a counterpoint to centuries of indigenous knowledge being stolen or destroyed.
