Latin America not a part of the West???

[Techno-Druid]

I've noticed that many individuals don't realize that Latin America is a part of the West and Western culture? From a John Oliver-Donald Trump response video about Mexicans "threatening" the European culture of America to conversations with different people across the internet, there's definitely a minority of people that do not realize that Latin America is a part of the West or choose to categorize it separate. Why do you think there is ignorance on Latin America being a part of the West?

[Deleted]

Wasn't aware this was a thing, also never heard it called Latin America either. Isn't it North American , South America

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Well Mexico is technically NA

[Manabomb]

Wasn't aware this was a thing, also never heard it called Latin America either. Isn't it North American , South America

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Well Mexico is technically NA

Generally "Latin America" is a term used to define many north and south American countries south of the United States. Mexico, Panama, Argentina are just a few of the countries considered to be "Latin American".

Atleast if my memory from college serves me right now.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

Well we have a lot of dumb people here. I'm not suprised. Just watch some of Jimmy Kimmels on the street bits. Geography is unfortunately a subject many people are even dumber on.

[Techno-Druid]

Wasn't aware this was a thing, also never heard it called Latin America either. Isn't it North American , South America

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Well Mexico is technically NA

Latin America is the term applied to Spanish, Portuguese and French speaking countries in the Americas. Mexico and a few other small nations are NA, the rest are SA.

[Kurioxan]

Nope. The West is a cultural group amongst others. Even though some of the countries contain a very high white population, they are not "west" per se.

[Techno-Druid]

Btw, before someone references "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel P. Huntington, which separates Latin America from the West, it's important to note that he claimed that Latin America was possibly a part of the West even as he attempted to distinguish Latin America with the West and another important note is that there's little evidence to suggest that Latinos themselves consider themselves separate from the West. Indeed, I've heard stories of many Latinos traveling to European Latin countries and feeling a bit "at home" in countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, etc.

The Clash of Civilizations
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ations_map.png

[Sky High]

"west" I'm pretty sure is referring to what most Americans understand as democratic in nature. why at least we don"t consider Cuba to be "western" and it sits less then a hundred miles from Florida. and let's be clear there is a cultural difference between america and everything south of it. nothing real major or malevolent, just notable differences.

[Zamfix]

Culturally and economically, not really. It's not just about geography, that'd be pretty meaningless.

[Khaza-R]

Fair question. Both have European influences.

The biggest difference I can see is that the majority of people in Australia, Canada and the US are descended directly from Europeans. Thus part of European culture. Where as people view Latin Americans more as indigenous people influenced by European culture and other cultures as well.

Wasn't aware this was a thing, also never heard it called Latin America either. Isn't it North American , South America

Latin American is South America + Central America + Parts of the Carribean. Generally its the greater Spanish-speaking region in the Western Hemisphere.

[In Ogres We Trust]

I've noticed that many individuals don't realize that Latin America is a part of the West and Western culture? From a John Oliver-Donald Trump response video about Mexicans "threatening" the European culture of America to conversations with different people across the internet, there's definitely a minority of people that do not realize that Latin America is a part of the West or choose to categorize it separate. Why do you think there is ignorance on Latin America being a part of the West?

Most of Latin America is filled with non-Europeans, so in the traditional/ethnic sense, no, it's not a part of the Occident.

Occident
Europe
Russia
British North America
Australia
New Zealand
European Overseas Territories

Occidental Grey Areas
Latin America
Levant
North Africa

Occidental Influenced/Oriental
Hong Kong
Japan
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan

Now, obviously, this is just my own list, but I would assert that it sums up most of the "West." Also, short of a revolt amongst the European population, as the United States shifts into its Third and Fourth World demographics, it'll no longer enjoy its status as a European power (if it remains as a power at all).

[Techno-Druid]

Nope. The West is a cultural group amongst others. Even though some of the countries contain a very high white population, they are not "west" per se.

West does not entirely equal White. Latin America also fits most if not all qualifications of a Western Nation.

- Romance Languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French)
- Roman Catholicism
- Live similar lifestyles to those in Spain in other Latin nations.

It's also important to note that while most latinos aren't "white" by American standards, most mestizos (Euro/Indian) and mulatto (Euro/Afro) have much higher percentage of European ancestry than Sub-Saharan or Amerindian.

[Slant]

Wasn't aware this was a thing, also never heard it called Latin America either. Isn't it North American , South America

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Well Mexico is technically NA

In Germany we actually call them Middle America. Starting with Mexico, including all the Carribean Islands (although we also just call them the Carribean if we're just talking about vacation and those islands) and ending with the landbridge at the south of Panama. The term "Latin America" is very English in my understanding.

[Rixis]

I'd say in the UK (or where i'm from) we call it Central America. Australia, as far east as you can get being part of the West

[Kurioxan]

West does not entirely equal White. Latin America also fits most if not all qualifications of a Western Nation.

- Romance Languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French)
- Roman Catholicism
- Live similar lifestyles to those in Spain in other Latin nations.

It's also important to note that while most latinos aren't "white" by American standards, most mestizos (Euro/Indian) and mulatto (Euro/Afro) have much higher percentage of European ancestry than Sub-Saharan or Amerindian.

You are thinking of Mexicans and some parts of the south american population, big parts of it are very much white in South America esp Brazil and Venezuela. If you think there is a racial divide in wealth in the US, wait until you go to south America.

Anyway, its about culture, not race, which is why i pointed out a lot of them are white but despite that, they are not considered western.

[Techno-Druid]

Fair question. Both have European influences.

The biggest difference I can see is that the majority of people in Australia, Canada and the US are descended directly from Europeans. Thus part of European culture. Where as people view Latin Americans more as indigenous people influenced by European culture and other cultures as well.

I did find a good argument posted on another website on why Latinos should/could/are considered Western in regards to ethnicity.

Another reason often cited for not including Latin America in the West stems from the fact that most of its people are not “white.” However, a “white” population does not a Western country make. Eastern Europe nations such as Lithuania and Estonia, for example, are almost entirely “white,” but they have never been considered part of the Occident, least of all by Lithuanians and Estonians themselves. Others might argue that large portions of Latin America, such as Bolivia and Guatemala, are inhabited by people with no European ancestry whatsoever. But the same thing could be said of Canada, where in the most northerly areas of the country the population is mostly Aboriginal and Inuit.

Moreover, most Latin Americans have at least some European ancestry. The populations of some nations, like Argentina, Uruguay and Costa Rica are over 80% “white,” and many others possess substantial “white” minorities (including some people with no family ties to Spain; my last “white” boyfriend, for instance, was born in Peru to a German-Northern Italian couple). Nonetheless, even setting Latin America’s “white” inhabitants aside, the average mestizo [1] or mulatto [2] has more in common with his or her European forbears than Indian and/or African ones. He or she in all likelihood

1. speaks a European language — Spanish in most of the region and Portuguese in Brazil — as his or her mother tongue;
2. practices a religion that while not originally from Europe, took root on that continent more widely than on any other; and
3. leads a lifestyle similar to that of Spain, Portugal and other Latin countries.

From this standpoint, it’s hard to claim that Latin Americans are any less Western than Americans or Australians.

Undoubtedly Native American and African customs have influenced Latin America. And it’s understandable that countries like Mexico, which broke away forcefully from their “motherland,” Spain, are now stressing their Indian roots over their European ones. Other nations emphasize their “mestizaje” — the term for “racial mixture” in Spanish — in an attempt to recognize their dual (or in the case of places like Brazil with a strong African component, triple) heritages. But the reality is that for most mixed-race Latin Americans — who, by the way, form the majority of the area’s population — their European heritage has played a far greater role in shaping in their world views, social attitudes, and daily lives than has their non-“white” ancestry.

Indeed, the fact that miscegenation — generally involving Europeans and other “races,” though individuals of mixed African and Native American descent also exist — played such a major role in Latin American history is probably the principal reason for that region’s status as part of the West. It’s important to stress that not all Spanish and Portuguese colonies joined the ranks of the Western world. Spanish rule in the Philippines, for example, did not transform the islands into a Latin country. Though Spain did have considerable influence on the Philippines — in converting most of the people to Catholicism, in providing Spanish loan words to the local languages, and in giving the people Spanish first and/or last names — the Filipinos’ pre-colonial Asian culture remained largely intact even after three centuries of Spanish domination — roughly the same amount of time Spain controlled Latin America. Interestingly, miscegenation between Spaniards and Filipinos (or should we say Filipinas, because practically all such unions involved Spanish men and Filipina women) occurred on a fairly limited scale, as very few Spaniards settled in the islands. As historian John Phelan explains, the Philippines failed to become a Latin nation as Mexico did in part because the former lacked a mixed-race population to help Hispanicize the natives and by extension the country.

A friend from Nicaragua, a man of mixed Spanish and Native American descent who would never have passed for “white” in the United States, admitted to me that he felt “at home” on a visit to Italy because Italy is a Latin country, like Spain and Portugal. Obviously Latin America is not a carbon copy of Iberia. [3] But neither is the United States a replica of England. And just as no one would ever classify my three cats as fish, amphibians, reptiles or birds, Latin America cannot be anything but Western.

Latin American is South America + Central America + Parts of the Carribean. Generally its the greater Spanish-speaking region in the Western Hemisphere.

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...merica-Western

Very nice read.

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You are thinking of Mexicans and some parts of the south american population, big parts of it are very much white in South America esp Brazil and Venezuela. If you think there is a racial divide in wealth in the US, wait until you go to south America.

Anyway, its about culture, not race, which is why i pointed out a lot of them are white but despite that, they are not considered western.

Well then culture entails an even stronger case for Latin America being a part of the West. Many traditions exist as taken directly from Spain or Hispanized Indigenous traditions spread throughout Latin America.

Architecture, many traditional clothing and many other things are appropriated from Spain, Portugal and France (to a much less extent).

[In Ogres We Trust]

West does not entirely equal White. Latin America also fits most if not all qualifications of a Western Nation.

- Romance Languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French)
- Roman Catholicism
- Live similar lifestyles to those in Spain in other Latin nations.

It's also important to note that while most latinos aren't "white" by American standards, most mestizos (Euro/Indian) and mulatto (Euro/Afro) have much higher percentage of European ancestry than Sub-Saharan or Amerindian.

The Occident (West) is a European concept that specifically counters the Asian concept of the Orient (East), so by all standards, the West does, in fact, equate to meaning white or European in origin, culture, and demographics. As for your comments about the former "Latin" possessions of Central and South America, I'll simply point to my list that classifies them as being "grey" areas for the terminology.

[nextormento]

Latin America was possibly a part of the West even as he attempted to distinguish Latin America with the West and another important note is that there's little evidence to suggest that Latinos themselves consider themselves separate from the West. Indeed, I've heard stories of many Latinos traveling to European Latin countries and feeling a bit "at home" in countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, etc.

It's no wonder than they feel "at home" in the places where their culture takes roots.
And yet they won't experience the same when traveling to the USA, which is also the west.
Of note just a few decades ago it wasn't uncommon for people to mention Africa being everything south of the Pyrinees. Casually segregating the two countries which comprise the background of Ibero America.
The concept of what is the west is in flux.
They are very westernized. They're also fortunate to retain they non-western cultural ancestry too.

[In Ogres We Trust]

You are thinking of Mexicans and some parts of the south american population, big parts of it are very much white in South America esp Brazil and Venezuela. If you think there is a racial divide in wealth in the US, wait until you go to south America.

Anyway, its about culture, not race, which is why i pointed out a lot of them are white but despite that, they are not considered western.

No, it's about race and culture as your culture is, by and large, a direct result of your genetics.

[Milchshake]

The reason they're not a part of the West, is World War 2 and the Cold War.

Latin America, Spain, and Portugal mostly took a siesta.


So all the cool kids went to form a club while you were sleeping.