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Civilization in latin America
History of latin america essay
History of latin america essay
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Ethnicity and Latin America Latin America and the American colonies were “tamed” based on completely different ideologies. From a Latin American perspective, the most important of the European explorers were of course, the Spanish and the Portuguese. These explorers arrived in Christopher Columbus’ “new world” with the express goal of bringing glory and prestige to their homeland. In stark contrast, settlers came to the colonies seeking freedom from the religious persecution in Europe. The different approaches used in each area affected how well and to what extent the African, indigenous, and European cultures combined and shaped the characteristics of the regions today. When the Europeans arrived in America in the 15th century, they encountered the American Indians for the first time. Though only some Native Americans made deliberate contact with the settlers in attempts to work peacefully, the entire population felt the new presence. In addition to the violence shown to the “savages”—often in order to take their lands—diseases for which they had no immunity were introduced, therefore resulting in devastating losses of life. As attempts at civilizing the “redskins” began, some of the Natives accepted the absorption into the new society while many rejected the change and strove to maintain their culture. Years later began the long-standing and undeniably cruel establishment of slave labor in America. Whether they arrived free only to later be captured by slave catchers, or they entered by way of the West Indies as captured African “black gold”, black slaves endured over a century of oppression and discrimination. Halfway between the end of the American Civil War and the growth of the civil rights movement, the beginn... ... middle of paper ... ...Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America were far more accepting of other Europeans than of other races. To this day there remain disparities in ethnic distributions; Argentina’s population has an overwhelming 85% of European descent with very few people of mixed race, while neighboring Chile consists of 93% mestizos. The different ways in which Latin America and the United States experienced their colonization impact their societies today. Though the backgrounds of each place are different, the results were similar; the Europeans came, saw, conquered, and abused the indigenous and Africans, who built up the foundations of modern society. Despite the passage of time and wide knowledge of the horrors of our past, inequalities and prejudices against blacks and natives that began centuries ago exist even today. 1 http://www.ecrweb.org/f/March_Mission_BellW.pdf
In Michel Gobat’s The Invention of the Latin America: A Transnational History of Anti-Imperialism, Democracy, and Race, he discusses the social construction of the term Latin America in the 19th century. The term Latin America was used to push against United States expansionism and European imperialism. The emergence of ‘Latin America’ is tied to a race, a democratic-republican government and linked to the idea of modernity, and the pushback against the United States. To be Latin America is to be modern, speak a romantic language, have Iberian ties and to embrace Roman Catholicism. By calling this specific geographical part of the world Latin is to imply the French imperialism within it. “Latin” is linked to this idea of “whiteness”, this means modernity that will allow Latin Americans to compete with the Anglo Saxon race. an argument for coining this term is because the people of current Latin America did not want to call the land America because of it’s association with the United States. They also did not want to call it just Latin because that implies that it is only associated with the French, instead they combined both to incorporate the two different words into one meaning. The Latin American identity also rose with the democratic, republican, and anti-colonial political culture that was shared in both North and South America.
Scattered throughout the Southwest and into Northern Mexico, descendants of the Black Seminoles and Maroons are living in this modern world today. Over one hundred years ago, the U.S. government seemed determined to systematically eliminate the Native Americans and manipulate the descendants of the Black slaves. That imperialistic attitude allowed the policies of the U.S. government to treat groups of people with less respect and concern than they treated their livestock.
The Hispanic community represents many nationalities and ethnicities, including Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, 15 Central and South American countries, Spain, and the Dominican Republic (Cattan, 1993). Hispanic group are well known in the workforce, politics, education, social economic and religion. The Spanish culture influences a variety of areas such as music, food, language. Most languages are rooted in Latin. It is always good to learn about other cultures if we expect the same consideration when we visit other countries. Differences are what make life interesting. Majority of the United States is built on immigration, which has made this country the most diverse. And the Hispanic group contributes to that diversity.
All cultures celebrate common life cycle events; such as birth, passage from childhood to adulthood, marriage and death. These are times of intense emotion and call for a significant celebration for those directly involved with the person experiencing the life cycle event. Most people appreciate some gesture of recognition that such an event has occurred. It is also an occasion for making positive connections with coworkers and friends, and teaches others about the various ways in which people approach and observe significant life events. In the Latin American and Hispanic culture, a major life cycle event is celebrated when a young girl turns fifteen years old; the celebration is called a quinceañera. In the Jewish culture, when a young girls turn twelve years old she becomes a “bat mitzvah” and is recognized as having the same rights as an adult. These two life-cycle events are major coming to age ceremonies that are celebrated within the cultures.
In fact, both contributed decisively to the nascence and global spread of a sort of Enlightenment that traversed, polish, languages and, neighborhood, in the process inventing new ideas of liberty, opinion of human brotherhood based on empathy, and truly universal conceptions of equality that became a point of departure for sociable, cultural and political experimentation. They have both developed a culture all their own, but look for inspiration to one another more than they do elsewhere, at least since the onset onrush of the Monroe Doctrine, and in view of a constant exchange of goods, populations and even territories. Those same commutations are the reservoir of their stark differences. The United States of United States of America is rich, while Latin America is comparatively poor. America fights war elsewhere in the world. Latin America does not. Look closely, however, and some of these distinctions between America and Latin America begin to blur. In fact, as America's
In the US it is very common to still hear of the poor way African Americans were treated in the early part of this nations History. We hear stories of black slaves working 18 hour days picking cotton and the trauma of slaves being beaten for disobeying their masters. For many African American families, it seems, that was the way of life not long ago. While it is very important to realize what these African Americans went through, I think it is often forgotten that indigenous people of Latin America were exploited in similar ways but through different Labor Systems.
Although, the Sistema de Castas was dismantled around the 19th century when colonies gained their independence from Spain, it’s repercussions are still present today. It has shaped the view of race and ethnicity as well as social norms in many parts of Central America, South America and Latin America. This can be seen in countries such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Panama. “One of the most puzzling, disconcerting phenomena that the non-native visitor confronts while traveling in Latin America is the relative ease with which pervasive and very visible discriminatory practices coexist with the denial of racism”. Racial discrimination exists and is very common in Hispanic America but is often denied or ignored. An excuse many Hispanics
Latin America represents 1/10 of the world's population, and geographically can be located from the land extensions of Mexico, until the Patagonia at Argentina. Some of the most relevant elements of today's culture in Latin America are; Religion, Values, Attitudes, Social structure, Social stratification, Language and Gift-giving hospitality. The predominant religion throughout history in Latin America has been Catholicism. From big cities to small villages, churches, basilicas, and cathedrals are found. Catholicism left its mark, from customs and values to architecture and art. During many years in many countries the Catholic Church had power over all civil institutions, education, and law. Nowadays religion plays an important role in Latin America, but the church and the state are officially separated, and the practice of other religions is freely allowed. As the author of our book states; the "catholic church is an important pillar of these societies." Other important factors of Latin American culture are values and attitudes. As our author states, " Cultural attitudes toward such factors as time, age, education, and status reflect these values and in turn shape the behavior of and opportunities available to international businesses operating in a given culture." In Latin American culture time is seeing as space. As the video shows, punctuality is not as important as resolving some problems that may arise in the way. Latin America besides being influenced by immigrants, conquerors, and slaves is also influenced by the occidental world when talking about architecture. Cities have both colonial and modern influence. The clothing has also a western and traditional tendency. Other important aspects of Lati...
The United States and Brazil each contain “big minorities of indigenous peoples, of blacks (because both had slavery until the second half of the 19th-century), and of immigrants from Italy, Germany and Asia (Chinese predominate in the US; Japanese in Brazil)” (“Comparing Brazil and the United States: American Brothers”). The indigenous population was susceptible to the foreign diseases brought over to the colonies by the European settlers, making it difficult to use them as a labor force. Slavery became the only viable option for the Europeans if they didn’t want to do work themselves. Although both were major slaveholding societies, the difference between the United States of America and Brazil lies in the racial classes within the two states. The United States’ racial classes originate from the deep seeded segregation of people of European descent (Caucasians) being the privileged and ‘superior’ race, while the black population (originally taken from their countries and forced into slavery in the Americas) being the ‘inferior’ and lacking appropriate living standards. African Americans were subjected to legal segregation and discrimination, as well as attacks (including torturing and lynching) by a white supremacy group called the Ku Klux Klan (simply because of their skin color) created serious socioeconomic disadvantages for the black population that remains today. This black versus white mentality in the United States has remained dominant even in 2015, especially since 2014 saw the rise of murdered black Americans by the predominately white police force. While the United States government allowed for legal segregation and has a “historical duality between black and white” (Drogus and Orvis 188), Brazil’s racial classes are much more intricate. Brazil has had a long history of racial intermarriage that has created “seven major categories
The Spanish colonization of the new world from 1492 to 1700 led to many events such as the development of the “la casta” system (which categorized Europeans, Africans, and natives off of skin color), the encomienda system (which let the natives stay on their own land but made the natives into impractical slaves), and all of the torture that the natives endured from the Europeans. While many of these explorers came to conquer by orders the Spanish colonization from 1492 to 1700 was motivated by a strong desire for wealth and converting the natives to Catholicism that made a significant impact on the lives of Native Americans and Africans.
The first residents of the Americas were by modern estimates divided into at least two thousand cultures and more societies, practiced a multiplicity of customs and lifestyles, held an enormous variety of values and beliefs, spoke numerous languages mutually unintelligible to the many speakers, and did not conceive of themselves as a single people (Paul Lucas). But however, the Europeans and Euro-Americans came and classified these people(s) into a single identity, simplifying and homogenizing their identity into an inferior racial type: ‘the Savage’. The practices of colonial violence on indigenous people as depicted in the article clearly points out the effects of the Slave traffic during the first years after the 1521 conquest and the practice of branding
When the Europeans first heard of the “New World”, adventures set sail to colonize as much land for their country as possible not knowing about the indigenous who were there thousands of years before them. The introduction of guns, steel, and horses impacted the indigenous people way of life. Nonetheless, the destruction that the new diseases brought upon the indigenous killed most of the population. The effects of the Europeans on the indigenous is a historical question as opposed to a moral one because the Europeans had no control over the results of their coming. The indigenous people’s lives were altered and indefinitely because of the Europeans arrival in North
Do traditions die out? In modern day America , traditions don't die. People hold on to the traditions because they find their identity within them. How do traditions relate to the culture within Latin America? Rules. In Latin America, people follow the rules when they think that they should because the laws are human made, they can be treated differently by human beings. In class , Prof. Tico gave us an example about this, we talked about how he doesn't understand why the American people will sit and wait at the crosswalk until the light turns “ Green for Go”, when there aren't any cars coming in our way. This is a really interesting concept and idea because quite honestly, I don't
Global identity politics rest heavily on notions of ethnicity and authenticity, especially in contexts where indigenous identity becomes a basis for claims of social and economic justice. In contemporary Latin America there is a resurgence of indigenous claims for cultural and political autonomy and for the benefits of economic development. Yet these identities have often been taken for granted.
For example, a person from Brazil can be considered Latina/o, but not Hispanic; whereas a person from Spain can be considered Hispanic, but not Latina/o.