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Portal:Latin America

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Latin America often refers to the regions in the Americas in which romance languages are the main languages and the culture and Empires of its peoples have had significant historical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural impact. It is "commonly used to describe South America with the exception of Suriname, Guyana and the Falkland islands. Central America, Mexico, and most of the islands of the Caribbean". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil (Portuguese America). The term "Latin America" is broader than Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries; and narrower than categories such as Ibero-America, a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe. It could also theoretically encompass Quebec or Louisiana where French is still spoken and are historical remnants of the French Empire in that region of the globe.

The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia, and Dominica, in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed.

The region covers an area that stretches from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego and includes much of the Caribbean. It has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2 (7,412,000 sq mi), almost 13% of the Earth's land surface area. In 2019, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of US$5.1 trillion and a GDP PPP of US$10.2 trillion. (Full article...)

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The gun trials of the Brazilian dreadnought Minas Geraes, the ship that began the dreadnought race. Here, all guns capable of training to the port side were fired, forming what was at that time the heaviest broadside ever fired off a warship.

A naval arms race among Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—the wealthiest and most powerful countries in South America—began in the early twentieth century when the Brazilian government ordered three dreadnoughts, formidable battleships whose capabilities far outstripped older vessels in the world's navies.

In 1904, the Brazilian legislature allocated substantial funds to improve the country's naval forces. Proponents of this plan believed that they needed a strong navy to become an international power and combat recent naval expansions in Argentina and Chile. The revolutionary design of the 1906 British warship HMS Dreadnought prompted the Brazilians to alter these plans and redirect their money into constructing three Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts. These warships, the most powerful in the world, entered service at a time when dreadnoughts were an important factor in a nation's international prestige and therefore brought global attention to Brazil. (Full article...)
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A casta painting of a Spanish man and an Indigenous woman with a Mestizo child

Mestizo (/mɛsˈtz, mɪs-/ mess-TEE-zoh, mis-; Spanish: [mesˈtiθo]; fem. mestiza, literally 'mixed person') is a person of mixed European and Indigenous non-European ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors are Indigenous. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification.

The noun mestizaje, derived from the adjective mestizo, is a term for racial mixing that did not come into usage until the 20th century; it was not a colonial-era term. In the modern era, mestizaje is used by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa as a synonym for miscegenation, but with positive connotations. (Full article...)
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Chichén Itzá
Chichén Itzá
Credit: Christian.maier

Panorama of Chichen Itza, a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico; and an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Kukulkán Pyramid can be seen in the right.

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Guna woman selling Molas in Panama City
Guna woman selling Molas in Panama City
The mola or molas, forms part of the traditional outfit of a Kuna woman, two mola panels being incorporated as front and back panels in a blouse. The full costume traditionally includes a patterned wrapped skirt (saburet), a red and yellow headscarf (musue), arm and leg beads (wini), a gold nose ring (olasu) and earrings in addition to the mola blouse (dulemor). In Dulegaya, the Kuna's native language, "mola" means "shirt" or "clothing". The mola originated with the tradition of Kuna women painting their bodies with geometrical designs, using available natural colors; in later years these same designs were woven in cotton, and later still, sewn using cloth bought from the European settlers of Panama.

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