[diego]

In terms of culture and lifestyle, yeah. Many people call Miami "the Capital of Latin America." Buenos Aires is not particularly representative of Latin America, it's more like a hybrid between LatAm and Europe (you probably agree).

In terms of economic stability, Miami is still part of the US so it's less risky for running a business. Not the greatest place for a startup, but a good compromise for someone who wants to travel to South America frequently.

[tsuipen]

Again, stereotypical and prejudice.

Last I checked, Spain was in Europe.

[hugh3]

Has the parent been edited, or is this remarkably non-sequiturial? I read the parent several times looking for a mention of Spain, couldn't find it.

[tsuipen]

Could it be you're (gasp!) not informed instead of it being "non-sequiturial"?

Saying Miami is more Latin American than Buenos Aires is stereotypical and prejudice because this statement suggests there is something intrinsically Latin American about Latin America. Latin America is a huge space (a population of 580,086,590 which the parent seeks to generalize), there are various cultures and subcultures, various languages and dialects. Whatever J. Lo has brainwashed people into thinking is "Latin American" is not all-encompassing and should not be representative of it.

Thus, Buenos Aires is just as very Latin American as La Paz or San Juan or Rio de Janeiro or Havana.

The fact that more Italians immigrated to Argentina does not make them more "European", since Spain, the country that colonized most of Latin America is European. Since its colonization, Latin America adopted a lot of traditions from Spain and the rest of Europe, thanks to many Latin American governments asking for more European immigrants to "fill the void" and work the land. However, not all countries adopted the same traditions to the same degree and some preferred other European traditions (that could also be shared with Spain, Portugal and the rest of Western Europe).

Thus, the statement "Buenos Aires is not particularly representative of Latin America, it's more like a hybrid between LatAm and Europe" is wrong because most of Latin America includes Europe in its transculturation, acculturation, syncretism, miscegenation and hybridity.

[kragen]

Most of Latin America has not just Latin influence but also a lot of American influence. The people are brown not just because they're Moorish or African by ancestry but also because they're American. Most of them speak Spanish, French, or Portuguese, but a substantial number speak American languages like Guaraní, Mapuzungun, Quichua, Aymará, Nahuatl, or Haitian Creole. Most of them practice Catholicism, but in a heavily syncretized form with Catholic saints corresponding to American gods, and a substantial number of them still practice American religions.

But all of those things are true only to a tiny extent in Buenos Aires, and a more noticeable but still small extent in the rest of Argentina. This is what genocide looks like.

So I wasn't saying that Argentina is more European than Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Cuba, or Miami because it's less Spanish. I was saying that Argentina is more European than Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, or Cuba because it's less American, because none of the things I said in the previous paragraph are true here, and they're still true in those places. The most distinctively American thing about Buenos Aires is that everybody drinks yerba mate.

By the way, Diego grew up here in Buenos Aires, where I also live. So however much you may disagree with our conceptions of what "Latin America" means, you can't blame poor J. Lo for them.

[tsuipen]

I'm sorry, but you are only partly right.

Let me first say this confusion exists also amongst some Latin Americans because there is a lack of Latin American history (as South American and Central American continents) taught in Latin America. Each country focuses largely on their own because each country has such a rich and diverse history.

But let's take your argument apart.

BROWN:

The whole subject of "brown" and their diverse shades has been discussed before and is currently joked about in Peruvian politics, where Alan García said he was more Peruvian because of his "copper" skin color. Naturally, this is ridiculed by most because it is a joke to talk about skin color since mestizos can be all shades of brown (indigenous blood notwithstanding). And then there is tanning (even mentioning this sounds ridiculous); as in, there are people with lighter skin who just happen to be tanned, because they live in an area where it is mostly sunny (sometimes all year round). You'll find a higher percentage of "white"-looking people in capital cities in Latin America. And many mestizos can pass off as Spanish (from Spain, just in case it isn't clear). And there are also indigenous peoples who are white (see indigenous groups that live closer to the Andean Cordillera or similar places of higher altitudes, such as Huaraz where there is a mix of all skin colors and valleys such as Pasco where there is an Austro-German community that immigrated there from the late 1800s. Uruguay probably has a larger "white" population than Argentina, and Paraguay has a very high one, too. You'll find lots of white people in Southern Brazil. One last thing about "brown", Latin Americans generally accept, rightfully so, that being "brown" has very little to do with Moorish or African ancestry, and if you have any noticeable Moorish or African features, you are mostly considered to have "black" attributes, since blacks do not originate from Latin America.

LANGUAGE:

No, most people do not speak French as their native language in Latin America and the Caribbeans. Haiti is the obvious one that has French and Creole as their official language, but only about 10% speak it fluently, and this is in a population of 9 million. French Guiana obviously has French as their official language, but they're a population of 217,000 with many people speaking other dialects and languages. Suriname has Dutch as their official language, with Guyana and Belize having English as theirs and a minority speak other Cariban languages, with tiny Belize having 40% Spanish speakers, I believe. These countries are minorities, though. That's about it for French. Portuguese is only spoken in Brazil, a country with a population of 203 million. All this out of a population of 580 million in Latin America. As for Guaraní, yes, it is an official language of Paraguay, with 4,650,000 speakers; a majority since the country's population is 6 million, but still a minority within the total Latin American population. If you want to count a language that is spoken by 200,000 people (Mapuzugun), go ahead, but then we start getting into the smaller languages and dialects, too, which are many, all throughout Latin America. Peru and Bolivia are interesting in that they sought to preserve indigenous culture. Peru's official languages are Spanish, Quechua and Aymara, in order of amount of speakers. Aymara is actually spoken by very few Peruvians, though, and Quechua by 13% of the population--another minority language. Quechua is spoken by 20% of Bolivia's population, and Aymara 14%, with Spanish being the majority.

I mention all of this so you can have a perspective for what I am about to say about language in Argentina. When colonizers arrived in modern day Argentina, there were about 35 languages spoken there. Now there are only 12. A variant of Quechua (called Quichua, most likely different from the "Incan" Quechua) is spoken in Santiago de Estero by 100,000 people, a city founded by Spanish settlers. Four Guaraní variants are spoken in Argentina: Chiriguano (known in Argentina as Ñandeva) spoken in Jujuy and Salta by about 15,000 people; the Guaraní Correntino is the official language of Corrientes; Mbyá is spoken by 3,000 people in Misiones; and lastly, the Paraguayan Guaraní spoken at various parts of the borders. Chaco has "co-official" languages: Qom, Moqoít, and Wichí (spoken by 45,000) from the Mataco language family. In Rosario, there are about 10,000 Wichi speakers/peoples. There are other dialects and subdialects such as Mivaclé, Chorote, and in Patagonia (Santa Cruz, specifically), Tehuelche (Aonikenk or Aonek'o 'ajen), with all these also being minority languages/dialects and the last spoken by just a few; there used to be more in the south, but the Conquest of the Desert nearly wiped them all out.

My point is there is a wealth of variety in each country, and many minority languages and minority peoples. Argentina is not an exception. All of them mixed with some type of European, whether it was a Western, Central or Eastern European.

And just to be clear, very few Catholics believe in Catholic saints that correspond to "American gods". And if by "American religions" you mean "indigenous religions", then, no. Most of Latin America is Roman Catholic, with an increasing number of Protestants, namely in Brazil.

[kragen]

Thank you for the interesting and informative reply.

The reason brown-skinned mestizos can pass as Spanish is because many Spanish people have a fair bit of Moorish blood, so they're brown-skinned themselves. "Moorish" can mean lots of different ethnic groups, some but not all of whom look "black".

I didn't know about these pink-skinned American indigenous people. Where can I learn more?

Uruguay definitely has a larger "white" population than Argentina.

It is certainly true that most people don't speak French as their native language in Latin America. But I didn't say they did. I said that most people in Latin America do speak one of French, Spanish, or Portuguese. I included French to avoid the debate about whether Haiti and French Guiana are part of Latin America. Adding more Romance languages to the list (Romansch! Ladino!) wouldn't make the statement less true. That's simple logic.

Suriname, Belize, and Guyana aren't part of Latin America, so they're irrelevant.

The numbers you quote for Bolivia are for primary language: 20% of Bolivians primarily speak Quechua. A much larger number speak primarily Spanish but also Quechua. I suspect the same thing is true of the other statistics you cite.

Your statistics for Argentina are a good demonstration of how Argentina is much less American (and more European) than the rest of the continent. In Peru, 20% of the people primarily speak Quechua; the Quechua-speaking community you mention in Santiago del Estero, by contrast, is 0.25% of the Argentine population, proportionally 80 times smaller.

There is indeed a wealth of variety in each country, even in Argentina, but Argentina's American heritage, in terms of language, genes, and religion, is extremely marginal here in the capital, and marginal even in the rest of the country.

> And just to be clear, very few Catholics believe in Catholic saints that correspond to "American gods". And if by "American religions" you mean "indigenous religions", then, no.

There are lots of examples of syncretic saint/American-god combinations. Here is one you might find interesting:

http://www.uv.mx/popularte/esp/scriptphp.php?sid=387

Of course the Catholic people who worship, excuse me, venerate these saints do not believe that they are worshipping Aztec or Maya or Mapuche gods or celebrating Aztec religious festivals; that would be heretical. Nevertheless, there are identifiable collections of attributes that have been transferred from pagan deities to Catholic saints, and from pagan festivals to Catholic holidays.

Not around here, though. We just have Gauchito Gil.

[wslh]

Sorry Tsuipen, I don't follow your rant:

"Thus, the statement "Buenos Aires is not particularly representative of Latin America, it's more like a hybrid between LatAm and Europe" is wrong because most of Latin America includes Europe in its transculturation, acculturation, syncretism, miscegenation and hybridity."

If you travel to different Latin American countries you'll realize the difference beyond any forced formalization/logic of a statement.

[tsuipen]

Not only have I traveled to different Latin American countries, I am from a South American country.

Also, I studied it formally (at university) and have written numerous research papers on Latin American identity, history and culture.

And now I have to stop typing because I have to go teach Spanish.

[wslh]

So, I am impressed that you can't note the difference between Buenos Aires and other Latin American cities, since tourists spot the differences pretty quickly.