What Is “Latin America”?

Extract

What have we in mind when we speak of “Latin America”? The designation is frequently employed but it seems to convey a variety of notions and the vagueness and inaccuracy with which it is associated have generated a confusion which if persisted in may prove dangerous. Many persons appear to believe that “Latin America” designates a region extending from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn in which all or nearly all the inhabitants are “Latins” (whatever that means) who speak Spanish and whose customs are substantially alike. Some persons have advanced beyond that grotesque misconception to the point of realizing that there are some differences among the “Latin Americans”, that not all of them speak Spanish, and that statements true of one part of the region are not true of other parts. But that is about as far as many of our citizens advance, and even those who have arrived at a realization that “Latin America” is not a single homogeneous place seem to retain the notion that nevertheless “Latin America” can be dealt with without regarding the differences, some of them profound, that distinguish, let us say, Ecuador from Argentina or Guatemala from Venezuela.