Indigenous, African and European people make up the bulk of this culture. As a result of intermixing, religions such as Santeria in Cuba, and Candomble in Brazil have been created. These religions have African roots but also contain elements of European Catholicism. Another example of intermixing can be found in Mexican son music. However, these styles share a number of common characteristics in its rhythms, lyrics and dance.
The music is a mix of Spanish, African and indigenous elements, which mingled at least as far back as the 18th century. Students are engaged in a learning environment that encourages them to be active learners, workers, and servers.
If a honeymoon is an educational period in which you learn about your partner, then the war has indeed been a honeymoon in inter-American relations. True, they all speak Spanish except Haiti, which uses French, and Brazil, whose 44 million inhabitants one-third of all Latin Americans speak Portuguese.
Most of these units differ greatly in size, composition of population, social structure, type of government, and degree of economic development. Each country must be considered by itself, and all generalizations should be avoided or carefully qualified when applied to a single country.
Above all, these twenty countries are strongly nationalistic and do not think of themselves as Latin Americans at all, but as Mexicans, Peruvians, Cubans, Costa Ricans, and so on. Geographically these nations differ greatly from one another too. Distances are vast, for their territory is three times the size of the United States. One country, Brazil, is so large that the entire U.
Moreover, some of the countries of South America are not neighbors of ours, geographically speaking, because they are closer to Europe than to us. Nor is all this great expanse of territory a tangled jungle steaming under a tropical sun. Most of the countries have some tropical or semitropical areas, but there are many temperate regions.
Latin Americans are sensitive on this point, and tourists who wear tropical helmets in temperate cities like Lima, Peru, will be met with reserve. Americans who used to hoot at Englishmen looking for Indians on Broadway will understand this feeling. The social and cultural achievements of the twenty nations are likewise varied.
In some countries illiteracy runs as high as 75 per cent, while in others the majority of people are literate. The tiny Central American republic of Costa Rica has long prided itself upon having more teachers than soldiers.
In every country there are at least a few extremely well-educated individuals who speak several languages fluently and who are at home in the world of European culture. Living standards are relatively low on the whole, at least compared to ours. A few countries have made important advances in improving the social and economic conditions of their people. They have an eight-hour day, and accident insurance for industrial workers; child labor is not allowed; and old people receive pensions. Elections are decided by secret ballot, and women are allowed to vote.
Uruguay has over 1, free primary schools, good secondary schools, and a university. In addition, the government supports a School of the Air to reach by radio programs those among the rural population who can neither read nor write. Uruguay is somewhat ahead of the rest, but in most Latin-American countries the standard of living of the people is improving.
The standard of living of any country depends upon the nature of its resources and the vigor and intelligence with which they are developed.
In this field, too, there are great contrasts, although economically all the Latin-American nations have some bonds in common. They have all been producers of raw materials for the world, such as coffee, wheat, bananas, tin, silver, and oil, and have all had to borrow capital from abroad.
They have all lacked capital, manpower, and technical knowledge to develop fully their great natural resources. Certain other characteristics of Latin America may be noted. It has the smallest population and lowest number of inhabitants per square mile of any continent save Australia. This holds true despite the fact that Haiti, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic are among the most densely populated countries in the world.
Most of the nations are primarily dependent on agriculture and mining, and are comparatively young in the scale of economic development. The total import trade of South America in was less than that of France; its total export trade was less than that of Germany. Between half and two-thirds of the people of Latin America are only very indirectly connected with systems of commerce.
Most of them produce what they need from the land, living in isolation and relative poverty. Another common characteristic is the difficulty of transportation. High mountain ranges and great areas of jungle are serious obstacles to the construction of highways and railroads. As a result, transportation by land is inadequate and fragmentary in the extreme. Only three areas—those centering on Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Santiago—possess rail networks even remotely comparable to those of Europe or the United States.
The entire eastern coastline of Brazil is surrounded by the southern region of the Atlantic Ocean. Looking at the countries that border Brazil along all of its other borders in a counter-clockwise manner, Brazil is surrounded by French Guiana , Suriname , Guyana , Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.
Costa Rica ranks as the rd-largest country in the world in terms of population alone. With a population of just under five million people, the estimated total number is 4,, people, as of Costa Rica is 19, square miles. As such, the ratio of people to the land is about per square mile, which is the same as the country's population density. The capital city is San Jose, which also happens to be a very populated place to live.
The island country is located in the Caribbean Sea, though it is still considered a Latin American country. The Dominican Republic is almost like a conjoined twin with the island of Haiti. Together, Haiti and the DR comprise the island of Hispaniola. Another country called Saint Martin is in a similar position as Hispaniola, for it is a landmass split between two separate states.
Here's a fun fact about the Dominican Republic for you. After Cuba, the Dominican Republic is the Caribbean's second-largest island country. The total area of the DR comes to approximately 18, square miles. However, it can be tricky to say that this is an exact measurement of the Dominican Republic's total area.
0コメント