Is Latin America Western?

So Greece is not a part of the West?

I won't call Greece a western country. Greece is some mixture of Middle Eastern, East Europe, and West Europe. Culturally speaking they are the middle road between west and middle east
 
The bond among western countries is Christianity. From there comes the whole philosophy of life.
"Interesting", like freedom, tolerance, renaissance, science, logic, democracy and free market economy.
 
"Interesting", like freedom, tolerance, renaissance, science, logic, democracy and free market economy.
Yep! All of the above you are mentioning! But you can't say Latin America is not western and Italy is, when Italian emigrants are governing most of Latin American countries. Or Spain for that reason. Or Portugal. The idea that Latin America is not western contains racial anxiety. I am not saying that christian Nigeria is western since they are locally run, but Latin America is different. Have you seen a picture of Pennia Nieto of Mexico? He is like came today from Spain. Why is not he a western men?
 
Definition of Latin America according to Wikipedia:

Latin America[a] is a group of countries and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere where Romance languages such as Spanish, French and Portuguese are spoken; it is broader than the terms Ibero-America or Hispanic America.

According to this, Quebec should be part of Latin America.
And if it is not so ... why?
 
Definition of Latin America according to Wikipedia:

Latin America[a] is a group of countries and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere where Romance languages such as Spanish, French and Portuguese are spoken; it is broader than the terms Ibero-America or Hispanic America.

According to this, Quebec should be part of Latin America.
And if it is not so ... why?


Whoever wrote that clearly doesn't know very much, yes?
 
I wonder why is Quebec not counted as a part of Latin America given that they speak French?
 

^^^ Chileans are - genetically speaking - very similar to Mexicans.

They are autosomally on average 1/2 Amerindian + 1/2 European.

Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and southern Brazil are predominantly European

Chile is not predominantly European. Where did this myth come from?

Chile is a Mestizo nation, genetically similar to Paraguay and Mexico:

https://i.imgur.com/qAyTInj.png

qAyTInj.png
 
Latin America is of course part of the west...even if with its own flavor and peculiarities.
But since English is nearly 70% of romance/ mediterranean origin ( latin, greek and old french components...without them it would be an hunter gather kind of language) it is not far fetched to claim that all the american continent is in different degree latin.......
 
^^Because it's in Canada

Ok. So you think that it would be counted as part of Latin America if they were independent?

As for Chile, it might be "white" only in the census (self-identifications). Genetic studies about Chile show it is "balanced Mestizo". It also has a sizeable Native minority. I understand that Maciamo wrote that post years ago when DNA studies on Latin America were not yet available.

Paraguay is actually "whiter" than Chile in terms of genetics. And Mexico is about the same.

Without Pinochet's reforms, Chile today would likely be similar to Venezuela in terms of chaos.
 
Ok. So you think that it would be counted as part of Latin America if they were independent?

As for Chile, it might be "white" only in the census (self-identifications). Genetic studies about Chile show it is "balanced Mestizo". It also has a sizeable Native minority. I understand that Maciamo wrote that post years ago when DNA studies on Latin America were not yet available.

I confirm that Chile is not nearly as "white" as some people think and apparently they themselves declare themselves to be. I visited only Santiago and the surrounding towns, probably one of the "whiter" regions of the country (though not nearly as much as some parts of the South like Puerto Montt, but not in the southernmost regions). I was surprised to see that the population was much more mestizo than we usually hear about (maybe is there still some unwillingness to recognize mixed origins there?). I'd say some 40% of the people I saw could pass as white, but still many of them were probably mixed to some degree, but certainly more than half of the people I saw had visible Amerindian ancestry, even if only a minority had unquestionably dominant Native American features (but still a very sizeable minority, at least 10%). I don't think, though, that Chile is less "European" than Paraguay, because in the map above that you provided to us it is clear that the most "Amerindian" regions of Chile are the least populous, whereas some of the most populated regions of Paraguay are actually the most enriched by Amerindian ancestry (the southeastern portion of the country). I also doubt that Chile would've been as weak and chaotic as Venezuela now were it not for Pinochet's reforms. The country was already much more developed and educated than Venezuela in the 1970s when Pinochet established his ruthless dictatoship. I think comparisons with Argentina or Uruguay make much more sense.

In any case, I think that relying on admixtures or economic development to determine whether a country is western or not is a serious mistake. First of all, there is no rule that determines that "Western" leads necessarily to socio-economic development, nor is that characteristic exclusive of historically Western nations. And the European heritage that is much more visible and relevant in the long term in terms of shared culture, history, institutions and way of life than autosomal admixture.

Paraguay_population_density.png
 
Chile seems to be the most economically developed country in Latin America, better than Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil. Often it is attributed to Pinochet by people with right wing views - if not Pinochet Chile would likely be another "Communist" country like for example Ecuador today. I saw a video on You Tube made by a Polish guy living in Ecuador and he says that many things resemble Communist Poland 40-60 years ago:

He says "Reality here is similar to Polish reality from the 1960s-1970s":

 
Chile seems to be the most economically developed country in Latin America, better than Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil. Often it is attributed to Pinochet by people with right wing views - if not Pinochet Chile would likely be another "Communist" country like for example Ecuador today. I saw a video on You Tube made by a Polish guy living in Ecuador and he says that many things resemble Communist Poland 40-60 years ago:

He says "Reality here is similar to Polish reality from the 1960s-1970s":


Chile surpassed Argentina in human development terms only recently, in the last 10 years, but it is now the most developed South American state, on a par with some Eastern European nations like Hungary and Poland (but, truth be told, with a much, much higher level of income and opportunity inequality). I'd be wary of giving all that credit to the ruthless and in the end cowardly dictator Pinochet, though, especially if that conclusion is based on a hypothetical situation of "what if?" instead of real historic evidence/data. We cannot just presume that Chile, without Pinochet, would've become like Ecuador or Venezuela, first of all because Chile was already much more developed and democratic than both of these nations before 1973 (when Pinochet literally bombed the presidential palace and the capital city until he got the power for himself), but also because Chile has been ruled for several years by leftist parties since the fall of Pinochet's dictatorship, and they didn't act like a subtropical version of Chávez at all. Instead, most of the good years of higher than average progress in Chile happened after 1990, and many of those years were under left-leaning governments. I think it is a big stretch to imagine that history in Chile would've evolved exactly as in Venezuela or in Ecuador given that they had very different situations (economically, socially, politically). Not even Argentina, which is much more comparable to Chile in virtually every social and economic aspect, became a "Venezuela" or "Ecuador" even after being plagued by decades of populist and ineffective governments both from the right-wing and the left-wing.

Right-wingers tend to overestimate the relatively good legacy of Pinochet in economic policy (I say "relatively" because it was not without costs and flaws, as in promoting lack of economic diversity and the already very high social inequality). That is probably in order to diminish the appalling record of his government in human rights, democracy, institutional stability, individual and collective freedom and many other indispensable things where his dictatorship's contribution was actually a detriment to Chile.
 
"Latin" America is not defined on the basis of whether the official language is a "Romance" or "Latin" language. In English language usage it means those countries of the Western Hemisphere which were conquered by Spain and Portugal and where the languages of those countries are spoken.

The amount of Amerindian ancestry and the level of economic development have nothing to do with whether they are western countries or not. The Japanese are very highly developed economically, and China is on the move. The U.S. has a lot of "minority" people in terms of genetics, as does France for that matter. They're not "western" countries? It's a matter of culture and institutions as Ygorcs has pointed out.
 
US, Canada, UK, Scandinavia are not Western European, but Northern European cultures.
Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland etc are not Western European, but Central Europe.
Western Europe is Iberia and Spain and France.
No idea how Netherlands and Belgium are, seems more Western European countries, that Central European countries.
As for Italy, it seems a mix of Western and Central Europe, with Northern Italy more shifted towards Central Europe.
Being very industrialized is not something great, for example France or Italy kept a lot of agriculture and have an equilibrium between agriculture and industry.
In pure Central Europe as it is in Czech Republic or Austria, there is almost no more agriculture left, only offices, tourism and industry.
Germany is mostly Central European, but has also Western Europe influences.
As an outsider, what differences I see between Brazil and Spain is that Brazil is a lot more liberal ,while Spain, as France and Portugal seems shifted towards socialism. Germany seems also quite Socialist country.
So I believe in South America there is a lot of influence from US Northern-Celtic-British liberal culture.
There is a lot of corruption and crime in South America, which is again something that is different compared to Spain, or Portugal or France.
France, Spain, Portugal have few corruption.
Just my 2 cents.
 
Majority of Europe is western, sans Transistria, which still has a USSR feel. In Asia, western countries include Israel (sans Palestinian Territories/West Bank & Gaza strip), Cyprus (sans Northern Cyprus), Georgia (Including Abkhazia, sans South Ossetia), Armenia, Azerbaijan (Including Republic of Artsakh), South Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, and Japan. Oceania, New Zealand and Australia are western. Sub-Saharan Africa (sans Somalia/Somaliland, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Northern Nigeria) and Latin America (sans Guyana and Suriname) are at least partially western, with Indigenous influences overall. In Africa and the Americas, I believe these countries qualify as fully western: South Africa, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Namibia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Canada, and the USA. Just my opinion on it.
 
We are our own thing, aside of Spain and Portugal, we have little bounds with the Old World. The local elites, mostly anglophiles slavers that won Independence wars forced inmigration policies by bringing italians, english, irish, frenchs, lebanese, turks, etc. to work in new business and "bleach" local population in regions they filled of african slaves that ironically they brought to work in their plantations and like in that occasion, they ended doing a lot of damage to local cultures.

In short, we are not a Western society, especially considering that "Westernity" is measured in cultural/social/ethnic similarity to Anglo-Saxon countries such as the US. We are a different society, with many regional cultures & ethnicities, a different history, a different jargon and a different mentality.
 
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Here's my thoughts, Western Culture I look as meaning the Divide between Eastern and Western Europe ie Orthodox/Islamic and Protestant/Catholic, then I would suggest there's another cultural Divide within Western Europe Between Northern and Southern Europe including Protestant vs Catholic. I think Latin America has inherited most of it's Western culture from Southern Europe, the influence of the Catholic Church, and the emphasis on family life, and a more laid back work culture. Then add to that the indigenous cultures of the different regions of Latin America, from the Caribbean the Taino people and the newer African tribal influence, the Aztecs, Mayans, Incans, and the Amazon peoples. Most Latin Americans are more familiar with a Western style of living and same goes for the church unless you have been really isolated, but some of the indigenous culture has been absorbed into the Church festivities and no need to mention the food the art and music of the local indigenous people so it creates a unique blend of Western Southern European plus the new local flavor for each region. I don't see any ties to China or Russia culturally but politically that is a different story a lot of Latin American Politics swings back and forth between extreme Right and extreme Left, so that is the only connection I see there...when people move around they bring part of their older cultures with them if people enjoy them they can become adopted into the main culture otherwise they will disappear with time.
 
Several thoughts come to my mind.
Although in many threads I have used the term "Latin America", I do not agree with it at all. It is a concept invented to include Haiti, a former French colony (but curiously, Quebec is not included). The proper term would be Hispanic America or Ibero America (containing Brazil).
And besides, it is a completely heterogeneous region. We have already seen it in genetic studies: although the general population comes from a hybridization between Iberians, Amerindians and sub-Saharan Africans, there are some of these components that, when predominant, create different societies. In the specific case of my country, inhabited by hunter-gatherer tribes, the pre-Columbian population was scarce and with a primitive civilization. and the Spanish, before undertaking an intensive colonization, brought to our prairies cows and horses, which reproduced immensely, and changed the lives of the natives, who became hunting horsemen. And almost immediately began the miscegenation between Europeans and indigenous women, giving rise to a "race" of horsemen, the Gauchos. These were joined by escaped African slaves, and also Europeans of various origins (many of them pirates), abandoned on our Atlantic coasts.
Their lifestyle was a mixture of European, Amerindian and African characteristics, but the unifying element was fundamentally European. And after the second half of the 19th century, when Uruguay was already independent, there was a massive European immigration. This phenomenon was repeated above all in Argentina, Brazil, and to a lesser extent in other countries. This explains genetic compositions like mine: 79% European, 18% Native American, 3% sub-Saharan African. A recent study says that the composition of the average Uruguayan is very similar to mine, although obviously, there are people with predominantly African or Native American origin, or cases like my father's, ethnically 100% Italian (my paternal grandfather was Italian). In short: it surely does not apply to the entire region known as "Latin America", but at least the South is Western.
 

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