Editing Latin America (section)

=== Contemporary definitions ===
* ''Latin America'' is generally used to refer to the set of countries in the Americas where a Romance language (a language derived from Latin) predominates: Spanish, Portuguese, or French. Thus, it includes Mexico; most of Central and South America; and in the Caribbean, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. ''Latin America'' then comprises all of the countries in the Americas that were once part of the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]], [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]], and [[Second French Empire|French Empires]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rangel|first=Carlos|title=The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich|year=1977|location=New York|pages=3–5|isbn=978-0-15-148795-0}} {{Cite book|last=Skidmore|first=Thomas E.|author2=Peter H. Smith|title=Modern Latin America|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2005|edition=6th|location=Oxford and New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/modernlatinameri0006skid/page/1 1–10]|isbn=978-0-19-517013-9|url=https://archive.org/details/modernlatinameri0006skid/page/1}}</ref><ref name="Torres" /> [[French Guiana]] and the [[French West Indies]] are sometimes included.
* ''Latin America'' is also often used synonymously with Ibero-America ("Iberian America"), where the populations speak Spanish or Portuguese and the dominant religion is [[Roman Catholic]]. [[Puerto Rico]], the Spanish-speaking Caribbean territory of the United States, acquired from the [[Spanish Empire]] following its defeat in the 1898 [[Spanish–American War]], is usually included. This definition excludes the predominantly Protestant English-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions, as well as French-speaking predominantly Catholic regions. [[Belize]], [[Guyana]] and [[Suriname]], as well as several French overseas departments, are excluded from the definition.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltConsulta?lema=iberoam%C3%A9rica|last=RAE|title=Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas|publisher=Santillana Educación|year=2005|location=Madrid|isbn=8429406239|access-date=October 15, 2010|archive-date=April 4, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100404154750/http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltConsulta?lema=iberoam%C3%A9rica|url-status=live}}</ref> 
* The term is sometimes used more broadly to refer to all of the Americas south of the United States,<ref name="Torres">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MX5BXxjwV9cC&pg=PR17|title=Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music|last=Torres|first=George|page=xvii|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2013|isbn=9780313087943}}</ref> thus including [[the Guianas]] ([[French Guiana]], [[Guyana]], and [[Suriname]]); the [[Commonwealth Caribbean|Anglophone Caribbean]] (and [[Belize]]); the [[French West Indies|Francophone Caribbean]]; and the [[Dutch Caribbean]]. This definition emphasizes a similar [[Socioeconomics|socioeconomic]] history of the region, which was characterized by formal or [[Neocolonialism|informal colonialism]], rather than cultural aspects (see, for example, [[dependency theory]]).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Butland|first=Gilbert J.|title=Latin America: A Regional Geography|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|year=1960|location=New York|pages=115–188|isbn=978-0-470-12658-5}}<br />{{Cite book|last=Dozer|first=Donald Marquand|title=Latin America: An Interpretive History|publisher=McGraw-Hill|year=1962|location=New York|pages=1–15|isbn=0-87918-049-8}}<br />{{Cite book|last=Szulc|first=Tad|author-link=Tad Szulc|title=Latin America|publisher=New York Times Company|year=1965|pages=13–17|isbn=0-689-10266-6}}<br />{{Cite book|last=Olien|first=Michael D.|title=Latin Americans: Contemporary Peoples and Their Cultural Traditions|publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston|year=1973|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/latinamericansco0000olie/page/1 1–5]|isbn=978-0-03-086251-9|url=https://archive.org/details/latinamericansco0000olie/page/1}}<br />{{Cite book|editor-last=Black|editor-first=Jan Knippers|title=Latin America: Its Problems and Its Promise: A Multidisciplinary Introduction|publisher=Westview Press|year=1984|location=Boulder|pages=362–378|isbn=978-0-86531-213-5}}<br />{{Cite book|last=Burns|first=E. Bradford|title=Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History|publisher=Prentice-Hall|year=1986|edition=4th|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/latinamericaconc00burn/page/224 224–227]|isbn=978-0-13-524356-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/latinamericaconc00burn/page/224}}<br />{{Cite book|last=Skidmore|first=Thomas E.|author2=Peter H. Smith|title=Modern Latin America|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2005|edition=6th|location=Oxford and New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/modernlatinameri0006skid/page/351 351–355]|isbn=978-0-19-517013-9|url=https://archive.org/details/modernlatinameri0006skid/page/351}}</ref> Some sources avoid this simplification by using the alternative phrase "[[Latin America and the Caribbean]]", as in the [[United Nations geoscheme for the Americas]].<ref>[http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100417070721/http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm |date=April 17, 2010 }}, UN Statistics Division. Accessed on line May 23, 2009. ([http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regnf.htm French] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101224062835/http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regnf.htm |date=December 24, 2010 }})</ref><ref>[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/0,,menuPK:258559~pagePK:158889~piPK:146815~theSitePK:258554,00.html Latin America and the Caribbean] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130501014724/http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/0,,menuPK:258559~pagePK:158889~piPK:146815~theSitePK:258554,00.html |date=May 1, 2013 }}. [[The World Bank]]. Retrieved July 17, 2009.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://lanic.utexas.edu/subject/countries/|title=Country Directory. Latin American Network Information Center-University of Texas at Austin|publisher=Lanic.utexas.edu|access-date=December 9, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140311080444/http://lanic.utexas.edu/subject/countries/|archive-date=March 11, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> A number of academic area-studies programs and centers of [[Latin American studies]] are titled "Latin American and Caribbean" studies, such as the [https://ii.umich.edu/lacs Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Michigan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230224201732/https://ii.umich.edu/lacs |date=February 24, 2023 }}, [[New York University]]  [https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/clacs.html Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221017095240/https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/research-centers/clacs.html |date=October 17, 2022 }}, and [[University of Washington]]'s [https://jsis.washington.edu/latinam/ Latin American and Caribbean Studies, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230224201320/https://jsis.washington.edu/latinam/ |date=February 24, 2023 }}. Although the United States acquired a large swath of territory from the Spanish Empire and called Spanish borderlands and nearly 20% of the U.S. population identifies as "Hispanic" (or "Latino"), the United States is generally not classified as being part of Latin America. However, the significant demographic is sometimes brought under the umbrella of Latin American studies, such as at University of Albany.
* Another accepted use of the term also encompass those territories of [[North America]] in which Latin languages are official or predominant, that is, the states of [[California]], [[Arizona]], [[Nevada]], [[New Mexico]], [[Texas]] and [[Florida]] in the [[United States|USA]], where there is a significant presence of [[Spanish language|Spanish]], and the [[French language|French-speaking]] territories of [[Quebec]], [[New Brunswick]], [[Manitoba]] and [[Ontario]] in [[Canada]] and [[Louisiana]] in the USA. Or include those territories that can be considered culturally [[Latin Americans|Latin]] or with an important presence of Latin culture, but excluding territories that would be culturally closer to [[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-American]] culture. Thus, the previous territories of North America with a significant presence of Spanish would be included, but the French-speaking territories of North America would be excluded because they are culturally closer to Anglo-American than to Latin culture, despite the language. In this case, some include [[Belize]] and the [[United States Virgin Islands]], since although they have English as their official language, they have a strong presence of Spanish and Latin culture.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Colburn |first=Forrest D. |url=https://books.google.cl/books?id=qBCVB3mxCK8C&dq=%22latin+america+at+the+end+of+politics%22&pg=PP1&ots=Hsc6JIiWF0&sig=3-bdK4pc-bXg0abCFag4agEPwo8&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2522Latin+America+at+the+End+of+Politics%2522&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22latin%20america%20at%20the%20end%20of%20politics%22&f=false |title=Latin America at the End of Politics |date=2002-03-03 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-09181-5 |language=en}}</ref>

The distinction between ''Latin America'' and ''[[Anglo-America]]'' is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance language- and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Neither area is culturally or linguistically homogeneous; in substantial portions of Latin America (e.g., highland [[Peru]], [[Bolivia]], Mexico, [[Guatemala]]), [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous Amerindian]] cultures and, to a lesser extent, Indigenous Amerindian languages, are predominant, and in other areas, the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g., the Caribbean basin{{spaced ndash}}including parts of [[Colombia]] and [[Venezuela]]).

The term's meaning is contested and not without controversy. Historian Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo explores at length the "allure and power" of the idea of Latin America. He remarks at the outset, "The idea of 'Latin America' ought to have vanished with the obsolescence of racial theory... But it is not easy to declare something dead when it can hardly be said to have existed," going on to say, "The term is here to stay, and it is important."<ref>Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, ''Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2017, 1, 3.</ref> Following in the tradition of Chilean writer Francisco Bilbao, who excluded Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay from his early conceptualization of Latin America,<ref>Francisco Bilbao, ''La América en peligro'', Buenos Aires: Impr. de Berheim y Boeno 1862, 14, 23, quoted in Tenorio-Trillo, ''Latin America'', p. 5.</ref> Chilean historian [[Jaime Eyzaguirre]] has criticized the term Latin America for "disguising" and "diluting" the Spanish character of a region (i.e. [[Hispanic America]]) with the inclusion of nations that, according to him, do not share the same pattern of [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|conquest and colonization]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gongóra|first1=Alvaro|last2=de la Taille|first2=Alexandrine|last3=Vial|first3=Gonzalo|author-link3=Gonzalo Vial Correa|title=Jaime Eyzaguirre en su tiempo|language=es|publisher=Zig-Zag|page=223}}</ref>

The [[Geographical distribution of French speakers|Francophone]] part of North America which includes [[Saint Pierre and Miquelon]], [[Quebec]], [[New Brunswick]], and the three [[Canadian territories]], as well as [[Louisiana]] in the United States is generally excluded from the definition of Latin America.<ref>{{Cite web|title=South America, Latin America|url=https://www.reflexions.uliege.be/cms/c_15746/en/south-america-latin-america|access-date=November 24, 2022|website=Reflexions|publisher=[[University of Liège]]|language=en|archive-date=November 24, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221124133830/https://www.reflexions.uliege.be/cms/c_15746/en/south-america-latin-america|url-status=live}}</ref> The primarily [[Papiamento]]-speaking [[ABC islands (Leeward Antilles)|ABC Islands]] are also often excluded, Papiamento being a Portuguese-based creole.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Language and education in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300471435 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240925235144/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300471435_Language_and_education_in_Aruba_Bonaire_and_Curacao |archive-date=September 25, 2024 |access-date=2024-12-16 |website=ResearchGate |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref>