Hispanic America

Hispanic America is a cultural region made up of the countries of the Americas where the majority of Spanish is spoken. Its adjective is "Hispanic American".

Not dogmatic, as it can be used retrospectively, its use as a noun should be reserved from the second half of the century XIX, when the term appears fully established. Latin America is currently made up of nineteen countries with a total population of over 400 million inhabitants. In most of them, Spanish is the official or co-official language. In several Latin American countries, Spanish exists alongside various indigenous languages of pre-Hispanic origin, such as Guarani, Aymara, Quechua, Nahuatl, or Maya. The predominant religion in Spanish America is Christianity, especially Catholicism.

The term differs from that of Ibero-America, which includes the American and European nations that have only Spanish and Portuguese as their official or co-official language. It is also different from the concept of Latin America or Latin America, which groups the countries or territories of the American continent from the border of Mexico and the United States to the south, including the Caribbean, where the Spanish, Portuguese or French language predominates.

According to the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, Hispano-America is "the group of American countries that speak Spanish", therefore excluding the American states "in which the official language is not Spanish". "Its adjective, Hispano-American , refers strictly to what belongs to or is related to Spanish America and does not, therefore, include what belongs to or is related to Spain."

Regarding the particular case of Puerto Rico, there are differences of criteria, some do not include it because they consider that its status as a commonwealth is not comparable to the notion of country.^{[citation required ]}

Hispanic American countries

Hispanoamérica

Country	Population	Extension (km2)	Capital	Percentage of Spanish as a mother tongue	GDP (PPA) (2018)	GDP (nominal) (2018)
Argentina	44 494 502	2 780 400	Buenos Aires	99.3 %	927 382	488 213
BoliviaBolivia	11 240 978	1 098 581	Sucre	64 %	69 979	29 802
ChileChile	18 099 000	756 102	Santiago	95.42 %	410 277	276 975
ColombiaColombia	51 049 498	1 141 748	Bogotá	99 %	641 532	381 822
Costa RicaCosta Rica	4 890 379	51 100	San José	97.25 %	71 211	49 621
CubaCuba	11 616 004	110 860	Havana	100%	211 946	125 000
Dominican RepublicDominican Republic	10 766 998	48 670	Santo Domingo	98.98 %	135 738	60 765
EcuadorEcuador	17 755 452	256 370	Quito	92.96 %	181 950	94 144
El SalvadorEl Salvador	7 415 479	21 041	San Salvador	100%	50 903	24 512
GuatemalaGuatemala	17 383 245	108 889	Guatemala City	64.7 %	118 655	54 383
HondurasHonduras	9 126 229	112 492	Tegucigalpa	97.16 %	38 946	18 813
Mexico Mexico	123 982 528	1 964 375	Mexico City	92.17 %	2 143 499	1 258 544
NicaraguaNicaragua	6 592 000	130 370	Managua	87.4 %	29 850	11 272
Panama Panama	4 115 897	75 517	Panama City	93.1 %	76 953	47 473
Paraguay Paraguay	7 052 983	406 752	Assumption	55.1 %	57 866	28 333
Peru Peru	32 162 184	1 285 216	Lima	80.3 %	486 510	275 308
Puerto RicoPuerto Rico	3 195 153	9 104	San Juan	95.1 %	107 661	101 034
Uruguay Uruguay	3 487 000	176 215	Montevideo	96.6 %	69 777	56 345
Venezuela Venezuela	31 828 000	916 445	Caracas	96.48 %	545 704	373 978
Totals	414 207 581	11 473 117		91.78 %	6 274 698 (4o)	3 689 675 (4o)

The nineteen countries belonged to the Spanish Empire, hence the spread of the language. In Puerto Rico, Spanish is co-official with English; however, Spanish is the most widely used language on the Caribbean island. The Hispanic countries of South America have an estimated area of more than 8.8 million km² (49% almost 50% of the South American territory), equivalent to being the fifth largest country in the world in total area (displacing Brazil in the sixth) but in total the Spanish-American countries give the second largest entity by extension, however without including at all the Antarctic territories claimed by Chile and Argentina, which are much more than one million square kilometers.

Demographics

Thanks to Pope Paul III's bull Sublimis Deus of 1537, the indigenous people were declared men with all the effects and capacities of Christians. The Spanish strove to incorporate the indigenous people to their civilization and their Church, even at the cost of annulling the cultural identity of the natives.

Ethnography

From an ethnographic point of view, the population of Latin America differs from country to country, and even in each geographic area. In some, their population base is made up of native peoples from East Asia who discovered or populated the continent between 25,000 and 14,000 years BC, in others by migrants from Europe and the African continent (as is the case of the Dominican Republic)..

At the end of the 15th century, Europeans began the conquest, colonization, and subjugation of indigenous societies. In Latin America, it was mainly the Spanish Empire that was in charge of conquering and colonizing the territory. The presence of Spanish conquerors, mostly men, produced a first sexual exchange between European ethnic groups (mainly Spanish) and indigenous ethnic groups. In the 16th century there was a great decrease in the indigenous population, which led the Spanish to bring in people of various ethnic groups from sub-Saharan Africa, kidnapped from their lands and forcibly taken under a slave regime. African ethnic groups also mixed in Spanish America with the various European ethnic groups (mainly Spanish) and the various indigenous ethnic groups.

Between the 19th and 20th centuries there was a great wave of migration to Latin America, which included various European ethnic groups and a small number of Asians (Galicians, Basques, Irish, Catalans, Castilians, Genoese, French, Calabrians, Neapolitans, Venetians, Sicilians, Lombards, Poles, Germans, Russians, Arabs, Armenians, Jews, Japanese, Chinese, among others, mostly European), whose proportion varies from country to country. These Euro-Asian ethnic groups also mixed with the ethnic groups present in the Spanish-American countries, giving rise to new ethnic groups that preserve to a greater or lesser degree the ethnic contributions that originated them.

Finally, migrations between Latin American countries have also produced sexual exchanges between ethnic groups from Hispanic, Latin American and Anglo-American countries.

Hispanic American ethnic diversity has been the object of strong acts of racist discrimination, since the Spanish Empire imposed it in the XVI century a hierarchical ordering of the population according to "race" and "crosses" or "castes," called the colonial caste system, whose classifications, although legally abolished, have not yet disappeared from customary use, as is the case with the expressions "white", &# 34;mixed" and "mulatto".

Indigenous

Maya women in Guatemala.

The indigenous or original are the peoples and nations that existed when the Europeans arrived in the Americas. Populations from Asia entered through the Bering Strait during the last ice age, around 25,000 years ago, and colonized all four subcontinents. The only country where the percentage of indigenous people is the largest component of the population is Bolivia, while in Peru and Guatemala they make up between 40-45%. There are significant indigenous communities in Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador and Panama. Finally, there are minorities in Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. The culture of the indigenous people of the Americas varies enormously. Language, clothing, and customs vary greatly from one culture to another. This is due to the extensive distribution of the Americans and the adaptations to the different regions of America. For example, due to the semi-desert region, the Chichimecas of Aridoamerica never came to form a civilization like those of Mesoamerica, their neighbors to the south. As a consequence of this, the Chichimecas formed a culture based on the practice of nomadism. Although the Aztecs and Incas formed extensive and rich civilizations, the clothing of both depended heavily on the climate of their lands. In Mesoamerica, where the climate is hotter, they used to wear less clothing than the inhabitants of the Andes. Even so, there are some cultural characteristics that most Native Americans practiced.

Ancestors of various ethnic backgrounds

A mixed man and his wife IndiaVirreinato de Nueva España 1763, by Miguel Cabrera.

The Spanish Empire used a series of denominations to classify the American population and attribute privileges and duties according to each person's belonging. Within that system, the name "mestizo" was applied to the person who was the result of a cross between the "white race" (for Spanish or European) and the "Indian race" (by indigenous). The Royal Spanish Academy includes the word, defining it as one born to a father and mother of different races, especially a white and indigenous man, or an indigenous man and a white woman, despite the fact that in the last century the term race has fallen into disuse in academic fields, being replaced by the concept of ethnicity. Despite the universal condemnation of racism, the category continues to be used by some people and some studies, in many cases without any rigor. The use of the category "mestizo" and other categories derived from racist classifications of the population such as "zambo" or "mulatto" it has been questioned as racism by various studies.

A representation of mestizos in a "Pintura de Castas" of the colonial era. "Spanish and Indian produces mestizo".

In the term mestizo there is a certain imprecision, since in Spanish it has been applied especially to the individuals resulting from the miscegenation between Spaniards and Amerindians (since there is not much mention about the mixture of non-Iberian Europeans with indigenous people). One forgets with this use that a considerable part of the miscegenation in Hispanic America was between whites with blacks, blacks with Amerindians or the secondary miscegenation of mestizos with Amerindians and blacks. The untamed, acquired such a denomination for exhibiting a phenotype, which indicated that they were the mixture of a mestizo and an Indian, in the case of the zambo, of a black and an Amerindian, as well as a white with black in the case of the mulatto or brown., and from a mestizo to the result of a white with an Amerindian, and from this result with another Amerindian, an undomestic is obtained. The countries with the highest predominance of mestizo population are in order: Paraguay, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama and Nicaragua, although these racial denominations in Latin America and in the American continent are used or should be used in more partial senses due to some evident populations with ancestors of various races, not exclusively of two, equally applying in terms such as zambo or mulatto. There are also significant numbers of mestizo population, although not the majority in countries such as Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

Creoles and immigrants

"Creole" It is a term used in the colonies to distinguish people who were born in the colonies but were of Spanish descent, from those who were born in the colonies but were of indigenous or African descent. Later the term was used to differentiate the native population of America from the immigrants who arrived from the mid-XIX century.

In the image, the Queen of Beauty of Italy at the National Immigrant Festival in Oberá, Province of Misiones, Argentina.

Some sectors of society of European descent oppose "Creole" to "civilized" or "European", assigning a devaluing and derogatory charge to the Creole condition.

European and Asian emigration to Latin America has hosted a considerable number of people from different countries, mainly Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and Chile, where the largest number of people from European countries were concentrated. and Asians. The main European diasporas to Latin America were especially Italians, Spanish, Arabs and Jews in Argentina, Spanish in Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico, Portuguese in Venezuela and Argentina, Italians in Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Peru, Germans in Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Guatemala, French in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, Irish in Argentina, Chile and Mexico, English in Argentina, Chile and Peru, and finally Croats in Argentina and Chile.

Recent genetic studies have established that large sectors of the population traditionally classified as "European", "white" or "criollos", actually have one or more indigenous or African ancestors. In Argentina, for example, where it was established in the census in 1947 that more than 100% of its population was "white", recent genetic studies have established that more than half of the population has at least one indigenous or African ancestor, generally by maternal route (it should be noted that it does not only occur with people who are called white, it also occurs with people who are classified as black or Amerindian).

Other sources, without relying on demographic studies, classify countries such as Uruguay, Argentina and Costa Rica as countries with more than 80% of the "white" population.

In Puerto Rico (United States) there is also an absolute Creole majority, which represents between 70-80% of the population. In countries like Cuba, the white population reaches 65%, while in Chile, Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia it is around 50%.

Other countries that present themselves as a minority but are visible are Paraguay, Guatemala and Nicaragua that have percentages that are between 17-20%, Peru with 15%, the Dominican Republic with 14%, El Salvador and Bolivia 12% and finally Panama 10% (although the latter is not very well specified). On the other hand, countries like Ecuador and Honduras are small minorities of the population.

In quantity, the countries with the largest number of people classified as "Creole" are Argentina (approximately 38 million), Mexico (between 35-60 million), Colombia(approximately 20 million), Venezuela (more than 13 million) Chile (more than 10 million), Cuba (more than 7 million) and Peru (more than 3.5 million). In Argentina, the population classified as "white" in many cases it does not correspond to the one classified as "creole", because they are descendants of immigrants who arrived between 1850 and 1950, mostly Italians.

Non-Iberian European immigrants after the Second Mexican Empire.

To the reduced immigration from Spain and also including Portugal during the conquest and, above all, during the colony, was later added a large forced immigration of sub-Saharan Africans, and later from other European and Asian countries, mainly from Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Croatia. Argentina and Uruguay increased their population notably, receiving important migratory flows from Europe and Asia from the second half of the XIX century, mainly from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Germany. Chile received a large number of mainly Spanish (Basque) immigrants, with contributions from Germans, Italians, Croatians, French, Swiss, Arabs and British, who make up the country's Creole population, estimated at 52.3%. For its part, Cuba received considerable immigration based, almost entirely, on Spaniards. Costa Rica received a considerable number of Spanish exiles during the 1930s (escaping the Francisco Franco regime) as well as other immigrations from France, Italy, Holland, England, etc., it also maintains homogeneous Hispanicity among its population from the colony, was also influenced. Puerto Rico also received European immigration, mainly from Spain itself and also from France, but at the beginning of the 19th century. Mexico during the XX century and mid-century XIX also received immigrants mainly Spanish exiles, as well as Italians, French, English, Germans and very recently Americans and Canadians of British and German origin. Colombia received mainly Spanish and Arab immigration; Paraguay received European immigration in the XX century just like Colombia, but in a much smaller flow. Peru received immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, also in smaller flows. Venezuela, being today a multi-ethnic country, also had great immigration in the 20th century, especially from Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and Germans; this thanks to the economic growth due to the discovery of oil which significantly modified its ethnography, currently the Creole population represents 43.6% of the total population of the country. Recent studies of mitochondrial DNA, only transmitted through mothers, in the white phenotype population in these countries reveal that there is also a percentage of miscegenation in this population. This coincides with the historical data on the predominance of male immigrants.

Comparison with other political entities

Pos	Flag	Country	Population (2020)
1		China	1 416 198 000
2		India	1 390 214 000
3		European Union	508 191 000
4		Hispanoamérica	403 145 000
5		United States	330 439 000
6		Indonesia	275 269 000
7		Brazil	215 304 000

Countries by Human Development Index (HDI)

Post	Country	IDH (2019)
Very high human development
1	ChileChile	0.851
2	Argentina	0.845
2	Puerto RicoPuerto Rico	0.845
4	Uruguay Uruguay	0.817
5	Panama Panama	0.815
6	Costa RicaCosta Rica	0.810
High human development
7	CubaCuba	0,783
8	Mexico Mexico	0.779
9	Peru Peru	0.777
10	ColombiaColombia	0.767
11	EcuadorEcuador	0.759
12	Dominican RepublicDominican Republic	0.756
13	Paraguay Paraguay	0.728
14	BoliviaBolivia	0.718
15	Venezuela Venezuela	0.711
Average human development
16	El SalvadorEl Salvador	0.673
17	GuatemalaGuatemala	0.663
18	NicaraguaNicaragua	0.660
19	HondurasHonduras	0.634

The 35 most populous cities

Mexico City.

Buenos Aires.

Lima.

Bogota.

Santiago.

Caracas

Country	City	Metropolitan Area
Mexico Mexico	Mexico City	22 500 000
Argentina	Buenos Aires	14 955 536
Peru Peru	Lima	12 010 005
ColombiaColombia	Bogotá	9 300 000
Venezuela Venezuela	Caracas	7 943 901
ChileChile	Santiago	6 950 000
Mexico Mexico	Guadalajara	4 950 000
Mexico Mexico	Monterrey	4 625 000
ColombiaColombia	Medellín	3 775 000
Dominican RepublicDominican Republic	Santo Domingo	3 625 000
GuatemalaGuatemala	Guatemala City	3 025 000
Mexico Mexico	Puebla	2 975 000
EcuadorEcuador	Guayaquil	2 975 000
ColombiaColombia	Cali	2 925 000
Paraguay Paraguay	Assumption	2 525 000
EcuadorEcuador	Quito	2 525 000
Venezuela Venezuela	Maracaibo	2 450 000
CubaCuba	Havana	225 000
Mexico Mexico	Toluca	2 200 000
El SalvadorEl Salvador	San Salvador	2 177 432
Costa RicaCosta Rica	San José	2 158 898
Puerto RicoPuerto Rico (USA)	San Juan	2 150 000
Panama Panama	Panama	2 011 000
ColombiaColombia	Barranquilla	1 990 000
Mexico Mexico	Tijuana	1 950 000
Uruguay Uruguay	Montevideo	1 947 604
Venezuela Venezuela	Valencia	1 920 000
BoliviaBolivia	La Paz	1 870 000
BoliviaBolivia	Santa Cruz	1 830 000
Mexico Mexico	León	1 740 000
Argentina	Córdoba	1 570 000
Mexico Mexico	Ciudad Juárez	1 460 000
Venezuela Venezuela	Maracay	1 370 000
Argentina	Rosario	1 330 000

History

European colonies (siglos XVI-XVII).

The Spanish colonization of the Americas is the process of discovery, civilization, and human and social development of the Spanish domains in America, which began when the Spanish Crown incorporated the vast territories of the American continent into its heritage., and the peoples that inhabited them, thus extending the vast Spanish Empire.

The development was part of broader historical processes, called conquest, mercantilism, colonialism and imperialism, so that the European colonization of America affected a considerable number of territories and original peoples in America between the 16th and 20th centuries. In the most negative aspects of its colonial dynamics, the Spanish empire, to sustain itself against other European powers, depopulated Spain and consumed the wealth that Spanish transport added in Europe to the gold and silver of America. Since in America the gold and Silver had no commercial value in Amerindian societies or outside of barter, nor did other natural resources added by Spanish trade throughout its stay. On the other hand, there is a passionate debate about the destruction of the original cultures of America caused by the Spanish colonization. During the conquest of America there was a demographic collapse of the indigenous population. The reasons for it are under debate, distinguishing the currents that attribute it to an unwanted effect of epidemic diseases brought by the European colonizers, from those that maintain that it was a genocide, originated in the treatment given to the indigenous people.

There were Spanish projects for the independence of America that, however, could not be put into practice, and from 1808, with the fall of the monarch Ferdinand VII and the beginning of the transformation of Spain into a liberal State in 1812, the violent dismemberment of the Spanish Empire in America begins. The American territories under Spanish rule, converted into Republics, began their emancipation struggles and the acts of Expulsion of the Spanish from America. Finally, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, under the sovereignty of Spain, were separated in 1898 by the military intervention of the United States, being the last Spanish colonial possessions in America to organize themselves as independent States.

Economy of Latin America

Hispanic America is the region of the world that produces the most food according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and is the second net exporter of oilseeds and poultry.[20]

Poverty and extreme poverty in Latin America

Hispanic America as a whole, due to the weak performance of the regional economies, has extreme poverty that affected 10.2% of the population in 2017. According to ECLAC reports, said rate is equivalent to 62 million Latin Americans and the poverty rate (if we measure it by income) is 30.2% of the population, which is equivalent to 184 million people.

Cepal explained to us that the countries with the lowest poverty are those with less extreme poverty: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, which have extreme poverty rates below 5%. Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic are between 5% and 10%, while the rest of the Latin American countries have extreme poverty rates above 10%. The report reveals that around 40% of the employed population of Latin America receives labor incomes below the minimum wage established by their country, and that this proportion is much higher among women (48.7%) and 15-year-olds. to 24 years (55.9%). Among young women, this figure reaches 60.3%. There is a low participation of women in paid work, which contrasts with their high participation in unpaid work for the home itself, since in Latin America 77% of unpaid work is carried out by women, according to survey data. of use of time.

Inequality in Latin America

Income inequality "GINI" it has been reduced in the region since the early 2000s. Of 18 Latin American countries it fell from 0.543 in 2002 to 0.466 in 2017, although it is worth clarifying that the rate of reduction has slowed in recent years.

Situation of the Spanish language

Argentina, the Spanish-speaking country with greater territorial extension.

Mexico City, the most populous Spanish-speaking city.

Mexico is the country with the largest number of speakers, almost a third of the total. With one name or another, it is one of the official languages of Bolivia (with the new Constitution approved in 2007, title I, chapter 1, article 5, paragraph 1, co-official with "all languages of nations and autochthonous peasant indigenous peoples, who are the aimara, araona, baure, bésiro, canichana, cavineño, cayubaba, chácobo, chimán, guarani, guarasu'we, guarayu, itonama, leco, machajuyai-kallawaya, machineri, maropa, mojeño-trinitario, Mojeño-Ignaciano, More, Mosetén, Movima, Pacawara, Puquina, Quechua, Sirionó, Tacana, Tapiete, Toromona, Uru-Chipaya, Weenhayek, Yaminawa, Yuki, Yuracaré and Zamuco"), Colombia (together with the languages and dialects of ethnic groups in their territories and English in San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina), Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador (according to the new Constitution of 2008, title I, article 2, "Castilian is the official language of Ecuador; Spanish, Kichwa and Shuar are official languages of intercultural relations. more ancestral languages are of official use for indigenous peoples in the areas where they live and in the terms established by law. The State will respect and encourage its conservation and use"), El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua (whose Constitution, title II, article 12, also establishes that "the languages of the Communities of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua also they will have official use in the cases established by law"), Paraguay (co-official with Guarani), Peru (co-official with Quechua, Aymara and other indigenous languages, where they predominate) and Venezuela (whose Constitution also establishes that " Indigenous languages are also of official use for indigenous peoples and must be respected throughout the territory of the Republic, as they constitute cultural heritage of the Nation and of humanity»).

It is not considered an official language in other American countries where it is spoken: Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Mexico (national together with indigenous languages).

In Puerto Rico, according to the successive plebiscites of the country's political status, which were added to what was established by the 1952 Constitution, it was established that "it is the permanent guarantee of American citizenship, our two languages, anthems and flags."

Non-Hispanic American countries with influence

Hispanic-American and Hispanic-speaking in the states of the American continent whose official language is not Spanish.

50%	20%	5%
30%	10%	2%

Spanish in Canada.

Spanish in United States.

There is a singular linguistic reality in the United States (where there is no nationally recognized official language) due to the progressive advance of bilingualism, especially in cosmopolitan cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Baltimore, and Seattle. In the state of New Mexico, Spanish is used even in state administration, although that state has no official language established in the constitution. New Mexican Spanish dates back to the time of Spanish colonization in the 16th century and preserves numerous archaisms. Spanish has a long history in the United States, many states, towns, and geographic features were nominated in that language, and it has been strengthened by immigration from the rest of the Americas. Spanish is also the second most widely taught language in the country. The United States is the second country with the largest number of Spanish speakers.

Spanish has become important in Brazil because of its proximity to and growing trade with its Spanish-American neighbors, especially as a member of Mercosur. In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved the decree, signed by the president, known as the Spanish Law, which offers it as the language of instruction in the country's schools and high schools. In many border cities, especially with Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, a mixed language called portuñol is spoken.

Spanish is not officially recognized in Belize, a former British colony. However, according to a 2000 census, 52.1% of the population speaks Spanish "muy bien". XVII. However, English remains the only official language.

In the Netherlands Antilles parallel to the Venezuelan coast, only in Aruba are there a large number of Spanish-speaking residents, while in neighboring Curaçao and Bonaire it is spoken by a minority, despite the fact that the proximity to Venezuela means that in the three islands receive the signal of the television channels of that country. However, due to the close commercial ties and the importance of Spanish-speaking tourism on the islands, in recent years the compulsory basic teaching of Spanish in schools has been introduced, although without official status (the only official languages of the Netherlands Antilles are Spanish). Dutch and Papiamento). Another neighboring island country of Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, now requires Spanish to be taught in all secondary schools, having designated it in 2004 as a First Foreign Language (EPLE), a measure that has been applied since March 2005.

Lastly, Spanish is not the official language of Haiti. Although its official language is French, Haitian Creole is widely spoken. Near the border with the neighboring Dominican Republic, basic Spanish is understood and spoken colloquially.