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Edit]The return of social movementsIn 1982, Mexico announced that it could not meet its foreign debt payment obligations, inaugurating a debt crisis that would discredit Latin American economies throughout the decade.[22] This debt crisis would lead to neoliberal reforms that would instigate many social movements in the region. A “reversal of development” reigned over Latin America, seen through negative economic growth, declines in industrial production, and thus, falling living standards for the middle and lower classes.[23] Governments made financial security their primary policy goal over social security, enacting new neoliberal economic policies that implemented privatization of previously national industries and informalization of labor.[22] In an effort to bring more investors to these industries, these governments also embraced globalization through more open interactions with the international economy. Significantly, as democracy spread across much of Latin America, the realm of government more inclusive (a trend that proved conductive to social movements), the economic ventures remained exclusive to a few elite groups within society. Neoliberal restructuring consistently redistributed income upward while denying political responsibility to provide social welfare rights, and though development projects took place throughout the region, both inequality and poverty increased.[22] Feeling excluded from these new projects, the lower classes took ownership of their own democracy through a revitalization of social movements in Latin America.
Argentinazo riots in December 2001. Both urban and rural populations had serious grievances as a result of the above economic and global trends and have voiced them in mass demonstrations. Some of the largest and most violent of these have been protests against cuts in urban services, such as the Caracazo in Venezuela and the Argentinazo in Argentina.[24]
Children singing the International Communist Hymn, 20th Anniversary of MST. Rural movements have made diverse demands related to unequal land distribution, displacement at the hands of development projects and dams, environmental and indigenous concerns, neoliberal agricultural restructuring, and insufficient means of livelihood. These movements have benefited considerably from transnational support from conservationists and INGOs. The Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST), is perhaps the largest contemporary Latin American social movement.[24] As indigenous populations are primarily rural, indigenous movements account for a large portion of rural social movements, including the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), indigenous organizations in the Amazon region of Ecuador and Bolivia, pan-Mayan communities in Guatemala, and mobilization by the indigenous groups of Yanomami peoples in the Amazon, Kuna peoples in Panama, and Altiplano Aymara and Quechua peoples in Bolivia.[24] Other significant types of social movements include labor struggles and strikes, such as recovered factories in Argentina, as well as gender-based movements such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and protests against maquila production, which is largely a women’s issue because of how it draws on women for cheap labor.[24] These various social movements have continued today along with a broader political shift to the left. They are credited with raising social awareness across the globe of important issues affecting indigenous peoples in Latin America and through their work with NGOs and other international organizations. Moreover, they have provided tangible alternatives to the principles of neoliberalism, spurring constitutional changes and legislative policy while demonstrating the merits of active representative democracies.[25] Edit]Demographics
Main article: Latin Americans Edit]Ethnic groups
Ethnic Composition by the 21st Century in Latin America.
Benito Juárez was anAmerindian Mexican ofZapotec ancestry.
Juniti Saito, head of theBrazilian Air Force and one of over a million Japanese Brazilians.
Enrique Maciel, an Argentine of Mulatto ancestry.
Che Guevara, anArgentine White Latin American of Spanish, Basqueand Irish ancestries.
Porfirio Díaz was a Mexican Mestizo of Mixtecand Spanish ancestry. The inhabitants of Latin America are of a variety of ancestries, ethnic groups, and races, making the region one of the most diverse in the world. The specific composition varies from country to country: many have a predominance of European-Amerindian, or Mestizo, population; in others, Amerindians are a majority; some are dominated by inhabitants of Europeanancestry; and some countries' populations are primarily Mulatto. Black, Asian, and Zambo(mixed Black and Amerindian) minorities are also identified regularly. Europeans/Whites are the largest single group, and along with people of part-European ancestry, they combine to make up approximately 80% of the population,[26] or even more.[27] § Amerindians. The aboriginal population of Latin America, the Amerindians (Native Americans), arrived thousands of years ago, during the Lithic stage. In post-Columbian times they experienced tremendous population decline, particularly in the early decades of colonization. They have since recovered in numbers, surpassing sixty million (by some estimates[26]), though with the growth of the other groups meanwhile, they now compose a majority only in Bolivia and Guatemala, and at least a plurality in Peru. In Ecuador, Amerindians are a large minority that comprises two-fifths of the population. Mexico's 14%[27] (alternatively 30%[26]) is the next largest ratio, and actually the largest Amerindian population in the Americas, in absolute numbers. Most of the remaining countries have Amerindian minorities, in every case making up less than one-tenth of the respective country's population. In many countries, people of mixed Amerindian and European ancestry make up the majority of the population (see "Mestizo", below). § Asians. People of Asian descent number several million in Latin America. The first Asians to settle in the region were Filipino, as a result of Spain's trade involving Asia and the Americas. The majority of Asian Latin Americans are of Japanese or Chineseancestry and reside mainly in Brazil and Peru; there is also a growing Chinese minority in Panama. Brazil is home to perhaps two million people of Asian descent, which includes the largest ethnic Japanese community outside of Japan itself, estimated as high as 1.5 million, and circa 200,000 ethnic Chinese and 100,000 ethnic Koreans.[28][29] Ethnic Koreans also number tens of thousands of individuals in Argentina and Mexico.[30] Peru, with 1.47 million people of Asian descent,[31][32] has one of the largest Chinese communities in the world, with nearly one million Peruvians being of Chinese ancestry. There is a strong ethnic-Japanese presence in Peru, where a past president and a number of politicians are of Japanese descent. The Martiniquais population includes an African-White-Indian mixed population, and an East Indian population.[33] The Guadeloupe, an East Indian population, is estimated at 14% of the population. § Blacks. Millions of African slaves were brought to Latin America from the sixteenth century onward, the majority of whom were sent to the Caribbean region andBrazil.[citation needed] Today, people identified as "Black" are most numerous in Brazil (more than 10 million) and in Haiti (more than 10 million). Among the Hispanic nations and Brazil, Puerto Rico leads this category in relative numbers, with a 15% ratio. Significant populations are also found in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. Latin Americans of mixed Black and White ancestry, called Mulattoes, are far more numerous than Blacks. § Mestizos. Intermixing between Europeans and Amerindians began early in the colonial period and was extensive. The resulting people, known as Mestizos, make up the majority of the population in half of the countries of Latin America. Additionally, Mestizos compose large minorities in nearly all the other mainland countries. § Mulattoes. Mulattoes are people of mixed European and African ancestry, mostly descended from Spanish or Portuguese settlers on one side and African slaves on the other, during the colonial period. Brazil is home to Latin America's largest mulatto population. Mulattoes form a majority of population in the Dominican Republic and Cuba, and are also numerous in Venezuela, Panama, Peru, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Ecuador. Smaller populations of mulattoes are found in other Latin American countries.[26] § Whites. Beginning in the late 15th century, large numbers of Iberian colonists settled in what became Latin America (Portuguese in Brazil and Spaniards elsewhere in the region), and at present most white Latin Americans are of Spanish or Portuguese origin. Iberians brought the Spanish and Portuguese languages, the Catholicfaith, and many Iberian traditions. Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile contain the largest numbers of whites in Latin America. Whites make up the majorities ofArgentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay, and depending on source, in Cuba, also; whites make up half of Brazil's population.[27][34][35] Of the millions of immigrants since most of Latin America gained independence in the 1810s–1820s, Italians formed the largest group, and next were Spaniards and Portuguese.[36]Many others arrived, such as French, Germans, Greeks, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Estonians, Latvians, Jews, Irish and Welsh. Also included are Middle Easterners of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian descent; Most of them are Christian.[37] Whites presently compose the largest racial group in Latin America (36% in the table herein), and, whether as White, Mestizo, or Mulatto, the vast majority of Latin Americans have white ancestry.[38] § Zambos: Intermixing between Africans and Amerindians was especially prevalent in Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil, often due to slaves running away (becomingcimarrones: maroons) and being taken in by Amerindian villagers. In Spanish speaking nations, people of this mixed ancestry are known as Zambos or Cafuzos in Brazil. In addition to the foregoing groups, Latin America also has millions of tri-racial people of African, Amerindian, and European ancestry. Most are found in Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil, with a much smaller presence in other countries.
Note: Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. Date: 2016-03-03; view: 900
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Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Mexico[40]
Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Puerto Rico
Uruguay
Venezuela