South and Latin America Need to Knows

Need to know Demographic Primarily Christian Roman Catholic Racial diverse because of colonialism Much is mixed race European and American Latin America- Languages that have origins to Latin That’s why they are called Latinos- Spanish Speaking Country Not all Latinos are Hispanic

Colonialism 1500’s Primarily Spanish settled- Western South America because they know Inca have been there before Portuguese take east side of South America- Brazil speaks Portuguese Colonialists come over and establish colonies- Dictatorships disease killed many Colonials spread religion and conquering land to imitate parent country culture similar to Imperial Africa

History Pre 1800’s Grow sugarcane and have slaves as workforce due to Columbian Exchange- triangle trade of resources from Europe Africa and to Americas

History 1800’s Monroe Doctrine- U.S. focus on western hemisphere countries Early 1800’s Latin America has many revolutions over western imperial countries to gain independence where after U.S. takes a paternalistic role in region

History This policy was in place for nearly 100 years until U.S. imperialism takes control of areas of south/Latin America U.S. had to sign off on most of what goes on in countries with limited European involvement within the region Article

History 1900’s U.S. continues to be a force into1900’s in Latin and South America Especially with imperialism developing late 1800’s Building panama canal plays big role in region understanding the economic importance of the region and its benefits Vital for Latin and south America economies Decrease prices of shipping goods But more important for U.S. economy Shorten distance around the Americas to go through

History Spanish American war-1898 plays big role in how Spanish and United States relations fall apart. Both Countries play big role in region- Spanish-Western South America and Cuba After U.S. Victory Cuba receives Independence U.S. is the “Father Figure” for Cuba- Platt Amendment-U.S. can intervene and has to approve all Cuba’s policies. Also gets Guantanamo Bay as Naval Base Dollar diplomacy develops- where government protects investments abroad With military force

History Export of natural resources is the key Oil, sugar, soybeans, coffee But a lot of economy is based off these key resources Over consumption of these resource is common with limited government regulation

Need to Know Growing Economies- Especially brazil Growing consumers Because of World foreign investment- especially to Bric countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China Oil and commodities- when prices were high over previous years Resources like oil, copper, soybeans Lower prices in 2015 Growing consumers Political stability in certain countries also played major role in helping economies. Ex-Brazil, Peru, Dominican Republic

What does that do? Higher GDP than in rest of world Lower unemployment is the result Allows countries in South and Latin America to be more westernized Vacation and tourist area for Western World