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How Did Latin America Get Its Name?
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There
are some justifications for labeling Central and South America “Latin
America.” “Latin” suggests that certain important aspects of the culture
spring from the cultural tradition of ancient Rome, and, in fact, most
of “Latin America” was long ruled by either Spain or Portugal, both of
which are “Latin” countries. Most “Latin Americans” today speak Spanish
or Portugese, both languages descended from ancient Latin, and most of
the peoples there belong to the Roman Catholic church. Italy itself,
however, played no historic role in “Latin America.” Why, then, don’t
we call “Latin America” “Luso-Hispanic America”? (“Luso” meaning Portugese
because today’s Portugal was the ancient Lusitania) or “Ibero-America”?
The more one thinks about the term “Latin America,” the more mysterious
its origin becomes. |
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The truth is that
the term “Latin America” originated as political propaganda. During the
U.S. Civil War, France’s Emperor Napoleon III thought he saw an opportunity
to take over Mexico. France had never had any colonial interests there,
but Napoleon invaded on the pretext that France, a Latin nation, was avenging military
humiliations suffered by the Spanish and was therefore “defending Latin
honor.” On July 3, 1862, Napoleon published a letter in the French newspaper Le
Moniteur introducing the term “Latin America” to justify what was
really French imperialist aggression. Eventually the French were defeated
and retreated, but Napoleon’s sly propagandistic term long survived him.
(Bergman, Edward F. Human Geography: Cultures, Connections, & Landscapes.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1995, p. 165) |
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