Culture of Latin America
Many of the former African slaves in Latin America mixed with the Europeans and their descendants (known as mulattoes) make up the majority of the population in some countries, such as the Dominican Republic, and large percentages in Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras.
[citation needed] In this same period, immigrants came from the Middle East and Asia, including Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, Armenians, and, more recently, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, mainly to Brazil.
Amerindian languages are spoken in many Latin American nations, mainly Chile, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Mexico.
[11] Practitioners of the Protestant, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormon, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baháʼí, and indigenous denominations and religions exist.
From the very moment of Europe's "discovery" of the continent, early explorers and conquistadores produced written accounts and crónicas of their experience—such as Columbus's letters or Bernal Díaz del Castillo's description of the conquest of New Spain.
During the colonial period, written culture was often in the hands of the church, within which context Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote memorable poetry and philosophical essays.
The 19th century was a period of "foundational fictions" (in critic Doris Sommer's words), novels in the Romantic or Naturalist traditions that attempted to establish a sense of national identity, and which often focussed on the indigenous question or the dichotomy of "civilization or barbarism" (for which see, say, Domingo Sarmiento's Facundo (1845), Juan León Mera's Cumandá (1879), or Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões (1902)).
However, what really put Latin American literature on the global map was no doubt the literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s,[citation needed] distinguished by daring and experimental novels (such as Julio Cortázar's Rayuela (1963)) that were frequently published in Spain and quickly translated into English.
The Boom's defining novel was Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad (1967), which led to the association of Latin American literature with magic realism, though other important writers of the period such as Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes do not fit so easily within this framework.
Contemporary literature in the region is vibrant and varied, ranging from the best-selling Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende to the more avant-garde and critically acclaimed work of writers such as Giannina Braschi, Diamela Eltit, Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Bolaño or Daniel Sada.
[25] Elsewhere in Latin America, during the 1870-1930 period, the philosophy of positivism or "cientificismo" associated with Auguste Comte in France and Herbert Spencer in England exerted an influence on intellectuals, experts and writers in the region.
Other Latin American philosophers of his era include Alejandro Korn (Argentina, 1860–1936) who authored 'The Creative Freedom' and José Vasconcelos (Mexico, 1882–1959) whose work spans metaphysics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of 'the Mexican'.
[28] More recent Latin American philosophers who practice Latina/o or Latino philosophy include: Walter Mignolo (1941-), Maria Lugones (1948-), and Susana Nuccetelli (1954) from Argentina; Jorge J. E. Gracia (1942), Gustavo Pérez Firmat (1949) and Ofelia Schutte (1944) from Cuba;[29] Linda Martín Alcoff (1955) from Panama;[30] Giannina Braschi (1953) from Puerto Rico;[31][32] and Eduardo Mendieta (1963) from Colombia.
Another feature of Latin American music is its original blending of the variety of styles that arrived in the Americas and became influential, from the early Spanish and European Baroque to the different beats of the African rhythms.
The mariachi bands of Mexico stirred up quick paced rhythms and playful movements at the same time that Cuba embraced similar musical and dance styles.
For the first fifty years after the Conquest the missionaries used theatre widely to spread the Christian doctrine to a population accustomed to the visual and oral quality of spectacle and thus maintaining a form of cultural hegemony.
Other notable Mexican writers include poets such as Octavio Paz (Nobel Laureate), Xavier Villaurrutia, and Ramón López Velarde, as well as prose writers such as Alfonso Reyes, Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Nellie Campobello, Juan José Arreola, Carlos Fuentes, Agustín Yáñez, Elena Garro, Mariano Azuela, Juan Rulfo, Amparo Dávila, Jorge Ibargüengoitia, Guadalupe Dueñas, Bruno Traven and Fernando del Paso, and playwrights such as Maruxa Vilalta and Rodolfo Usigli.
Contemporary Mexican authors include Álvaro Enrigue, Daniel Sada, Guadalupe Nettel, Juan Villoro, Jorge Volpi and Fernanda Melchor.
[53] Prior to the foundation of Mexico as a nation-state, the original inhabitants of the land used drums (such as the teponaztli), flutes, rattles, conches as trumpets and their voices to make music and dances.
For example, Antigua Guatemala is well known for its candy which makes use of many local ingredients fruits, seeds and nuts along with honey, condensed milk and other traditional sweeteners.
[citation needed] According to a study in late 2004 by the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Colombians are one of the happiest people in the world; this despite its four-decade long armed conflict involving the government, paramilitaries, drug lords, corruption and guerrillas like the FARC and ELN.
[citation needed] Ethno-racial groups maintained their ancestral heritage culture: whites tried to keep themselves, despite the growing number of illegitimate children of mixed African or indigenous ancestry.
In the last stage of the great cities and regions entered the U.S. oil source and demonstrations of the new immigration of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, increasing the already complex cultural mosaic.
Since the middle of the 20th century, artists such as Jacobo Borges, Régulo Perez, Pedro León Zapata, Harry Abend, Mario Abreu, Pancho Quilici, Carmelo Niño and Angel Peña emerged.
The 80s produced artist as Carlos Zerpa, Ernesto León, Miguel Von Dangel, Mateo Manaure, Patricia Van Dalen, Mercedes Elena Gonzalez, Zacarías García and Manuel Quintana Castillo.
Major writers and novelists include Rómulo Gallegos, Teresa de la Parra, Arturo Uslar Pietri, Adriano González León, Miguel Otero Silva, and Mariano Picón Salas.
Carlos Raúl Villanueva was the most important Venezuelan architect of the modern era; he designed the Central University of Venezuela, (a World Heritage Site) and its Aula Magna.
Famous Venezuelan baseball players include Luis Aparicio (inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame), David (Dave) Concepción, Oswaldo (Ozzie) Guillén (current White Sox manager, World Series champion in 2005), Freddy Garcia, Andrés Galarraga, Omar Vizquel (an eleven-time Gold Glove winner), Luis Sojo, Miguel Cabrera, Bobby Abreu, Félix Hernández, Magglio Ordóñez, Ugueth Urbina, and Johan Santana (a two-time unanimously selected Cy Young Award winner).
[75] During this time, racial issues were discussed in contradictory terms, but even so, there were some significant plays, including a series of popular comedies by Martins Penna, França Junior, and Arthur Azevedo.
[77] 1943 at The Comedians: Polish director and refugee from the Nazis, Zbigniew Ziembinsky, staged in expressionist style Nelson Rodrigues' A Bride's Gown (Vestido de Noiva).
