Latin American Culture Essay

Every corner of the world is connected, no matter if it is right next door or on the other side of the globe. The link between Latin America and the rest of the world is much stronger than one might think. Regardless of how far away or close another country might be, there are apparent similarities. Since the discovery of the New World, it has been shaped by the rest of the globe and the opposite is also true. Whether it be religion, food, fashion, or art many ideas have been traded over the years. To start, globalization in Latin America during the periods covered in our class was an extremely important factor. From the time of its discovery, Latin America was seen as a land of many opportunities for the Europeans. With promises of gold,

Like stated before, Latin America culture is really a mixture of three different cultures. There are important symbols and beliefs that are for each one. When discovered, the New World was only made up of native tribes, each one worshipping many gods and making sacrifices. Most of the sacrifices were of human lives, where they would cut out the person’s heart in order to “give” the god their soul. As the Europeans expanded into Latin America, they slowly tried to convert the natives to Christianity, many unwilling to change their ways. Even though, most of Latin America is considered Christian or Catholic you can find people who still acknowledge the native’s original gods. Art is another important characteristic of Latin America. Art is used in everything; history, religion, and just everyday life. Art is the way many people including the native tribes of the New World recorded their history. They would draw scenes from important events and another example is those tribes that didn’t have a written language would draw hieroglyphics to record information. The natives would also paint themselves and decorate their villages when doing religious ceremonies. Music was also another important factor to the native’s religion. They would play musical instruments and dance as the human sacrifices were made. These factors can be traced to present day were when celebrating something there is almost always music and dancing in Latin America. Painting of one’s body is also incorporated into today’s culture, during Carnival in Brazil the dancers often paint to decorate their body’s. Latin America culture and my culture are extremely different, but how we came to our present day cultures are similar. They were blended from multiple other societies and shaped to form one set of ideas and beliefs still active