The last post was about Pet Peeves. I was struggling to come up with a blog for today when a friend’s Facebook post reminded me of another one. This article in Slate “I’m From America. Stop Complaining, South America”, which I admit is a totally biased choice on my part, opens with this conversation:
Me: Where are you from?
Her: I’m American.
Me: What state?
Her: Columbia.Me: So, South Carolina?
Her: No. Colombia, South America.
First of all, no one answers the question “Where are you from?” with the name of the continent or “What state?” with the name of a country. Unless, of course, they are trying to make a political point. Let’s start at the beginning. Being from the US I was taught that there are 7 continents: Africa, Antartica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America. Therefore, North and South America are the Americas. Apparently in Latin America they are taught that there are six continents. The same list as above but combining North and South Americas as one continent: America. I can see the geographical argument for combining Europe and Asia into Eurasia but what is the geological/geographical or cultural reason to combine the Americas into one chimera of a unit? It makes sense in an Old World/New World kind of way. Unfortunately, that looks and sounds like some colonizer mess and I am not down with that.
So, if you can have a standard that has North and South America lumped into one unit but still separates Europe and Asia, then exactly what is a continent, anyway? I mean I remember my school days definition of “large, independent land masses”, but if a large portion of the world has diverged then there has to be something more to the story.First I went here where I learned, and I quote, “There are many different, and confusing definitions of what a continent is.” The most common definition is, as I correctly remembered, “…a large, continuous, discrete mass of land, ideally separated by an expanse of water.” If this were strictly applied then the world would have two huge continents, Eurasia-Africa and America, and two small ones, Australia and Antarctica. The controversies continue: So why do we separate North and South America and not Europe and Asia? And what exactly does large mean, anyway? How come Australia gets to be a continent but Greenland doesn’t?
To make things even more confused the seven-continent model is mostly taught in China and English speaking countries. A six continent model combining Europe and Asia but still keeping the Americas separate is preferred by geographers, parts of the former USSR, and Japan. And yet another model places Australia as part of a continent called Oceania, which includes New Zealand and other Pacific islands. By the definition of a large, continuous land mass how does that even happen? This is in addition to the six continent model combining North and South America but separating Eurasia discussed above which is taught in Latin America and most of Europe. Let’s not even go into where Central America gets placed.
Ultimately, the definition of a continent is more by convention than strict definition. Unfortunately, the fact that folks in Latin America are taught that North and South America, what we in the US refer to as the Americas, are in fact the single continent of America leads to discussions like the one the Slate author had with his Colombian acquaintance. In case you don’t feel like reading the article she says that it is “unfair, imperialistic, and U.S.-centric” for Americans “to steal the terms ‘America’ and ‘American'”. The United States of America is indeed guilty of being self-focused- though not more so than any other country, in my experience. It is also quite often unfair and imperialistic. Personally, I would also add hypocritical and more than occasionally warmongering to the list. Especially when it comes to our brothers and sisters to the South.
From 1800 up to the modern era the US “intervened” in Cuba, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, and elsewhere. Look up what the Chileans remember every 9/11. Go ahead. I’ll wait. There was the Mexican War, the War of 1898, the Veracruz Incident, the Bay of Pigs, the invasion of Panama, and on and on and on. By most estimates from 1898 to 1994 the U.S. government successfully effected regime change in Latin America at least 41 times. 17 of these were direct interventions involving the U.S. military, US intelligence agents, or local citizens employed by U.S. government agencies. That’s not including the many (many, many) times the US tried and failed to intervene. Most of this had to do with the Cold War on Communism, all were most likely unnecessary, and none of these interventions benefited the countries in which they happened.
In 1916, the US invaded the Dominican Republic and established a military government under Admiral Knapp that was often brutal in its crackdown on dissent. Later, the US also supported dictator Rafael Trujillo despite his campaign of political assassinations and massacres of Haitians. Speaking of Haiti, the US sent the Marines to occupy Port-au-Prince in 1915. The US government would go on to administer the island for the next two decades releasing it only to support another half a century of military dictatorships. In the early 1950s the CIA organized a coup against lawfully elected President Arbenz in Guatemala. Arbenz was overthrown and a military dictatorship followed for the next forty years. Nearly a quarter million Guatemalans were killed or “disappeared.” During the civil war in El Salvador, 1980 to 1992, the El Salvadorian people were subjected to death squads and massacres by their US backed government. Contra guerrillas backed by President Ronald Reagan used Honduras as a base to attack Nicaragua’s Sandinista government throughout the 1980s.
(This, by the way, is when the Reagan administration and the CIA collaborated with Nicaraguan cocaine traffickers leading to the “crack” epidemic of the 1980’s which devastated the African-American community. But that’s a whole other blog post.)
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg. What I found after a couple of hours on Google. There are entire books, entire courses, about the US and its interactions with its neighbors. So, yeah. The people of Latin America are totally right to look at America and see us as unfair, imperialistic, hypocritical, and warmongering. I mean, I’m Black. This side of the US is hardly unfamiliar to me and my people. But, all of this aside, the United States of America gets shortened to America in much the same way that Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States) is shortened to Mexico. So, when it comes down to it, Imma just stick with calling myself an American. Warts and all.
Sources:
Competing Concepts of Continents
The Myth of Continents United States Interventions
The USA and Latin America: A History of Meddling?
US Mexican Relations from Independence to the Present
Decades of U.S. Intervention in Central America Echo in Present Border Crisis
10 Cases of American Intervention in Latin America
The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations