Americas_factsheet

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Region #4 – North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean

Fact Sheet

Cultural:

1. European and African civilizations have had a strong influence on the culture of the region.

   1. U.S. economic prosperity in the 19th and 20th century made the U.S. the destination of immigrants worldwide.

2. The Catholic Church is a prominent cultural influence in most Latin American countries.

• 1. The Vikings were the first Europeans to visit the Western Hemisphere.  They arrived 500 years before the Spanish.

3. Mexican artists portrayed history and culture to many poor people who couldn’t read or write through large wall sized murals.

• 1. Television shows and movies from Brazil and Mexico, as well as the U.S., can be seen around the world influencing international popular culture. 

Economic:

• 1. The U.S. is the wealthiest nation in the hemisphere.  Haiti is the poorest.

  2. NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement) had established a zone of free trade between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

  3. Caribbean island nations and many Central American countries have economies based on cash crops like sugar, coffee, and tobacco. If the supply is high and world prices drop, it can damage their entire economy.

  4. Poverty in Brazil has led to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest as ranchers look for more grazing land for beef production.

  5. Venezuela is the only nation in the Western Hemisphere that is a member of OPEC.

  6. The illegal drug trade between Latin America and the US is fueled by 2 forces:  demand in the United States and poverty in Latin America.

  7. Canada is the largest trading partner of the US.

Political:

• 1. The US has launched several military operations in many Latin American countries in the latter half of the 20th century, including Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Panama.

  2. US-backed Contras fought Soviet-backed Sandinistas in Nicaragua’s civil war in the 1980s.

  3. Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth in the Caribbean.

  4. Cuba is the region’s only communist country.  Fidel Castro was the leader there since the 1959 revolution, but was replaced by his brother Raul in 2008.

  5. Soviet nuclear weapons positioned in Cuba led to the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s. This was the closest the U.S. and the Soviet Union ever came to all-out nuclear war.

  6. A separatist movement in Canada has long sought independence of the French-speaking province of Quebec.

  7. The US and Canada share the longest unguarded border in the world.

  8. The upper classes in Venezuela have been protesting the populist government, who they believe is anti-business and corrupt.