Latin America Quotes

The scholarship on music and poetry in Mexico - and Latin America more generally - has yet to receive substantial historical attention. ~ Stephen Neufeld

One of the things that really worries me, in part about Mexico, in part about Latin America, and in part about the Hispanic population in the U.S. and Canada. It's the lack of awareness of this whole science world. ~ Juan Enriquez

Our responsibility as Christians makes us tremble. The northern hemisphere, the developed area of the world, the 20% who possess 80% of the world's resources, are of Christian origin. What impression can our African and Asian brethren and the masses in Latin America have of Christianity, if the tree is to be judged by its fruits? For we Christians are largely responsible for the unjust world in which we live. ~ Helder Camara

Rural communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America are where the majority of hungry people are and the inequality that exists between women and men in these communities is holding back progress. ~ Dionne Warwick

We think, fundamentally, that the future story of Latin America, not only of Mexico but for all of Latin America, will be constructed from the bottom - that the rest of what's happening, in any case, are steps. ~ Subcomandante Marcos

Student today don't mean na', but in a Latin America whipped into a frenzy by the Fall of Arbenz, by the Stoning of Nixon, by the Guerrillas of the Sierra Madre, by the endless cynical maneuverings of the Yankee Pig Dogs - in a Latin America already a year and half into the Decade of the Guerrilla - a student was something else altogether, an agent for change, a vibrating quantum string in the staid Newtonian universe. ~ Junot Diaz

While a handful of countries and a small number of people are leading ample life, dozens of countries and billions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America are being left in absolute poverty. ~ Tran Duc Luong

Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war. Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise in struggle against it. Yet, imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism. ~ Mao Zedong

I don't see why OPEC countries should continue to cut production just to keep the price of oil high. This will not affect the industrial countries alone, it will also hit poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Who will look after them? ~ Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani

My wife said I look like a Latin American dictator. I said, 'That's what I am' ~ Oscar De La Renta

We expect 'Narcos' will be an enormous success throughout everywhere in the world and maybe out-index in Latin America, given the Brazilian star and Brazilian director and heavy Latin American cast and that we shot the show entirely on location in Colombia. ~ Ted Sarandos

When you review the Central American wars or other Latin American wars, you find that there were dictators and there were insurgents. ~ Alvaro Uribe

Let's have some precision in language here: terrorism means deadly violence -- for a political and/or economical purpose -- carried out against people and other living things, and is usually conducted by governments against their own citizens (as at Kent State, or in Vietnam, or in Poland, or in most of Latin America right now), or by corporate entities such as J. Paul Getty, Exxon, Mobil Oil, etc etc., against the land and all creatures that depend upon the land for life and livelihood. A bulldozer ripping up a hillside to strip mine for coal is committing terrorism; the damnation of a flowing river followed by the drowning of Cherokee graves, of forest and farmland, is an act of terrorism.
Sabotage, on the other hand, means the use of force against inanimate property, such as machinery, which is being used (e.g.) to deprive human beings of their rightful work (as in the case of Ned Ludd and his mates); sabotage (le sabot dropped in a spinning jenny) -- for whatever purpose -- has never meant and has never implied the use of violence against living creatures. ~ Edward Abbey

In Latin America the border between soccer and politics is vague. There is a long list of governments that have fallen or been overthrown after the defeat of the national team. ~ Luis Suarez

Latin America has much richer resources. You'd expect it to be far more advanced than East Asia, but it had the disadvantage of being under imperialist wings. ~ Noam Chomsky

In Chile, everything from "kindergarten to cemeteries and community swimming pools were put out for bid." Between 1985 and 1992, over two thousand government industries were sold off throughout Latin America. Much of this property passed into the hands of either multinational corporations or Latin America's "superbillionaires," a new class that had taken advantage of the dismantling of the state to grow spectacularly rich. ~ Greg Grandin

The peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have common interest and are in the position to support each other in their anti-imperialist and anti-U.S. struggle. As long as Africa and Latin America are not free. ~ Kim Il-sung

When I was very young I was reading a lot of Latin American fiction, which later would be called "boom fiction." ~ Sandra Cisneros

He [Hugo Chavez] put poverty at the heart of political debate. Rightly so, given the country's immense inequality and poverty. He invested heavily in social programs such as literacy, health clinics, and education. He promoted Venezuela's indigenous culture and urged compatriots to take pride in its pre-Columbian history. He called time on the US treating Latin America as its backyard. ~ Rory Carroll

It is easier to start a war than to end it. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

When the U.K. or U.S. government issues bonds to fund a deficit, the buyers are not solely in the U.K. or the U.S. - they're in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Investment banks provide direct access to these buyers. ~ Bob Diamond

A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.

[Report to the United States Senate on his trip to Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, May 9-10 1966] ~ Robert F. Kennedy

President Obama's been reaching out to Iran, reaching out to Cuba, reaching out to Latin America. The only place he can't seem to be able to reach out to: Texas ... Despite Governor Rick Perry talking about how Texas could secede from the Union if it wanted to, 75 per cent of the people who live there want to stay in the United States. Of course they want to stay. I mean, after spending all that time and effort sneaking across the border to get here, why would they want to leave? ~ Jay Leno

When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there is no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully to Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world. The peoples of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their hopes. ~ George W. Bush

I am so proud of my heritage and of being Latina. I would most definitely consider roles in Latin America. ~ Chrissie Fit

One of the reasons why I agreed to do commercials is that they gave me complete freedom. I just had to have the car in it and write a story around it. I wanted to do something serious set in a Latin American country, but again, it was an exercise in style for me. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Oh my, I've just discovered what science shows us about our humble but spectacular place in the universe, and I have to say: it is thrilling and mind-boggling beyond all imaginings! It makes the Bible so puny and uninspired, and certainly less poetic, by comparison. I'm terribly sorry. I sincerely misunderstood so much. I almost wish there were a God so I could be punished for all the suffering I have obliviously caused in the world. But since there will be no cosmic punishment for me, I will spend what time I have left working in a family planning clinic in Latin America. Good day. ~ Julia Sweeney

Business often does a good job supporting communities: the arts, universities, and scientific enterprises ... But that philosophy has rarely reached poor countries. Even businesses that are enlightened in their home bases see Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia as places to exploit natural resources or use cheap labor. ~ Jeffrey Sachs

Latin America, for the first time in 500 years, is moving towards a degree of independence. ~ Noam Chomsky

Brazil has a lot of issues that are similar to a lot of countries in Latin America, but the dominant issue Brazil is dealing with is poverty and political corruption. ~ Morena Baccarin

Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors. ~ Paul Farmer

Globalization has shipped products at a faster rate than anything else; it's moved English into schools all over the world so that now there is Dutch English and Filipino English and Japanese English. But the ideologies stay in their places. They do not spread like the swine flu, or through sexual contact. They spread through books and films and things of that nature. The dictatorships of Latin America used to ban books, they used to burn them, just like Franco did, like Pope Gregory IX and Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Now they don't have to because the best place to hide ideologies is in books. The dictatorships are mostly gone - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. The military juntas. Our ideologies are not secrets. Even the Ku Klux Klan holds open meetings in Alabama like a church. None of the Communists are still in jail. You can buy Mao's red book at the gift shop at the Museum of Communism. I will die soon, in the next five to ten years. I have not seen progress during my lifetime. Our lives are too short and disposable. If we had longer life expectancies, if we lived to 200, would we work harder to preserve life or, do you think that when Borges said, 'Jews, Christians, and Muslims all profess belief in immortality, but the veneration paid to the first century of life is proof that they truly believe in only those hundred years, for they destine all the rest, throughout eternity, to rewarding or punishing what one did when alive,' we would simply alter it to say 'first two centuries ~ John M. Keller

Deploying LOGCAP or other contractors instead of military personnel can alleviate the political and social pressures that have come to be a fact of life in the U.S. whenever military forces are deployed," wrote Lt. Col. Steven Woods in his Army War College study about the effects of LOGCAP. "While there has been little to no public reaction to the deaths of five DynCorp employees killed in Latin America or the two American support contractors from Tapestry Solutions attacked (and one killed) in Kuwait ... U.S. forces had to be withdrawn from Somalia after public outcry following the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu. ... "Additionally, military force structure often has a force cap, usually for political reasons. Force caps impose a ceiling on the number of soldiers that can be deployed into a defined area. Contractors expand this limit. ~ Rachel Maddow

An increase in the relative price of products from the low wage manufacturers in Asia and Latin America will also make those products less attractive to American consumers. ~ Martin Feldstein

In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America. ~ Gael Garcia Bernal

Obama occasionally pointed out that the post–Cold War moment was always going to be transitory. The rest of the world will accede to American leadership, but not dominance. I remember a snippet from a column around 9/11: America bestrides the world like a colossus. Did we? It was a story we told ourselves. Shock and awe. Regime change. Freedom on the march. A trillion dollars later, we couldn't keep the electricity running in Baghdad. The Iraq War disturbed other countries - including U.S. allies - in its illogic and destruction, and accelerated a realignment of power and influence that was further advanced by the global financial crisis. By the time Obama took office, a global correction had already taken place. Russia was resisting American influence. China was throwing its weight around. Europeans were untangling a crisis in the Eurozone.

Obama didn't want to disengage from the world; he wanted to engage more. By limiting our military involvement in the Middle East, we'd be in a better position to husband our own resources and assert ourselves in more places, on more issues. To rebuild our economy at home. To help shape the future of the Asia Pacific and manage China's rise. To open up places like Cuba and expand American influence in Africa and Latin America. To mobilize the world to deal with truly existential threats such as climate change, which is almost never discussed in debates about American national security. ~ Ben Rhodes

Globalization and the neoliberal economic model have already been rejected in Latin America; it simply hasn't been a solution for our people. At the same time, Latin countries like Venezuela and Argentina are anti-imperialist and anti-globalization, and yet their economies are growing again. ~ Evo Morales

Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything from the discovery until our times, has always been transmuted into European
or later
United States
capital, and as such has accumulated on distant centers of power. Everything: the soil, its fruits nad its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to work and to consume, natural resources and human resources. ~ Eduardo Galeano

Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That's why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people. ~ Barack Obama

If it is an element of liberation for Latin America, I believe that it should have demonstrated that. Until now, I have not been aware of any such demonstration. The IMF performs an entirely different function: precisely that of ensuring that capital based outside of Latin America controls all of Latin America. ~ Che Guevara

Latin America can no longer tolerate being a haven for United States liberals who cannot make their point at home, an outlet for apostles too "apostolic" to find their vocation as competent professionals within their own community. The hardware salesman threatens to dump second-rate imitations of parishes, schools and catechisms
out-moded even in the United States
all around the continent. The traveling escapist threatens further to confuse a foreign world with his superficial protests, which are not viable even at home. ~ Ivan Illich

I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America. ~ Ruben Blades

And Latin America has become very fashionable, yet what repels me is that everyone in Europe goes and imposes themselves there under this mantle of social and socialist cooperation, which in reality is nothing but a disgusting subspecies of European Christian-Socialist fussiness.The Europeans bore themselves to death and meddle every where in the so called Third World in order to escape that fatal European boredom. Missionarianism is a German vice which has invariably just brought misfortune to the world today, which has invariably just plunged the world
into crisis The Church has only poisoned Africa with its detestable dear God, and now it is poisoning Latin America with it. The Catholic Church is the world poisoner the world destroyer, the world annihilator, that is the truth. The Germans continually poison the world outside of
their borders and they will give it no rest until this entire world is fatally poisoned. So I have long withdrawn from my bad habit of wanting to help people in Africa and South America and into myself entirely. There is no helping humanity in our world which has been a hypocrisy for centuries. And, like humanity, there is no helping the World because both are a hypocrisy through and through.
(Goethe Dies, p. 73) ~ Thomas Bernhard

The United States condoned dictatorships in Latin America for much of the 20th century. ~ Carlos Fuentes

Whatever Latin America sells - raw materials or manufactures - its chief export product is really cheap labor. ~ Eduardo Galeano

The Spaniards owned the cow, but others drank the milk. ~ Eduardo Galeano

Capitalism has only hurt Latin America. ~ Evo Morales

All cultures seem to find a slightly alien local population to carry the Hermes projection. For the Vietnamese it is the Chinese, and for the Chinese it is the Japanese. For the Hindu it is the Moslem; for the North Pacific tribes it was the Chinook; in Latin America and in the American South it is the Yankee. In Uganda it is the East Indians and Pakistanis. In French Quebec it is the English. In Spain the Catalans are "the Jews of Spain". On Crete it is the Turks, and in Turkey it is the Armenians. Lawrence Durrell says that when he lived in Crete he was friends with the Greeks, but that when he wanted to buy some land they sent him to a Turk, saying that a Turk was what you needed for a trade, though of course he couldn't be trusted.
This figure who is good with money but a little tricky is always treated as a foreigner even if his family has been around for centuries. Often he actually is a foreigner, of course. He is invited in when the nation needs trade and he is driven out - or murdered - when nationalism begins to flourish: the Chinese out of Vietnam in 1978, the Japanese out of China in 1949, the Jankees out of South America and Iran, the East Indians out of Uganda under Idi Amin, and the Armenians out of Turkey in 1915-16. The outsider is always used as a catalyst to arouse nationalism, and when times are hard he will always be its victim as well. ~ Lewis Hyde

My sister, she's amazing. She sort of inspired me to take this journey to Latin America. ~ Jenna Bush

The wealth of the imperial countries is our wealth too. On the universal plane this affirmation, you may be sure, should on no account be taken to signify that we feel ourselves affected by the creations of Western arts or techniques. For in a very concrete way Europe has stuffed herself inordinately with the gold and raw materials of the colonial countries:

Latin America, China, and Africa. From all these continents, under whose eyes Europe today raises up her tower of opulence, there has flowed out for centuries toward that same Europe diamonds and oil, silk and cotton, wood and exotic products. Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The wealth which smothers her is that which was stolen from the underdeveloped peoples. The ports of Holland, the docks of Bordeaux and Liverpool were specialized in the Negro slave trade, and owe their renown to millions of deported slaves. So when we hear the head of a European state declare with his hand on his heart that he must come to the aid of the poor underdeveloped peoples, we do not tremble with gratitude. Quite the contrary; we say to ourselves: "It's a just reparation which will be paid to us. ~ Frantz Fanon

We all have that capacity to lose our humanity when circumstances force us to do so. It's not specific to people who live in Africa or Latin America or Asia. And equally, we are capable of regaining ourselves. ~ Ishmael Beah

We turn our backs on Latin America, always comparing ourselves instead to Europe. ~ Isabel Allende

Perhaps no country in Latin America is more picturesque than Bolivia, and the most memorable Bolivian city may be Potosi. ~ Nicholas Kristof

There are stories that are by and for Latin Americans, where a certain amount of cultural fluency is expected, where we can delight in the details, the humor, the particularities of speech, of dialects. Something is always lost in translation; we know instinctively that this is the case. A Radio Ambulante story looks at Latin America from the inside. ~ Daniel Alarcon

We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism. ~ Rigoberta Menchu

By the late 1970s, repression and economic chaos were causing increasing unrest throughout Latin America. Army strongmen were forced to cede power in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. ~ Stephen Kinzer

OUCH

"The arrabal (a term used for poor neighbourhoods in Argentina and Uruguay) and carpa (informal mobile theatre set up inside tents, once common in Latin America), with their caliente (hot) rhythms such as the rumba or the cha-cha-cha, were conquering audiences all over the world, a trend allegorised in song lyrics about their popularity among the French and other non-Latin Americans - "The Frenchman has fun like this/as does the German/and the Irishman has a ball/as does even the Muslim" ("Cachita") - even as they filtered in the presence of a blackness - "and if you want to dance/look for your Cachita/and tell her "Come on negrita"/let's dance" - denied in the official discourse of those Spanish=speaking countries wielding the greatest economic power in the region: namely, Argentina and Mexico, the latter of which would eventually incorporate Afro-Latin American culture into its cinema - although being careful to mark it as Cuban and not Mexican. ~ Robert McKee Irwin

They didn't need to be specifically South American or Latin American. Instead we discovered we were talking about human beings in general. We realized that these are not issues only pertinent to Latin America: poverty, misery, consumerism, etc. ~ Alex Abreu

'Everything beautiful occurs when the body / is suspended,' Helena Mesa quotes a performance artist who hangs his own pierced body in the air. Mesa's poems are artfully suspended between lyric and narrative, between humans and animals, between Latin America and the U.S., between desire and the difficulty of its fulfillment. Horse Dance Underwater is an inventive, musical, and powerful debut. ~ Mark Doty

The fact that the United States has political, economic, and legal structures that do indeed create incentives to control hazards (in the workplace) is one the reasons the corporations have moved to Latin America and Asia. ~ Vincent A. Gallagher

The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government. ~ William Colby

It's a little-known fact that most terrorist groups fail, and that all of them die. Lest this seem hard to believe, just reflect on the world around you. Israel continues to exist, Northern Ireland is still a part of the United Kingdom, and Kashmir is a part of India. There are no sovereign states in Kurdistan, Palestine, Quebec, Puerto Rico, Chechnya, Corsica, Tamil Eelam, or Basque Country. The Philippines, Algeria, Egypt, and Uzbekistan are not Islamist theocracies; nor have Japan, the United States, Europe, and Latin America become religious, Marxist, anarchist, or new-age utopias. The numbers confirm the impressions. ~ Steven Pinker

As I spent tons of time with customers, not just in the United States, but in emerging markets, in Europe, in Latin America, top of mind for everybody is how do they drive growth for their business going forward. ~ Satya Nadella

We know next to nothing about the relationship between Chavez and Raul Castro. One thing, though, is certain. The Cuban military and political elite do not regard Chavez as a logical successor to Fidel Castro in Latin America. ~ Mark Falcoff

It would be very ungrateful of me to turn my back or stop doing work in Latin America. ~ Jaime Camil

All told, U.S. allies in Central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands, and drove millions into exile. ~ Greg Grandin

There is one-and only one-way to end the violence in Latin America. There is one-and only one-way to terminate the drug gangs. That way is by legalizing drugs. Legalizing drugs today would put an immediate end to the drug gangs and the drug-war violence. ~ Jacob G. Hornberger

I think in terms of the themes that I have worked on most is establishing questions of race in the context of Latin America. This is a theme that makes uncomfortable a lot of people, and it obviously makes the Latin American Left uncomfortable. ~ Bocafloja

The fortunes of the African revolution are closely linked with the world-wide struggle against imperialism. It does not matter where the battle erupts, be it in Africa, Asia or Latin America, the master-mind and master-hand at work are the same. The oppressed and exploited people are striving for their freedom against exploitation and suppression. Ghana must not, Ghana cannot be neutral in the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor. ~ Kwame Nkrumah

The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives. ~ Henry A. Wallace

Science has eliminated distance. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

From 1976 to 1983, Washington supported a devastating military dictatorship in Argentina that ran all branches of government, outlawed elections, and encouraged school and business leaders to provide information on subversive people. The administration took control of the police, banned political and union organizations, and tried to eliminate all oppositional elements in the country through harassment, torture, and murder. Journalists, students, and union members faced a particularly large amount of bloody repression, thus ridding the nation of a whole generation of social movement leaders. As was the case in other Latin American countries, the threat of communism and armed guerrilla movements was used as an excuse for Argentina's dictatorial crackdowns. Hundreds of torture camps and prisons were created. Many of the dead were put into mass graves or thrown out of places into the ocean. Five hundred babies of the murdered were given to torturers' families and the assets of the dead totaling in the tens of millions of dollars, were all divided up among the perpetrators of the nightmare. Thirty thousand people were killed in Argentina's repression. ~ Benjamin Dangl

The American influence is not so aggressive anymore. The American big business influence in Latin America is not as strong, so people can vote and they can have a different life than before. They can have more liberal, more interesting, and more democratic governments. ~ Costa-Gavras

It's strange how things happen, Mauricio Silva, known as the Eye, always tried to escape from violence even at the risk of being considered a coward, but the violence, the real violence, can't be escaped, at least not by us, born in Latin America in the 1950s, those of us who were around twenty years old when Salvador Allende died. ~ Roberto Bolano

I majored in political science, and my concentration was U.S. involvement in Latin America in the 20th century. ~ Sebastian Arcelus

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against. ~ Noam Chomsky

All through Latin America, there's sharp condemnation of the criminal atrocities of Sept. 11. But it's qualified by the observation that although these are horrible atrocities, they are not unfamiliar. ~ Noam Chomsky

Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called the 'cities of the world', then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute 'the rural areas of the world'. ~ Lin Biao

We are not only a Latin American nation, we are an Afro-American nation also. ~ Fidel Castro

You should never turn your back on the market that gave you notoriety and be who you are and give you the numbers it gives you in the United States. I can't deny that the success I've had in the United States or the success that 'Pulling Strings' was due to my work in Latin America. ~ Jaime Camil

The Sundance Institute has been vital to the film communities of Latin America. ~ Walter Salles

There are still 500,000 persons afflicted with leprosy in Latin America, so it is still very much present. ~ Walter Salles

I spent my last year of high school in Latin America, and there's a edge of salsa under all of my rhythms. ~ Stephen Stills

Radio is the medium that most closely approximates the experience of reading. As a novelist, I find it very exciting to be able to reach people who might not ever pick up one of my books, either because they can't afford it (as is often the case in Latin America), or because they just don't have the habit of reading novels. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Latin America has not achieved the development that it deserves ... I'm not optimistic for all of Latin America, not only for Central America. ~ Oscar Arias

In Latin America in general, it's very important that Christianity not be simply a thing of reason, but also of the heart. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

America cannot do most of what needs to be done alone. You need friends. And we have good friends around the world. We have friends with whom we share values in Europe and Asia - thanks to the forward march of democracy - in Latin America, in Africa, and increasingly in the Middle East. ~ Condoleezza Rice

It's also very important in Latin America. If we can deal with the drug problem there, some of their strife there, it's less likely we have immigration problems here. ~ Anthony Weiner

Education is the only way forward in Latin America and developing countries in general. ~ Shakira

I think the best thing I can say about it - and I think the best thing you can say about anything, really - is that 'The Motorcycle Diaries' made me feel like my home was bigger; it made me feel at home anywhere in Latin America. ~ Gael Garcia Bernal

Writers in Latin America live in a reality that is extraordinarily demanding. Surprisingly, our answer to these demands protects and develops our individuality. I feel I am not alone in trying to give their voice to those who don't have it. ~ Elena Poniatowska

Galeano emphasized the import of nature in the European "conquest/invasion" of Latin America and the subsequent and ongoing colonial project. And he "located" the divorce of nature and people's communion within - and as fundamental to - the venture of Western civilization.1 The growing recognition, particularly in the "Souths" of the world today, that Western civilization is in crisis, and the propositions coming from Abya-Yala (the name, originally from the Cuna language, that indigenous peoples collectively give to the Americas today) for radically distinct life-models and visions interlaced with and in nature, give Galeano's words pragmatic substance. Galeano's words also, in a sense, establish the importance of location and place; that is to say, of the place and location from which we think the world, and act, struggle, and live in and with it. ~ Federico Luisetti

In Latin America, in the past, it was almost impossible to guarantee democracy. There were military dictatorships, and nowadays there are not so many military dictatorships. Although we have a dictator in Honduras, as a result of a coup, now as a president, he is almost the only one I would say. But again led or managed, gestated by the U.S. government. ~ Evo Morales

Major mutations or changes took place among the descendants of Japheth. This is obvious because of their white skin. In other words, they were black at one time but their skin changed to white. This phenomenon can be understood in view of the total world population. Over two-thirds of the population of the world consists of colored people. That is a ratio of 2-1. Two out of Noah's three sons remained black. We know this to be true because many of the people throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the islands in the Pacific Ocean are yellow, brown or, black. ~ Rudolph R. Windsor

My grandmother and my mom and my aunt Aurelia, my grandmother Juanita, my mom Lucia - we lived on the outskirts of a barrio in Mexico City called Tepito, and Tepito for many, many decades was the largest barrio in Mexico and perhaps even Latin America. ~ Juan Felipe Herrera

When Seoul hosted the Games in 1988, it became a symbol of the Asian Tigers' ascent onto the world stage. In 1992, the Barcelona Olympics represented the unification of Europe. And when Rio plays host in 2016, it will reinforce the growing importance of Brazil and Latin America as a whole. ~ Eduardo Paes

Our challenge in this regard will be to broaden the scope of our federal funds in terms of international diplomacy, development aid, and international assistance. Many Latinos in the United States look at Latin America and see trouble brewing. ~ Bob Menendez

In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions. ~ Noam Chomsky

Recent evidence confirms that retail prices of essential consumer goods in poor countries are not appreciably lower than in the United States or Western Europe. In fact, with deregulation and "free trade", the cost of living in many Third World cities is now higher than in the United States. My experience in Latin America and Haiti is that the prices of meat, fish and fresh vegetables are about the same as in the United States. Can you imagine eating on less than one dollar a day? ~ Vincent A. Gallagher

Since the Cuban Revolution and since the invasion of Santo Domingo a state of emergency has existed in Latin America. The Marines shoot at anything that moves, regardless of partyaffiliation. ~ Regis Debray