Latin America

What countries make up Latin America?

Latin America includes: Mexico, Central America, The Caribbean and the majority of South America, including Brazil.

All of these countries have one important thing in common: All of them were settled by Spain and Portugal.  This means that there are some cultural similarities in these regions, such as language.  In addition, these countries have cultural influences from Spain and Portugal, also, greetings included.

To learn about these greetings, I interviewed my Spanish Interpretation professor, who was born and raised in Mexico.

For social situations, Latin Americans utilize the cheek kiss but instead of doing two, they only do one.  They also shake hands.  In formal situations, a hand shake is the standard form of greeting.  Refusing a handshake is rude and often looked down upon.  Latin Americans generally don't hug unless it is a special occasion.  All of these greetings are relatively universal throughout Latin America.




My professor found that coming into American culture was difficult after being raised in Latin America.  She described it as complicated.  Americans try to give a real kiss on the cheek and often find her style of greeting to mean that there is an attraction.


Personal experience:

One of my friends while I was studying abroad was from Brazil and he was relatively comfortable with the Spanish concept of space.  From what I have seen, the concept of space in Latin America is in between the American concept of personal space and the Spanish concept of personal space.