¿Les preocupa a los mexicanos la presencia de delincuentes entre las personas que emigran a México? He visto varios reportajes en las noticias sobre el Tren de Aragua y bandas haitianas que intentan internacionalizar sus organizaciones y expandirse a otros países.
It seems these light hair and eyes color traits such as blonde/red hair or blue/green eyes seem to be more commonly expressed among individuals of evenly mixed Euro and sub Saharan African descent compares to people of evenly mixed Euro and indigenous descent. Of course these traits are not common in general and of course can be found in both populations. However it seems these traits are more common amongst Euro and African mixes despite Europeans and indigenous American people having closer genetic affinity. Why is this?
In Germany for example there was a national scandal when the Green party to have schools and workplaces serve only vegetarian food one day a week. It turned into a national political fight about personal freedom, government interference, and whether politicians were trying to “take away German’s sausage”. The backlash became significant enough to hurt the Greens during the election campaign. What’s the silliest or dumbest thing that has been seriously politicized in your country and even caused a scandal?
I’m a 20 y.o. Female that does a bit of delivery driving on the side for some extra cash as a university student. Today I was dropping off some groceries to a neighborhood and it was around 6 pm. As I was driving down the block I saw a little girl who couldn’t be more than 6 years old playing in the front yard. When I came to deliver the food to the front door she ran to me in order to collect it. She was so polite and said thank you in a quiet manner when she collected the food. In my heart something didn’t feel right and I asked her where her parents were. She told me her mom was not home and she was by herself. I asked her if any adult was watching her and she said no. Worried I waited outside with the girl until her mother came home.
About 2 hours later, her mom arrived home and pulled into the driveway. She got out of the car with shopping bags. She asked who I was and I said I was the delivery driver who dropped the groceries she ordered at the home. I said the only reason why I was still here is because I saw the little girl outside playing by herself close to dark with no adult supervision. I told the woman I almost called the cops, but I didn’t want to cause a scene and I waited with the little girl until the mom came home for her safety.
The mom started getting defensive and said I had no business telling her how to raise her kid and the kid was sleeping so she didn’t want to wake her up and went to shop for clothes for the girl and her. I told the mother she was super irresponsible and something bad could have happened. The mom started raising her voice all while the little girl was just watching. Then the mom yelled at the little girl to get “her ass inside the damn house” and she would deal with her later. She told me to get off her property. I left. But I was so mad. I couldn’t help but feel like I shouldn’t have confronted the mother in front of her child. A little girl should not have to be exposed to anything like this.
For example Italians think Fettuccini Alfredo has nothing to do with Italian cuisine despite the dish being very popular abroad. I was also told by a Mexican friend that in Mexico no one eats burritos. Despite it being seen as quintessentially Mexican abroad.
My Roma friend from Europe was surprised to learn that Brasil’s 13th president was of Roma origin especially one during the early 20th century. In Europe, especially Eastern Europe Romani are heavily discriminated against. It’s not uncommon to hear people openly say they lie whenever they open their mouths, steal, are lazy, unreliable , commit crimes, etc. in movies they always get cast as bad guys or the maid/ house help, or fortune teller
Etc. In the roughly 1,000 years Roma have been in Europe, they have never as a group successfully integrated, but in LATAM it seems they’ve done well. So I’m curious what other groups in LATAM have been more successful there than in their countries of origin.
I noticed that Spain has a huge LATAM community and some parts of Europe too. However, some nationalities and demographics seem to be more represented than others. For example Mexicans are rare to find in Spain compared to Venezuelans. Also Paraguayans seem more visible in Spain compared to the USA. My friend from Spain also told me it depends on the mentality of the individuals as well. Which nationalities in LATAM are more likely to immigrate to Europe vs the USA and vice versa.
How can you tell if someone who is wealthy has had that wealth for generations or has recently became rich?
I travelled to Türkiye for vacations and met with a local friend I knew there. He’s black with Senegalese roots. However he was born and raised in Türkiye as his parents own a very successful business there. Surprisingly he has never visited the country of his parents and considers Senegal very foreign to him.
Once we were having a conversation with some Turkish friends of mine. A Turkish girl in the group remarked that my friend spoke good Turkish with no accent. My black friend is fluent in Turkish like a native, and also conversational in English and French. My black friend exclaimed why wouldn’t he speak good Turkish, after all he’s a Turk. My friend is also a naturalized Turkish citizen.
The girl seemed to get offended with his statement and asked him if he was trying to mock Turks. He explained he didn’t mean anything disrespectful. He explained he was born and raised in Türkiye and it’s the only home he’s ever known and he’s proud to be a Turk and a productive member of Turkish society. I expected my friends to be moved by his statement but they just laughed. One guy said that Türkiye isn’t a country like America where anyone can just move and become an American. In Türkiye not everyone who lives there (even legally) can be a Turk.
One of my friends that didn’t laugh, and seemed to pity my friend, tried to calmly diffuse the situation and said that maybe the guy meant well, and while he might be a citizen of Türkiye, he is not a Turk. He’s an African that just resides legally in Türkiye. That’s all. He also told my friend to not go around saying he is Turkish, especially to people he doesn’t know. My friend seemed a bit dejected after that encounter.
Do Brazilians feel like they have more in common with Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia etc or with Cabo Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Timor-Leste etc?
It’s well recorded that indigenous people were enslaved all over the Americas (or America if you will) and continued to be enslaved well into the 20th century. Yet it’s almost never talked about when mentioning indigenous people. It seems slavery is mostly associated with sub Saharan Africans brought by Europeans to the Americas.
My friend and university classmate from Mexico is studying in Germany. During holiday she traveled to Italy with her family for vacation. She doesn’t pay rent and her parents send her money. She never told me what her parents for work. I have another classmate/ friend from Honduras who is studying law and works an unpaid internship as a paralegal for a German law firm. He wanted to buy a car so his parents sent him €5,000 euro to buy a used one. He also doesn’t work or pay rent. His parents also just send him money. His mother is a doctor and his father is some high ranking military official. Both of them swear they are middle class, but I am not sure if they are. What is considered middle class in Latin America?
Keep in mind not all people who study abroad are rich. I did a semester abroad in the USA. While many Mexican students studying in the USA were loaded, there were some that lived in border states that crosses the USA border and went to high school in the states daily. Usually at least one of their parents was an American citizen. So when they graduated high school they were eligible to go to university in the USA without paying international student tuition.
Is there a Latin American country that you never really hear about except for once in a while? Or a country where no one really knows what goes on there?
The reason why I’m asking this question is because I was in a livestream with some Latin Americans and a girl from the Dominican Republic asked a girl with a Nicaraguan flag on her wall what country her flag belonged to. I was a bit surprised because while I get there are 20 countries in Latin America (21 if you technically count puerto rico). I just thought that there was enough occasional news coverage or media that she’d know about the flag at least.
Many people claim that women in the Middle East suffer high rates of femicide and teenage pregnancy because of islam. However, according to the data, Latin America has very high rates—perhaps the highest in the world—and the predominant religion in the region is Christianity, not Islam. Why are the rates of femicide and teenage pregnancy so high even though Latin America is considered part of the West?
So I have a friend who is African and he said that black people from the Caribbean, North America and Latin America have distinct appearances. Not just in the way they act or behave, but also the way they look. So they can easily be told apart from Africans from Africa. My European friends say the same with White Americans and Canadians. They’re obviously white, but they have distinct physical appearance and traits that makes them look different from Europeans and couldn’t be placed to any European country. Is that the same with Indo carribean people? Can indians from India tell you’re obviously indian but yet you look distinct or they can’t place you anywhere in the subcontinent?
Imagine if the cartels never existed in Mexico and the drug trade is not as prevalent or also does not exist. I’m not saying that there is no crime in Mexico, but imagine no cartel presence. What kind of country would Mexico be? Would it be more prosperous or safer? Maybe a large version of costa rica?
I’m German and I’m learning Spanish. One thing that I find interesting is be dark sense of humor that is so prevalent in Latin America. For example, I saw a viral video on social media, where a person who looked indigenous had gotten a haircut. The comment that got the most likes joke that the guy went from looking Peruvian to looking Mexican and how the guy was “desbolivianizado” after the haircut.
In online LATAM spaces I have seen jokes about Argentines having big noses even though they invited nazis to their country, or even about how Millei converted to judaism to get better interests rates from IMF, etc.
I’ve seen jokes made about certain Latin American nationalities, and how they eat pigeons and rats or comparing the conditions in other Latin American country to war torn countries like Afghanistan. Or how some women of certain countries have mustaches etc.
I’ve also seen very crude jokes about women, fat people, gay people, disabled people, drug addicts, people with mental illnesses etc. I’ve even seen videos of Latin American politicians or public figures say things or make jokes that would cause someone to lose their job or cause a huge scandal if it happened in Europe or Canada.
Why is this type of humor so prevalent in Latin America? Unfortunately it seems to be these jokes mainly tend to target historically vulnerable groups of society.
I’ve seen countless gringo vloggers (usually average joes) from Europe and the USA go to LATAM. In the vlogs the tourists are so nice and interested in them and want to show them around, invite them for dinner to meet their family. In Europe no one will do this and people will blame you for gentrification etc. In fact there are places where simply being a tourist will give you a bad rep or negative interactions.
However in the rest of the world this seems to be the opposite. For example, I had an uncle who visited China in the early 2000s and said back then just being a foreigner from Europe or America (even if you were an average joe) could get you into exclusive places & people (including the upperclass) would invite you to hang out with them and women would go crazy for you. Being seen with a foreigner was seen as kinda a way for Chinese upper classt to flex their social status. However, now that’s changed nowadays. For example in third or 2nd tier cities an average European could still experience that but in shanghai or Beijing (especially in nice areas) no one would look at you twice.
How are foreigners and tourists treated in Latin America? Does their passport or what country they are from matter and affect how the locals view them?
I am German (typical blonde hair and blue eyes) and I went to Brazil with my black American friend. I did notice a difference in how we were treated. Ofc, I immediately looked more like a foreigner (they even automatically knew I was Alemão). So basically I got the benefits and disadvantages that came with that. Although it’s odd because Brazil has a large white population at least on paper. It was a cool experience because in Europe, USA and Canada people don’t think I’m foreign until I start talking.
My black American friend on the other hand until he spoke he was treated just like any other black Brazilian. He was told he would blend in and he was black and would be treated like any disadvantaged minority etc. After they discovered he was American they started to lecture him about USA imperialism, how he was so privileged, he also got a lot more respect and popularity for being American. They asked him about USA culture, music, etc etc. I couldn’t help but laugh. The way he was treated changed automatically. Why is this?