>>19377When people think of "the west" they think mostly about the Anglosphere and North/Central European cultures, Latin America is VERY different from that, which is why they usually aren't associated with it, and it makes a lot of sense.
Christianity? yes, but the north is mainly Protestant, while Latin America is, by comparison, extremely Catholic. The ideological differences between these two denominations have left big marks within each culture.
Language? Spanish and Portuguese are the main ones, but they were heavily warped by the native languages, in fact, evangelization was only possible by using the languages of the preexisting empires as a way to integrate natives into Christianity, this had the effect of adding a lot of new words to Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, and allowed for said native languages to continue existing to this day.
Generally, Latin American culture is much more mixed and rich than what you make it out to be, with things like language and religion acting more as a "cultural glue" than a pure replacement of native culture.
Also politically? we've been shafted by the "western" capitalist machine for decades, we hate that shit with a passion, but the many US backed dictatorships have drained our collective desire to rebel and to engage with politics, which is why the place is such a political pendulum, honestly? it sucks.
So in the end, I think we are technically western, but not THAT type of retarded western everyone thinks about, more like a "B side" or a "South West" composed mainly of a mix of romance western traditions and native American cultures and ideologies.
fucking hell thinking about it there is technically an argument to be made that we are the "true west" since our cultural roots do point more directly to the roman empire and ancient Greece than what the current english, germanic and north european dominated "west" is