Un-Latin America
Argentineans don't think so. Argentineans don't think of themselves as Latins. When you ask, they'll tell you that Peruvians are Incas, Mexicans are Aztecs, and Guatemalans are nobodies. An Argentinean is, well, a kind of European. Or something.
Argentina escaped the iron grip of Sixteenth-century Spanish aristocracy because the place turned out not to be worth much, at least compared with Peru and Mexico with their precious metals. Like we did in the U. S. and Canada, Argentineans did a bang-up job of exterminating the indigenous population, opening up lots of temperate, fertile land for settlement and thus permitting Continental Europeans to participate in their own version of Manifest Destiny.
This means lots of white skin and a fair number of real blondes. Brown faces occur infrequently; the olive complexion of Italian descendants, of which there are many, is the closest you'll come to seeing people of color.
European influence is everywhere. Like in house design. There's nothing Latin about this... what... chalet? It looks like something out of the Black Forest.
I've seen trains like this one in Amsterdam. It's neat and clean and runs quietly and precisely, tootling sweetly when it comes to crossings. We're looking at German precision, here. No broken down rust bucket being pushed down the track by a gang of campesinos.
These public telephone call boxes are lifted straight out of England. You won't find them anymore in the U. K., but they're a fixture in Buenos Aires, along with public clocks with Roman numerals on their faces.
Does this woman look Mexican or Brazilian or Chilean to you? Probably not.
I'd guess French, although her sunglasses and red wristwatch band point to Italy. French women of a certain age have a propensity for adopting revealing, hyper-stylish appearances. No over-50 Mexican woman would wear an extreme push-up bra like hers, would she? Wouldn't want to be branded a puta by the neighbors. And I don't think many would go for a nose job either.
How about this old guy? I can hear the mandolins tinkling. If ever there were direct descendants of Romulus, this guy is one of them.
His Spanish has an Italian accent. That's no Mexican sombrero on his head. Few Mexicans of his generation would unbutton their shirts two buttons . It's immodest. Unless they had handfuls of gold chains to show off. No, this guy would be perfectly at home sitting on a piazza in Palermo, sipping grappa.
Latin Americans these days have begun looking at their national identities as informed by their indigenous roots. In contrast with Argentineans, few Mexicans have pure European blood. There's a little Indio in all of them. Sometimes a lot. Mexico, after the revolution, turned away from Europe and began to explore what it was to be Mexican. An explosion in Mexican art and writing followed. Mexico has an identity.
Argentineans lack an native character to draw on, so they have to turn to Europe to find their cultural roots. How, then, do they visualize themselves? Are they descendants of Spanish conquistadors? How do you account for the half of the population whose ancestors come from Italy? Also, there's all those ethnic Germans whose grandparents were too low in the Nazi hierarchy to warrant prosecution but too high to escape the wrath of their neighbors. Argentina was, for them, a bolt hole. British? French? They're here. The French are growing fine wines in Mendoza. Recently the Japanese have been arriving, lured by low real estate prices.
We talked with our friend Fabian about his heritage. He's trilingual: Spanish from his father and his native country, Italian from his mother, and English from school so he could get ahead in the world. But even his English is European. His accent is like every Belgian or Norwegian I've ever spoken to, with that unmistakable British public school accent. You'll never hear "Ay, no es my chob, man" in Argentina.
Fabian says to define an Argentinean is complicated, but in one way it's simple: "We are not Latins."
I think he's right.