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| appliquéd tapestries sewn by Chilean women illustrating their personal experiences of torture, hunger, unemployment, and the arrest and disappearance of their loved ones. This work, supported by the Chilean Catholic Church, not only created solidarity and relieved loneliness among the women, but also served as a source of income and a means of bringing international attention to human rights violations in Chile. |
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| a cultural ideal that exalts male virility, superiority and control, especially over women; it has been the ideological basis of male-female relations in Latin America for centuries but is now widely questioned. |
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| Madres de la Plaza de Mayo |
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| literally, mothers of May Plaza, a central location in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Women gathered weekly in the Plaza de Mayo to protest the arrest, disappearance, and execution of their family members under military rule. |
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| a cultural norm that idealizes women as the custodians of virtue, piety, morality, and spirituality; from Maria, or Mary, the Virgin Mother of God in the Catholic tradition. Traditionally, this feminine code was linked with machismo and precluded women from independent life beyond their duties as wives and mothers. |
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| communal kitchens, organized and run by poor and working-class women. With the support of the Catholic Church and international organizations, the ollas appeared all over Chile during the Pinochet years as a response to poverty, unemployment, inflation, and hunger. |
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| paternal authority; part of a legal framework derived from Roman law under which women were officially subordinated to the authority of their father or, if married, their husband. Women could not enter into contracts, own property, seek divorce or protection from domestic violence, or in general have any independent legal rights. |
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| coalition government headed by Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973; a controversial period of experimentation with democratic socialism. The government was ended by a brutal military coup in which Allende died along with thousands of others. |
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| Literally, "We are more," or "There are more of us." Chant used by women's groups in angry street demonstrations against the authoritarian Pinochet regime in the mid-1980s. |
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| Afro-Brazilian religion practiced by many people in Bahia, in northeastern Brazil. Modern Candomblé reflects the intermingling of African belief systems with Catholicism. |
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| comunidades eclesiales de base |
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| base Christian communities; small base or grassroots groups of both Catholic and Protestant denominations that meet regularly to discuss the relevance of Scripture and church doctrine to their daily lives. Brazil has the largest number of CEBs in Latin America. |
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| Conference of the Latin American Bishops |
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| organization of the Catholic bishops of Latin America. CELAM II, a meeting that took place in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968) was notable especially for the bishops' extensive critique of structural violence and repression of the poor. The bishops' advocacy of the need to eliminate socioeconomic inequalities and to accompany the poor in their struggle for liberation from exploitation became known as the "preferential option for the poor." |
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| literally, "believers"; Portuguese term for members of the many Pentecostal groups. |
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| literally, "guide"; term used by believers in Umbanda (see below) to describe the spirits who act through human mediums. |
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| Portuguese name for the goddess of the sea; African deity who has assumed a co-identity with the Catholic Virgin Mary. Iemanjá's feast day, December 31, is celebrated widely throughout Brazil with ritual processions and ceremonies along beaches. |
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| theology that equates the teachings of Christ with a call for liberation of the materially and spiritually poor. Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the earliest and most important liberation theologians, has argued since the 1960s that the Church has a responsibility to participate in class struggle, to take action against the various forms of oppression in society, and to work for greater socioeconomic justice. Some liberation theologians de-emphasize class struggle because of the conflict between their religious values and violence. |
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| African deities worshipped in the Brazilian religions of Umbanda (see below) and Candomblé. |
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| system of royal privileges in Catholic Church matters which emerged in the Iberian Peninsula prior to 1492 and was subsequently brought to the Americas. Under this system, the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs had certain rights in the areas of Church appointments, finances, and discipline in return for assuming some obligations for maintaining and spreading Catholicism. |
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| term applied to a number of Protestant sects that emphasize direct connection between the believers and the Holy Spirit; from Pentecost, the Christian festival celebrating Christ's gift of the Holy Spirit to his followers. Pentecostals believe that the Holy Spirit gives powers of prophecy, vision, and healing. Pentecostal churches have drawn increasing participation throughout the Americas. |
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| the Holy Book of the Mayan religion, written in the early sixteenth century, which emphasizes the connection between humans and the natural world. |
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| general term for religions that rely on a spiritual connection between believers and the deities or spirits; includes many non-Western religions of indigenous and African roots, such as Candomblé and Umbanda, as well as spiritist traditions of European origin. |
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| Brazilian religion with roots in European spiritism and African beliefs, adapted and modified by centuries of interaction with Catholic, indigenous, and other religious practices. Umbanda emphasizes the use of mediums who receive the spirits from the gods (orixás) and speak to the petitioner in answer to prayers and offerings. Among these spirits are Petros Velhos (the spirits of Africans enslaved in Brazil during colonial times) and Caboclos (the spirits of indigenous people from pre-Columbian times). |
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| Second Vatican Council; important worldwide meeting of Roman Catholic bishops called by Pope John XXIII in 1962. The Council, which met from 1962 to 1965, brought major changes to Catholic practices and emphasized Church support for peace, justice, and human rights in an effort to make the Church more relevant to the daily lives of its members. |
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| community music groups from Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, which affirm African heritage. |
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| a slow samba (see below) developed in Rio de Janeiro, some forms of which have been influenced by jazz. |
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| Aztec goddess who is mother of the earth and the sea; her statue is housed in the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. |
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| term coined by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier in the 1940s which refers to some authors' use of descriptive narrative in combination with fantasy and myth to define a new, Latin American vision of reality. |
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| literary movement that emerged in Latin America in the late nineteenth century which proclaimed the autonomy of art and literature, especially poetry; influenced particularly by cultural developments in France. |
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| modern art movement that began as a government-sponsored experiment in the 1920s in Mexico, using popular art, painted on walls, employing traditional and recognizable images, colors, and styles, to communicate with illiterate and semi-literate people. It is most notable for taking art out of private galleries into public spaces. Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco were some of the Mexican muralists whose large-scale works explored political and social themes. |
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| U.S.-financed program, undertaken during the 1950s and 1960s, that accelerated industrialization in Puerto Rico. |
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| Brazilian popular music exhibiting African influence. |
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| musical movement during the late 1960s in Brazil that re-examined Brazilian popular music and opened it to a variety of domestic and international influences; associated with Caetano Veloso, one of the movement's leaders. |
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| term used by many Latinos (see below) to refer to white North Americans of European descent. |
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| the full integration of people into society, typically through the adoption of the language, culture, values, dress, and other social norms of the majority population. For non-Englishspeakers immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, assimilation has usually been associated with giving up their language and customs and conforming to the dominant social and cultural patterns of North American society. |
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| educational method in which students are taught primarily in their native languages, while gradually increasing their use of English. The objective is to produce students who are fluent in both languages, while enabling nonEnglish-speakers to maintain an appropriate grade level through subject instruction in their native tongue. It has been mandated by federal law since 1974 for schools with 20 or more students speaking any language other than English as their mother tongue. |
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| Mexican-Americans born in the United States. The term was popularized during the 1960s. |
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| term used to refer to all Spanish-speaking or Spanish-origin people living in the United States, including both immigrants and those who are U.S.-born. The term was first used by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1970, and has since become widely used as a catch-all term for all those of Spanish-American origin. It is viewed by some as unduly emphasizing the European element of Latin American and Caribbean culture while excluding those of African and/or indigenous descent. |
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| Immigration Reform and Control (Simpson-Rodino) Act |
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| U.S. law passed in 1986, targeted especially at illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America. While establishing tough sanctions for employers hiring undocumented workers, the law also provided amnesty from prosecution and an offer of legal residency for all who could prove they had been living continuously in the United States since 1981. |
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| similar to Hispanic (above); a term used to refer to persons of Latin American origin living in the United States. Latino is preferred by some as a more inclusive term for the culturally diverse people of Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. |
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| term coined to describe the dual identity of Puerto Ricans living in New York. About 40 percent of all Puerto Ricans live on the mainland. Over half of these (20 percent of the total) live in New York City. |
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