Latin America’s new birth of democracy

Perhaps the damage done to the region’s politics would not have been so profound had it not been for a third external factor: US imperialism. Latin America’s historical grievances with the US are almost endless. For example, in the Mexican War of 1846-48, what we now know as California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming were all taken and eventually annexed by the US. In 1973, Chile’s president, Salvador Allende, was overthrown and replaced by the US-backed military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. A comprehensive list of America’s misdeeds would include almost every country in the region.