Latin America vocab

The Economy/People and their Environment pp. 242-254

Main Idea- The Economy

• Latin America’s economic development has been affected by many factors, including physical geography.

• Although about 77% of Latin America’s people live in cities, many of the region’s countries still depend on agriculture to supply a major portion of their incomes.

export

• To sell commodities (goods) to other countries

campesino

• Very poor rural farmer or worker

latifundia

• Large agricultural estates owned by wealthy families or corporations

• This is a centuries old system. Today’s latifundia are highly mechanized commercial operations that earn high returns for low investment in labor.

minifundia

• Small plots of land intensively farmed by campesinos to feed their families.

• These plots are rarely owned by campesinos, they are typically owned by wealthy landowners or the government.

• This very old system, latifundia and minifundia, is breaking down as governments pass laws to distribute farmland more fairly.

cash crop

• A crop produced in quantities to be sold or traded.

• Countries run great risks, however, by depending on just one or two export products. If droughts, floods, or volcanic eruptions destroy a country’s cash crop, the damage to that country’s economy causes great hardship.

developing country

• A country working toward greater manufacturing and technology use.

service industry

• A business that provides a service instead of making goods.

• In much of Latin America, service industries have grown rapidly in recent decades.

maquiladora

• In Mexico, a manufacturing plant set up by a foreign company.

• During the past 50 years, American and Japanese companies have built manufacturing plants in Latin American countries.

• Many of these factories lie along the U.S.-Mexico border (free trade zones).

Main Idea-People and Their Environment

• Latin America is working to protect the environment while facing rapid urbanization and growing human needs.

deforestation

• The clearing or destruction of forests.• Like rain forests in other regions of the world,

those in Latin America are disappearing.• One of the most widespread activities in the

Amazon Basin is the clearing of the rain forest to provide more land for farming and ranching.

reforestation

• The planting of young trees or the seeds of trees on the land that has been stripped.

• Given time, rain forests will regenerate on their own, but with considerable loss of biodiversity. Laws requiring reforestation can help speed up the process.

shantytown

• Makeshift communities on the edges of cities.• Latin America’s rural workers migrate to cities in

the hope of building a better life. Unfortunately, they often cannot find jobs or adequate housing and are forced to live in shantytowns.

• These shantytowns often rest on dangerous slopes and wetlands where mud slides, floods, and other natural disasters can wipe out entire communities.