Image
Modern Spain: Stylizing the Stereotypes?
Spain is a country that attracts strong stereotypes. Images of wife-beating machos, blood thirsty sports and crazy drivers may have dissolved since the years of Franco isolation, but siestas, fiestas and Flamenco is still what…
Sarmiento: Argentine National Hero or Ideologue of White Settler Racism?
2011's Latin American bi-centenaries saw governments celebrating their national heroes again. In Argentina, a broader process of revising its recent 'Dirty War' history has made many eager to revisit their more…
Sarmiento: The Forging of a Racist Ideologue (part 2)
In this second part of our article on the Argentine national hero, we travel with Sarmiento to Africa where he took notes on how the French waged war on the natives to promote white immigration and settlement. The lessons he…
Venezuela’s Rich Musical Tapestry
Professor T.M. Scruggs, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Iowa, has spent six years specializing in Venezuelan music and culture. In this interview he paints a fascinating portrait of a musical heritage that is one of…
From Reggaetón to Urban Latin: What Happened after the Boom?
Five years ago Reggaetón exploded onto the US music scene with NORE’s Oye Mi Canto. Fresh out of the streets of Puerto Rico and Panama, Latino kids, the US’s fastest rising demographic, were going crazy for it in every major city…
Hustle and Grind in the Mexican Music Scene
Struggle is the name of the game in Mexican music, but the creativity and innovation keep flowing with eclectic genres and fusions blossoming from the land of the Aztecs
From The Docks To The Decks: The Cumbia explosion
Cumbia, a Colombian musical genre whose humble beginnings lie in the port of Cartagena, is finding its way into the hands of enthralled DJs and producers across the world. Why is it, asks Olly West, that a genre celebrated…
To Flip or not to Flip? The Capoeira Debate
Tradition versus progress. Authenticity versus evolution. In tackling the great Capoeira debate – whether acrobatics orientated Capoeira means abandoning its roots - Helen Lima de Sousa goes to the core of what Capoeira, and…
Mexican Milk
Indigenous culture is used to market the country at home and abroad, so why is it that only white faces appear on Mexican adverts?
Latinos in London Part 2-The Liberation of being Latin in London
Lazy, violent and corrupt?…it’s sometimes tiring countering the contantly reinforced stereotypes of Latin America in the British media, but if we don’t do it who will? In the second part of our Latin London identity series we…
And will God look favourably this time?
Having withstood years of international criticism, Chavez may need a bit of divine favour in his closest election battle yet.
Being Latin in London - Part 1
We all come with a different story. From the high life of Carlos Acosta and polo players who mingle with royals, to the invisible cleaner working double shifts in city offices so that she can put her children through school back…
Revolutionary People - A Brief History of Latin Americans in London
From Francisco de Miranda and the revolutionaries of the Wars of Independence to Ossie Ardiles and the new UK-Latin music pioneers of today, Latin Americans in London have always been trailblazers and visionaries. Forging new…
Would Oil be a Blessing or a Burden? The Cubans Sure as Hell Want to Find Out...
With speculation in the air and a Chinese drilling rig poised off its coast, Hugh O'Shaughnessy visits the island and talks to Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban Parliament, about the country's hopes and fears.
Chavez' Victory - A Point Proven?
Hugh O'Shaughnnessy reports from Caracas on an amazingly good electoral process and how cold warriors in some of London´s progressive papers who have been dissing Chavez as a dictator are having to eat their words.
This Latino Week...
Oscar nominated 'NO' launches in the UK, Latin awards announces Hall of Fame, Brazilian nightclub fire blamed on cheap fireworks, El Pais retracts fake Chavez photos and more.
Not So ‘Pura Vida’
Sun and sea yes, but sex tourism, in Costa Rica? Behind the image of the Caribbean’s cleanest and most civilised tourist hotspot, lies a murky world, fed by foreign sex tourists, of exploitation and poverty.
Macho, sexist, leery - lovely...
Flirting with strangers in the street is a way of life in Buenos Aires. One gringa tries very hard to disapprove.
Brown Girls in the Ring Make Argentina Sing…
How Cumbia conquered Argentina. The Cumbia invasion rides on populist political culture, but has urban snobs singing a different tune.
Area 23, Hip Hop and Venezuela’s Cultural Revolution
Jorney Madriz or ‘Master’ as he is commonly known, is a rapper with hip hop group ‘Area 23’, based in ‘23 de enero’, one of the most militant low-income barrios, that encircle the country’s capital Caracas.
The History of Latin Music in London
Notwithstanding the cheesy album covers, Latinolife explores the rich and idiocyncratic story of Latin Music in London.
Music, Baseball and Cacao
It’s not only Rio Ferdinand who sees himself as the next Simon Cowell, baseball legend Bobby Abreu has put his weight into promoting Venezuelan music worldwide, with a marketing strategy only fitting for a baseball star.
The History of Reggaetón
For those of you who've come to it late, here's a beginner's guide...
The End of the World As We Know It
Roxana Silbert, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Argentine born Associate-Director, talks to Elizabeth Mistry about the RSC's joint venture with Mexico's Teatro Nacional which opens in Stratford before transferring to…
Clash of the Literary Titans? (and THAT black eye)
Candela explores the beef between Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa that has long been the intrigue of the literary world. Now that the Peruvian has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, is it time for Latin America…
The Unusual Spaniard
As daughter of Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin, Geraldine Chaplin was destined for fame or failure in her own film career. Instead, she became an unlikely icon of Spanish cinema through some unusual choices of her own.…
Macedonio Fernandez - The Non-Believer's Belief
This week it is sixty years since the death of Macedonio Fernández, the Argentine writer and philosopher, who Jorge Luis Borges admitted he imitated ‘to the point of devoted and impassioned plagiarism.’ Yet virtually nothing is…
Argentina finds a New Kind of Meat to Export
They're on the television all the time, they're in the magazines, they're on the arms of footballers, politicians and businessmen in all the smart restaurants and nightspots of Buenos Aires.........they are the new…
Cheap Frills Better than No Frills for Argy women
In post-crisis Argentina, middle class women have been forced to lower their lingerie standards.
WRITING BEYOND MACONDO
Do modern Colombian authors still lurk in the shadow of Gabriel García Márquez? Candela explores Colombian literature in light of the 2010 celebrations of all things Latin American: a new list published by Granta magazine of the…
In Oaxaca The Walls Speak
In a country whose history simmers with political resistance and art, graffiti has come to reflect a post-modern merging of the two. Far away from the Banksy hype, we celebrate the art of Mexican political graffiti and the…
Venezuelan Cinema in Search of 'Our Language'
Can Venezuela’s new state-sponsored cinema live up to its Cuban and Russian precedents or will it drown in the accusations of mediocrity and dogma that surrounds it?
I am a feminist, non-feminist writer…(or whatever it takes to stop them talking).
Can you be a socially conscious, female writer in Spain, or anywhere, and not be labelled a feminist? Few hispanic authors have had to battle the gender trap and its scrutiny more than Rosa Montero, one of Spain’s most popular…
Latest Content
Food
El Cenote: Mexican Food Done Incredibly Well
Calling all Mexican food enthuisaists! Think deliciously fresh guacamole paired perfectly with the…
Film & Theatre
Meow! (2024) by Mexican Ariel de la Garza and Czech Michal Vojtech.
Meow! a comedy short film that has just premiered at the Norwich Film Festival, is an intriguing,…
Film & Theatre
Brazil’s big beautiful – and still illegal – balloon-making culture
From centuries old traditions Balloon-making developed into a competition between dedicated groups…
Most Viewed
Top 10 Argentine Footballers
As one of the biggest football teams in South America and the world, the Argentine Football…
Top 10 Mexican Boxers
Globally, Mexico is known as a boxing powerhouse, boasting some of the greatest champions in the…
Ballads and Boleros
LatinoLife's Favourite Mexican Male Singers of all Time
Since the days when Mexico was a serious rival to Hollywood in terms of film production and quality…
