The Americas: A Hemispheric History

The last part of the reading from the handout by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto really caught my interest.  He mentions the question of why do we always categorize America into two; the U.S. and Canada and the rest of the American continent.  The real cut of North and South America is really south of Mexico so it doesn’t make sense to classify the U.S. and Canada as one.  If they are trying to divide it culturally by Anglo-America it doesn’t work either because there are parts of the U.S. and Canada that can technically be considered Latin America such as the Southwest of the U.S.  I believe that it mainly has to do with the social status that the counties earn.  For example Mexico and much of South America are considered third world counties while the U.S. and Canada are not therefore creating this division of continents where it really doesn’t belong.