Term | Definition |
Cordillera | An extensive chain of mountains or mountain ranges, especially in the Andes or the Rockies. |
Altiplano | the high tableland of central South America. |
Escarpment | A steep slope with a nearly flat plateau on top. |
Llanos | A large, grassy. treeless area in South America, used for grazing and farming. |
Pampas | A vast area of grassland and rich soil in South-central South America. |
Gaucho | a cowboy of the South American pampas. |
Hydroelectric Power | the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower |
Estuary | A broadened seaward end of a river, where the ricer's currents meet the ocean's tide. |
indigenous | originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native. |
Dialect | a version of a language that reflects changes in speech patterns due to class, region, or cultural changes |
NAFTA | an agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico designed to remove tariff barriers between the three countries. |
Spanish Conquest | The conquering of the Native Americans by the Spanish. |
Mestizo | A person of mixed French-Canadian and Native American ancestry. |
Calypso | A style of music that began in Trinidad and combines musical elements from Africa, Spain, and the Caribbean |
Inca | A member of Quechen peoples of South America who built a civilization in the Andes Mountains in the 15th and 16th centuries. |
Carnival | The most colorful feast day in Brazil |
Capoeria | A martial art and dance that developed in Brazil from Angolans who were taken there by the Portuguese from Africa. |
Deforestation | the clearing of trees, transforming a forest into cleared land. |
Caudillo | A military dictator or political boss. |
Cerrado | A savanna that has flat terrain and moderate rainfall, which make it suitable for farming. |
Pull Factor | A factor that draws or attracts people to another location |
Tenochtitlan | the capital of the Aztec empire: founded in 1325; destroyed by the Spaniards in 1521; now the site of Mexico City. |
Cultural Hearth | The heartland or place of origin of a major culture; a site of innovation from which basic ideas, materials, and technology diffuse to other cultures. |
Reggae | a style of popular music with a strongly accented subsidiary beat, originating in Jamaica. |
Mercosur | a sub-regional bloc. Its full members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. |
Samba | a Brazilian dance with African influences. |
Biodiversity | the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem. |
oligarchy | A government run by a few person or a small group |
Junta | A government run by a general after a military takeover. |
Terraced Farming | a piece of sloped plane that has been cut into a series of successively receding flat surfaces for the purposes of more effective farming. |
Infrastructure | the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. |
Institutional Revolutionary Party | The political party introduced in 1929 in Mexico that helped to introduce democracy and maintain political stability for much of the 20th century. |
United Provinces of Cen. Amer. | The name of Central America after the region declared independence from Mexico in 1823. |
Informal Economy | activities and income that are partially or fully outside government regulation, taxation, and observation. |
Treaty of tordesillas | agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered |
Debt-for-nature-swap | A debt-reducing deal. An organization pays off certain amount of government debt for exchange of protection on certain portion of the rain forest. |
Land reform | A naturally formed feature on the surface of the earth. |
Slash and burn | of, relating to, or denoting a method of agriculture in which existing vegetation is cut down and burned off before new seeds are sown |
Maquiladora | a factory in Mexico that assembles imported materials into finished goods for export. |
Push Factor | A factor that causes people to leave their homelands and migrate to another region |
Quechua | The language of Inca Empire, now Spoken in the Andes highlands. |