South American New Yorkers come from somewhere between La Guajira, Colombia in the north and Tierra del Fuego, Chile/Argentina in the south; between Easter Island, Ecuador in the east and Recife, Brazil in the west.
Our heritage is Indigenous, European, African and Asian. While long suspected, DNA studies have recently proven that we have Oceania in our blood too. Humans are amazing.
Vuelvo al Sur
“Vuelvo al Sur,” Astor Piazzolla and Fernando E. Solanas
como se vuelve siempre al amor,
Vuelvo a vos
con mi deseo, con mi temor…”
Argentine NYC
Argentine NYC is a small, but vibrant community of restaurants, tango artists,…
Bolivian NYC
Bolivian NYC is in Queens and Paterson, New Jersey. The Queens Bolivian…
Brazilian NYC
Brazilian NYC is mostly in Little Brazil; Astoria, Queens; and Newark, New…
Chilean
Celebrate Chilean Independence and Hispanic Heritage Month with us Chilean NYC Archive…
Colombian NYC
¡Cafeteros! Colombian NYC is centered in “Little Colombia” in Jackson Heights, Queens.…
Ecuadorian NYC
Ecuadorian NYC is centered in Corona and Jackson Heights, Queens. Ecuadorian Archive…
Paraguayan
Celebrate Independence Day and the Hispanic Day Parade with us Paraguayan NYC…
Peruvian NYC
There are Peruvian NYC communities in Paterson, New Jersey and Jackson Heights,…
Uruguayan NYC
Uruguayan NYC is centered in Jackson Heights, Queens. International Tango Day is…
Venezuelan NYC
Venezuelan NYC is most present in art, music and fashion. Venezuelans celebrate…
The Inca in Peru built South America’s most famous Indigenous civilization, but there were many who didn’t build in stone and had less contact with the colonizers.
We had Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch colonizers. We love the culture we inherited because it is part of us now. But the legacy of colonial social, political and economic systems is dysfunction. Those systems were designed for people at the top to steal everything.
Brazil is the most African country outside of Africa. It is also South America’s biggest economy.
Argentina had a big Italian migration at the same time as New York City. Rich Italians moved to Argentina, poor Italians moved to New York.
Colombia with its Atlantic and Pacific coasts has tremendous diversity in its biosphere, regional cultures and people.
Venezuela was the South American country most like the United States because oil brought Texans in the 1920s.
Venezuelan
Museum of Modern Art Contemporary Art auctions Carolina Herrera LocoBeach
Brazilian
Brazilian Day Brasil SummerFest SOBs Sounds of Brazil Nublu Vik Muniz Dance Brazil Schutz Shoes Track and Field Store
Colombian
Colombian Parade Colombian Flower Festival Colombian Film Festival Alex Sensation Terraza 7 Bulla en el Barrio Simón Bolívar statue
Ecuadorian Chagra Cowboy
We chose this photo because it represents some of our cultural mix. Spaniards brought modern horses to the Americas. They brought the first cattle to Vera Cruz, Mexico. The rope is Spanish or Mexican. The poncho is Andean.
The cowboy is a U.S. cultural icon, but of course there are cowboys and cowgirls wherever there are cattle. The iconic U.S. cowboy is white, but the reality is that most U.S. cowboys were Indigenous, Mexican and Black.
The man is an Ecuadorian Chagra cowboy. He is an Andean cowboy.
“Cien Años de Soledad”
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967) is one of the world’s great novels. In it Márquez develops his central thesis that history repeats itself, by telling the story of generations of the Buendía family in Macondo, Colombia. Filled with heat and mystery, the novel is said to be the story of Latin America written in a kind of code.
There is no real Macondo, but it may be modeled after his hometown of Aracataca which is just south of Santa Marta on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
The “Magical Realism” style of writing captures the real magic that is part of Caribbean and Latin American life. Surrealism is the same thing in art. If you think about it, magical realism is part of any natural life, anywhere in the world. It’s how humans try to make sense out of the endless cycle of life and death, and the beautiful illusions that lie to and with us in between.
[Yo vivo con ustedes en Macondo.]