A few nights ago I had a
45 minute long interchange over the instant messenger with a Latin American
Gentleman (LAG) on the subject of Continents.
No new ones having been discovered since I was in school, I thought I
was on pretty safe ground with the traditional seven: Asia, Africa, North America, South America,
Europe, Australia and Antarctica. WRONG!

It seems that in parts of
Latin America political correctness flows over
into geography and becomes Geographical correctness, but then, as the LAG said “you
are a gringo you don’t understand”. I
think what he was trying to say was I had not suspended my cognitive faculties in order to salve his Latin American feelings of insecurity.

Chris Kohl had mentioned
the subject to a successful (Latin American) internet entrepreneur in Buenos Aires, who
dismissed LAG’s opinion in this brief discussion:

Chris: will you agree that it makes more sense to have North and South
America as separated than Europe and Asia?

Successful Entrepreneur: yup, i would

Chris: well South Americans
teach that because of political reasons

Successful Entrepreneur: yeah, cuz we love getting cultural, moral
and political criticism and discrimination from northern countries, so called
first-world, right, that makes sense. guess the southern hemisphere just like
being masochistic

Chris: how about those who call people from the USA
norteamericanos and not Canadians or Mexicans?

Successful Entrepreneur: well, but then again, there’s a cultural
issue around that. norteamericanos just became a common word used by ignorant
people

The following is a transcript
of my interchange, edited only to correct spelling and take out HTML language. You may find it humorous—or just dead boring.

If you simply want to get
the gist of the argument, skip down to the red text at the very end.

If however, you are
REALLY BORED and want a detailed example of insecure Latin American logic, (which
many successful Latin Americans reject, by the way) read on and be amazed…

The Southron: the North
American continent goes all the way to the Panama canal

LAG: false

LAG: North America is
Canada, USA and Mexico

The Southron: then what
continent is Central America?

The Southron: there
are only 7

The Southron: and I don’t
think it fits in Antarctica

LAG: Central America
is from Guatemala
to North Americans

The Southron: what
continent?

The Southron: not sub
continent

LAG: look

LAG: America is divided
in 3 sections

LAG: North America : Canada, use and Mexico

LAG: Central America
from Guatemala to Panama

LAG: and South America

The Southron: I am
not talking about ethnicity, I am talking about geography

LAG: me too

The Southron: that
has nothing to do with being Latin or anything else

LAG: just geography

The Southron: Central America is part of the Continent of North America

LAG: nope

The Southron: just
like Iberia is part of Europe

The Southron: your
position is untenable it is based on national boundaries, not geographical
formations there is no natural boundary between North America and Central America, but if you don't want to see that, fine

LAG: my position is
that Central America is not part of North America because Central America was
formed millions of year later than North America.
in the age of the dinosaurs only South America and North
America existed..

LAG: Central America was created way later making a link
between both land masses

LAG: and that is a
scientific fact

The Southron: great
if it is that important to you have it your way

LAG: it is not my
way, it is just the truth

The Southron: the are
many references that would disagree with you, undoubtedly they are all wrong
and you have some cosmic lock on the truth

LAG: don’t be mean
with me

LAG: I’m just telling
you what I think and know

The Southron: you are
telling me what you think you know, I have been on 10 different references in
the last bit and they ALL include CA in North America. For example:
North America

The northern
continent of the Western Hemisphere, extending northward from the Colombia-Panama
border and including Central America, Mexico, the islands of the Caribbean Sea,
the United States, Canada, the Arctic Archipelago, and Greenland. So obviously, there are different points of
view on this…

LAG: well then why
does the term Central America exist?

The Southron: it is a
region within North America, just like the Iberia
peninsula or Scandinavia are regions in Europe or the Arabian peninsula is a
region within Asia

The Southron: I agree
it is a geographic entity, I lived there, I am sure it exists

The Southron: but it
is physically part of the North American Continent – if you go by the plates it
is on, that part of Mexico
is not part of NA as it is on the Pacific Plate

The Southron: Panama
seems to think it is the link between the two continents, the bridge over the
canal is called the “bridge of two continent”

The Southron: My
original point was simply that people from the US ought not be called
norteamericanos while Mexicans and Canadians are called by their country
name. Either we are all norteamericanos,
or we are not. I am perfectly happy
being called a gringo – at least it is not a misnomer

LAG: I know what you
mean

The Southron: I
always find it interesting the people from the US are supposed to be culturally
sensitive, but no one else is…

LAG: you are a
gringo, and a person from Mexico
is a Mexican

LAG: but both of you
are North Americans

The Southron: I have
no problem with that, what I object to is the standard use of the term
norteamericano to refer to someone from the US

LAG: but I bet you to
ask someone from Costa Rica
if he is from North America. he will tell you
that he is from Central America

The Southron: We call
ourselves simply Americans, and since we are the oldest nation in the
hemisphere, I suspect we have that right

The Southron: being a
Southron, what I really object to is being called a Yankee – I think the Spanish term for us is Los
Confederados

LAG: its funny to see

LAG: in most texts from
use they consider Central America part from North America

LAG: but in Spanish
texts they consider Central America
something outside from North America

The Southron: most Americans
would define Central America to include Mexico

LAG: yeah but you
know that Americans(from use) are not known from being very good at geography
hehe

The Southron: most
are not, I am an exception, geography is one of my passions, as is history

LAG: you are like me

The Southron: I was
chatting with someone from BA who was amazed I knew who Jose de San Martin El
Libertador was

The Southron: already
seen that

LAG: well you see there’s
is no an absolute truth about it

The Southron: if
there are 7 continents it is pretty obvious, of course if there are now 7 1/2 continents,
it's a new ball game

The Southron: I think
it is all based on anti-gringo feelings

The Southron: I don't
like the USA
one damned bit these days, but I am not going to redraw the continents

The Southron: it is
a sort of geographic political
correctness meant to convey a point of view rather than objective information

LAG: In British
schools, Central America is taught as being a separate continent (just as
Europe is separate from Asia).

The Southron: so
there are now 8 continents?

The Southron: In that
case I think we should start a movement to make Scandinavia a continent and Iberia
as well -

The Southron: it
makes as much sense

The Southron: maybe New Zealand will qualify or Greenland,
it is bigger

The Southron: is Madagascar next

LAG: it depends on the
model

The Southron: pretty
soon we'll have two dozen continents

LAG: you are a gringo
you don’t understand look this

LAG: The 7-continent
model is usually taught in Western Europe,
China, and most
native English language-speaking countries. The 6-continent combined-America
model is taught in Latin America. The
6-continent combined-Eurasia model is preferred by the geographic community, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. In all
of these cases, the names Australasia or Oceania may be used in place of Australia; in Canada,
the government-approved world reference map names 7 continents and indicates Oceania instead.

LAG: that’s the
problem different schools of taught

The Southron: but
none of them consider Central America a
continent

LAG: for example in Peru they teach
the 6 continents model

LAG: I’m not telling
you that Central America is a continent

The Southron: which
one do you leave out

LAG: I’m telling you
that America
is divided in 3 sections

LAG: nothing more

The Southron: are we
talking about continents or sections?

The Southron: I agree
there are at least 3 sections

LAG: in America
sections

The Southron: I would
add the West Indies as a 4th section

LAG: here we use America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and Antarctica

LAG: Oceania = Australia , New Zealand and other islands

The Southron: so you
use the Americas
as one continent

LAG: yes but, we
divide America
in 3 sections

LAG: North America, Central America an d south

The Southron: I can
see where someone would think the dividing line between Europe and Asia was more
defined than between North and South America,
especially if they had never been there

The Southron: if
you're going to have 6, Eurasia certainly
makes more sense

LAG: well the Urals
are the dividing line between Europe and Asia

LAG: as I’m telling
you, there are different models

LAG: you can use Eurasia

The Southron: I think
the only models that make sense are the traditional 7 or the aggregate 4 -
everything else is politically motivated

LAG: I think that the
correct type is that America
is one big super continent

LAG: that can be
divided in 3 sections

The Southron: that is
their traditional model in your culture

LAG: yes in the whole
Latin America culture

LAG: more than 550
million people

LAG: and that
includes funny enough Mexico
and Central America

The Southron: but Hungary agrees
with me

LAG: Hungary
is not American :p

LAG: this is American
business only :)

The Southron: I
thought we were talking about the continents, surely that is everyone's
business

LAG: yeah but Europeans
don’t see Central America as a continent so
they don’t care :)

The Southron: that's
because it's not–and I agree with them

The Southron: so you
want to exclude anyone who doesn't agree

LAG: I’m just telling
you the point of view of 550 million people, part of them that live in countries
that you describe as being part of North America

The Southron: the UN
agrees with me: North America has 3 sub
regions: North America, Central America
and the Caribbean

The
Southron: I think we will have to agree to disagree – but this is instructive. It certainly illustrates why North America
has more ties to Europe than Latin America. I thank you for that.

LAG: well
go out and ask any Uruguayan if they think that Costa
Rica is part of North America

The
Southron: I'll ask the UN instead

LAG: where
is the UN located?

LAG: New York?

The
Southron: words cannot describe how little I think of that response – as I said, your attitude has been
illustrative… good night

LAG: and
excuse me, Uruguay is a far
more European country than USA

LAG: as Argentina

LAG: don’t
be rude

LAG: we are
just talking

The
Southron: (42 minutes after starting)
no, you are lecturing and I am tired of it – maybe the UN should move to South America, as long as they pay for it…once again we
must agree to disagree, good night…

Boy, you really were bored, weren’t you?