Recently in the US, President Obama had a Latin night at the white house. But what was so glaringly absent was not only the music of Brazil, but the entire South American continent had no representatives of any of the countries music in that region of the world.

Don't get me wrong, I love the music of Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Machito...You know, that Afro Cubano thang. Or the more correct, Afro Caribbean style of music. So to leave out an entire continent???
That was a damn shame.

Latin_America is part of the Americas. Not part of any European country or area what so ever. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are excluded from the Americas, totally. Central and South America as well as some countries in the Caribbean make up what is called Latin America. Two things make those countries in those regions Latin American.

1) They are in the Americas.
2) They speak a language that has Latin as the root language of their spoken tongue. And Latin is the root of all the Romance languages.

Not only is Brazil part of Latin America or Latino but almost every other country in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean are part of Latin America, if the spoken tongue is from the Romance language of Latin.

I don't know exactly who made up the term Latino, but I think it was created to include other people that were descendants from the Latin Romance language other than just Hispanic, or a Spanish speaking people, but to include all descendants of the Romance language, Latin. For some reason Latino is used only when referring to people of the Americas, and not people of European location. Why, I don't know.

In Atlanta, GA I had a friend from Brazil who corrected me once when I said 'but we Americans'. Referring to people of the US. And she said to me, 'but I'm from America too. South America'. And I do have Brazilian friends who consider themselves latino.

And after all that, LL, your Portuguese is still ten times better that mine. And thanks again for all your help for helping me with that beautiful language, Portuguese.