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108-684: FEMSA reported revenues of US$ 26.9 billion for 2019, making it the fifth largest company of Mexico. It has operations in Latin America mainly through bottling plants, convenience stores, drugstores, fuel stations, and third-party logistic services, and in the United States , where it participates in the jan-san distribution industry. It is well known in Mexico for its convenience store chain Oxxo , it previously owned Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery (exchanged in 2010 for

216-688: A coup d'état ), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador are all part of this wave of left-wing politicians who often declare themselves socialists , Latin Americanists , or anti-imperialists , often implying opposition to US policies towards the region . An aspect of this has been the creation of the eight-member ALBA alliance, or " The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America " (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América ) by some of these countries. Following

324-744: A 20% stake in Heineken N.V. ), and for being the owner of C.F. Monterrey , a Liga MX football team. FEMSA has been listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange since 1978 and on the NYSE through ADRs since 1998. It is a constituent of the IPC , the main benchmark index of the Mexican Stock Exchange , and of the S&;P Latin America 40 , which includes leading, blue chip companies from Latin America . FEMSA originated from

432-560: A 75 percent controlling stake in convenience store Farmacias Yza. In May 2013, FEMSA announced the acquisition of another convenience store, Farmacias FM Moderna. In September 2015, FEMSA Comercio acquired a controlling stake in SOCOFAR. In December 2015, FEMSA, through FEMSA Comercio, acquired SOCOFAR, a Chilean drugstore company operating the Cruz Verde drugstore network in Chile and Colombia. SOCOFAR

540-460: A Romance language (a language derived from Latin) predominates. Latin America are the countries and territories in the Americas which speak Spanish or Portuguese, with French being sometimes included. As is customary, Puerto Rico is included and Dominica , Grenada , and Saint Lucia (where French is spoken but not official language) are excluded from Latin America. *: Not a sovereign state Before

648-747: A central role in both works. The first event happened less than a decade before the publication of Bilbao's and Torres Caicedo's works: the Invasion of Mexico or, in the US, the Mexican–American War , after which the United States annexed more than half of Mexico's territory. The second event, the Walker affair , which happened the same year that both works were written: the decision by US president Franklin Pierce to recognize

756-479: A collaboration with Moveri and the takeover of the operation of 39 service station stores with its avec format. At the end of the year, Valora acquired the German snack professional Back-Factory and announced the rollout of around 300 k kiosk vending machines throughout Switzerland by the end of 2022. In June 2022, Valora strengthened its collaboration with Oel-Pool / Moveri and announced the conversion of another 71 of

864-684: A considerable influence from Dutch and the Portuguese-based creole languages . Amerindian languages are widely spoken in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay and Mexico, and to a lesser degree, in Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile. In other Latin American countries, the population of speakers of Indigenous languages tend to be very small or even non-existent, for example in Uruguay. Mexico

972-537: A day, life expectancy , murder rates and a measurement of safety through the Global Peace Index . Green cells indicate the best performance in each category, and red the lowest. List of countries by life expectancy at birth for 2022 according to the World Bank Group . This service doesn't provide data for French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Barthélemy. Urbanization accelerated starting in

1080-515: A lesser extent, Amerindian languages, are predominant, and in other areas, the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g., the Caribbean basin – including parts of Colombia and Venezuela ). The term's meaning is contested and not without controversy. Historian Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo explores at length the "allure and power" of the idea of Latin America. He remarks at the outset, "The idea of 'Latin America' ought to have vanished with

1188-499: A printed work to produce the term "Latin America" in 1856 at a conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao in Paris. The conference had the title "Initiative of the America. The idea for a Federal Congress of Republics." The following year, Colombian writer José María Torres Caicedo also used the term in his poem "The Two Americas". Two events related with the United States played

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1296-1143: A recent resurgence of left-wing politics in several countries. In many countries in the early 2000s, left-wing political parties rose to power, known as the Pink tide . The presidencies of Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) in Venezuela, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil, Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández in Argentina, Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica in Uruguay, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (removed from power by

1404-535: A role as not everyone is equally capable of taking advantage of its benefits. Differences in opportunities and endowments tend to be based on race , ethnicity, rurality, and gender . Because inequality in gender and location are near-universal, race and ethnicity play a larger, more integral role in discriminatory practices in Latin America. The differences have a strong impact on the distribution of income, capital and political standing. One indicator of inequality

1512-725: A speech delivered in France by the radical liberal Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao in June 1856". By the late 1850s, the term was being used in California (which had become a part of the United States), in local newspapers such as El Clamor Público by Californios writing about América latina and latinoamérica , and identifying as Latinos as the abbreviated term for their "hemispheric membership in la raza latina ". The words "Latin" and "America" were first found to be combined in

1620-451: A struggle with " Teutonic Europe " and " Anglo-Saxon America " with its Anglo-Saxonism , as well as " Slavic Europe " with its Pan-Slavism . Scholarship has political origins of the term. Two Latin American historians, Uruguayan Arturo Ardao and Chilean Miguel Rojas Mix , found evidence that the term "Latin America" was used earlier than Phelan claimed, and the first use of the term was in fact in opposition to imperialist projects in

1728-569: A subsidiary of FEMSA, was established in 1978. In 2010, OXXO, a subsidiary of FEMSA Comercio, partnered with Heineken Mexico. OXXO's ten-year agreement with Heineken Mexico was renegotiated in early 2019. In 2013 the FEMSA group acquired an 80% holding in the Mexican arm of restaurant chain Gorditas Doña Tota for US$ 120 million, their interest being limited to operations within Mexico. Operations within

1836-400: A vicious cycle. Inequality has been reproduced and transmitted through generations because Latin American political systems allow a differentiated access on the influence that social groups have in the decision-making process, and it responds in different ways to the least favored groups that have less political representation and capacity of pressure. Recent economic liberalisation also plays

1944-627: Is Bill Gates , announced it would invest $ 390 million in FEMSA. The Reuters news agency stated that after this investment, "Gates owns a 1.2 percent stake in Femsa's Series B shares, a 5 percent stake in Series D-B shares, and a 5 percent stake in Series D-L shares." This investment caused the Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation to become the institutional holder possessing the most shares of FEMSA. On January 11, 2010,

2052-532: Is a Swiss retail and food service holding company . The company was acquired on 7 October 2022 by FEMSA . Valora goes back to the Schweizer Chocoladen & Colonialhaus, which was founded in Olten, Switzerland in 1905, which later became known as Merkur AG. The company was initially created to sell coffee and chocolate. In 1986, Merkur AG was made into a holding company , Merkur Holding AG, and in 1996,

2160-479: Is access to and quality of education. During the first phase of globalization in Latin America, educational inequality was on the rise, peaking around the end of the 19th century. In comparison with other developing regions , Latin America then had the highest level of educational inequality , which is certainly a contributing factor for its current general high inequality. During the 20th century, however, educational inequality started decreasing. Latin America has

2268-475: Is also spoken by some Panamanians of Afro- Antillean descent. Dutch is the official language in Suriname , Aruba , Curaçao and Bonaire . (As Dutch is a Germanic language , the territories are not necessarily considered part of Latin America.) However, the native and co-official language of Aruba , Bonaire , and Curaçao , is Papiamento , a creole language largely based on Portuguese and Spanish that has had

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2376-660: Is dominated by blacks, but is sometimes not considered part of Latin America. In the nineteenth century, a number of Latin American countries sought immigrants from Europe and Asia. With the abolition of black slavery in 1888, the Brazilian monarchy fell in 1889. By then, another source of cheap labor to work on coffee plantations was found in Japan. Chinese male immigrants arrived in Cuba, Mexico, Peru and elsewhere. With political turmoil in Europe during

2484-779: Is equally large white populations and smaller black populations, while Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are more Mulatto/Triracial dominated, with significant black and white minorities. Parts of Central America and northern South America are more diverse in that they are dominated by Mestizos and whites but also have large numbers of Mulattos, blacks, and indigenous, especially Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama. The southern cone region, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are dominated by whites and mestizos. The rest of Latin America, including México, northern Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras), and central South America (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay), are dominated by mestizos but also have large white and indigenous minorities. The French Caribbean

2592-480: Is international movement of populations, often fleeing repression or war. Other international migration is for economic reasons, often unregulated or undocumented. Mexicans immigrated to the U.S. during the violence of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and the religious Cristero War (1926–29); during World War II, Mexican men worked in the U.S. in the bracero program . Economic migration from Mexico followed

2700-474: Is only spoken by a few groups in the country's highlands. In Bolivia, Aymara , Quechua and Guaraní hold official status alongside Spanish. Guaraní, like Spanish, is an official language of Paraguay, and is spoken by a majority of the population, which is, for the most part, bilingual, and it is co-official with Spanish in the Argentine province of Corrientes . In Nicaragua, Spanish is the official language, but on

2808-403: Is possibly contains more Indigenous languages than any other Latin American country, but the most-spoken Indigenous language there is Nahuatl. In Peru, Quechua is an official language, alongside Spanish and other Indigenous languages in the areas where they predominate. In Ecuador, while Quichua holds no official status, it is a recognized language under the country's constitution; however, it

2916-497: Is spoken along the Caribbean coast in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize, mostly by the Garifuna people , a mixed-race Zambo people who were the result of mixing between Indigenous Caribbeans and escaped Black slaves. Primarily an Arawakan language , it has influences from Caribbean and European languages. Archaeologists have deciphered over 15 pre-Columbian distinct writing systems from Mesoamerican societies. Ancient Maya had

3024-622: Is spoken mostly in Brazil, the largest and most populous country in the region. Spanish is the official language of most of the other countries and territories on the Latin American mainland, as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico (where it is co-official with English), and the Dominican Republic. French is spoken in Haiti and in the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe , Martinique , and Guiana . It

3132-750: Is subsequently divided into: Solistica is a third-party logistics provider for a number of industries, including pharmaceuticals, automotive, technology, and consumer goods. Solistica manages primary distribution for Coca-Cola FEMSA and Heineken and secondary distribution for FEMSA Comercio's Proximity Division. Imbera manufactures equipment for the soft drink, beer and food service industries, including coolers, food processing, storage and weighing equipment. Imbera has manufacturing plants in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. PTM provides solutions and develops "plastic transformation projects" tailored to FEMSA Enterprises and third-party clients in terms of materials handling, automobiles, and food/beverages. Their capacity includes

3240-474: Is the anchor bottler of Coca-Cola and its related soft drink products in much of Latin America . The company is an important part of the Coca-Cola System . During 2019, the company produced and sold 11.1% of Coca-Cola's volume worldwide. This makes it the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world. The company is owned 47.9% by FEMSA, 28.1% by The Coca-Cola Company and the remaining interest trades on

3348-555: The República de indios  [ es ] to paternalistically govern and protect Indigenous peoples. It also created the República de Españoles , which included not only European whites, but all non-Indigenous peoples, such as blacks, mulattoes, and mixed-race castas who were not dwelling in Indigenous communities. In the religious sphere, the Indigenous were deemed perpetual neophytes in

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3456-539: The Broad Front candidate. Economically, the 2000s commodities boom caused positive effects for many Latin American economies. Another trend was the rapidly increasing importance of their relations with China . However, with the Great Recession beginning in 2008, there was an end to the commodity boom, resulting in economic stagnation or recession resulted in some countries. A number of left-wing governments of

3564-606: The Caribbean and South America; the latter contains further politico-geographical subdivisions such as the Southern Cone , the Guianas and the Andean states. It may be subdivided on linguistic grounds into Spanish America , Portuguese America , and French America . The term "Latin America" is defined to mean parts of Americas south of the mainland of the United States of America where

3672-632: The Caribbean remains a serious issue despite strong economic growth and improved social indicators. A report released in 2013 by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs entitled Inequality Matters: Report of the World Social Situation , observed that: 'Declines in the wage share have been attributed to the impact of labour-saving technological change and to a general weakening of labour market regulations and institutions.' Such declines are likely to disproportionately affect individuals in

3780-529: The Cervecería Cuauhtemoc brewery, which was established by Isaac Garza Garza in 1890. In 1909, Garza founded Vidriera Monterrey (now Vitro ) to produce bottles for the Cuauhtémoc brewery. The vertical strategic integration of Cervecería Cuauhtemoc began in 1936, with the establishment of Fábricas Monterrey, S.A. de C.V. for the production of bottle caps. Packaging operations expanded in 1957 with

3888-512: The Dutch brewing company Heineken International purchased FEMSA Cerveza ( Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma ), the beer operations of FEMSA, in a stock swap that left FEMSA a 20% owner in the Heineken. In 2011, Coca-Cola FEMSA acquired regional Mexican Coke bottler Grupo Cimsa for 11 billion MXN (US$ 838 million). In July 2012, Coca-Cola FEMSA announced that it had purchased Lácteos Santa Clara, one of

3996-636: The Guaraní in Paraguay and the Mapuche in Chile. The vast majority of Latin Americans are Christians (90%), mostly Roman Catholics belonging to the Latin Church . About 70% of the Latin American population considers itself Catholic. In 2012 Latin America constitutes in absolute terms the second world's largest Christian population , after Europe. According to the detailed Pew multi-country survey in 2014, 69% of

4104-451: The Mexican drug war . Several right-wing leaders rose to power, including Argentina's Mauricio Macri and Brazil's Michel Temer , following the impeachment of the country's first female president. In Chile , the conservative Sebastián Piñera succeeded the socialist Michelle Bachelet in 2017. In 2019, center-right Luis Lacalle Pou ended a 15-year leftist rule in Uruguay, after defeating

4212-713: The New York Stock Exchange and the Mexico City Stock Exchange . The company is headquartered in Monterrey . The company is the bottler of Coca-Cola in half of Mexico (including Mexico City, Oaxaca, Tabasco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Veracruz, Puebla and Michoacan) the Buenos Aires region of Argentina , São Paulo and other areas of Brazil , greater Guatemala City , Guatemala , most of Colombia , and all of Costa Rica , Nicaragua , Panama , Venezuela and

4320-816: The Philippines (until 2018). The company also distributes beer and bottled water in some of its territories. On 29 June 2011, was announced that FEMSA will merge to the bottling division of Grupo Tampico , agreeing to pay 9.3 billion pesos (790 million dollars ) in stock for the Coke bottling operations of Grupo Tampico. In September 2011, Coca-Cola FEMSA acquired Grupo Cimsa, a Coke bottler in Morelos, Mexico, Guerrero and Michoacan. FEMSA Negocios Estratégicos (formerly known as FEMSA Insumos Estratégicos) provides logistics, point-of-sale refrigeration solutions and plastics solutions to FEMSA's business units and third-party clients. It

4428-627: The arrival of Europeans in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the region was home to many indigenous peoples, including advanced civilizations, most notably from South: the Olmec , Maya , Muisca , Aztecs and Inca . The region came under control of the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal , which established colonies, and imposed Roman Catholicism and their languages. Both brought African slaves to their colonies as laborers, exploiting large, settled societies and their resources. The Spanish Crown regulated immigration, allowing only Christians to travel to

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4536-590: The 1860s as Latin America to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada , Haiti , French Louisiana , French Guiana , Martinique , Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia , and Dominica , in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed. Research has shown that

4644-427: The 1990s, economic stress in Ecuador during the La Década Perdida triggered considerable migration to Spain and to the U.S. Some Latin American countries seek to strengthen links between migrants and their states of origin, while promoting their integration in the receiving state. These emigrant policies focus on the rights, obligations and opportunities for participation of emigrated citizens who already live outside

4752-430: The Americas, and sometimes from Europe. The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" ( Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas ), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao . The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III 's government of political strongman that in

4860-605: The Americas. Ardao wrote about this subject in his book Génesis de la idea y el nombre de América latina (Genesis of the Idea and the Name of Latin America, 1980), and Miguel Rojas Mix in his article "Bilbao y el hallazgo de América latina: Unión continental, socialista y libertaria" (Bilbao and the Finding of Latin America: a Continental, Socialist, and Libertarian Union, 1986). As Michel Gobat points out in his article "The Invention of Latin America: A Transnational History of Anti-Imperialism, Democracy , and Race", "Arturo Ardao, Miguel Rojas Mix, and Aims McGuinness have revealed [that]

4968-462: The Caribbean region, creole languages are spoken. The most widely-spoken creole language in Latin America and the Caribbean is Haitian Creole , the predominant language of Haiti, derived primarily from French and certain West African tongues, with Amerindian , English, Portuguese and Spanish influences as well. Creole languages of mainland Latin America, similarly, are derived from European languages and various African tongues. The Garifuna language

5076-541: The Catholic faith, which meant Indigenous men were not eligible to be ordained as Catholic priests; however, Indigenous were also excluded from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition . Catholics saw military conquest and religious conquest as two parts of the assimilation of Indigenous populations, suppressing Indigenous religious practices and eliminating the Indigenous priesthood. Some worship continued underground. Jews and other non-Catholics, such as Protestants (all called "Lutherans") were banned from settling and were subject to

5184-402: The Ditsch / Brezelkönig group of companies, a distributor of Pretzel nationwide, for 100 million euros. In October 2013, Michael Müller was named CEO of the group. In 2014, Valora sold Valora Services to Thomas Kirschner, the majority shareholder of Presse-Vertriebs-Gesellschaft. On the other hand, the small-scale retailer Naville in French-speaking Switzerland was acquired. In 2015, Valora

5292-466: The Indigenous peoples, Europeans, Africans initially brought as slaves, and Asians, as well as new immigrants. Mixing of groups was a fact of life at contact of the Old World and the New, but colonial regimes established legal and social discrimination against non-white populations simply on the basis of perceived ethnicity and skin color. Social class was usually linked to a person's racial category, with European-born Spaniards and Portuguese on top. During

5400-407: The Inquisition. Considerable mixing of populations occurred in cities, while the countryside was largely Indigenous. At independence in the early nineteenth century, in many places in Spanish America formal racial and legal distinctions disappeared, although slavery was not uniformly abolished. Significant black populations exist in Brazil and Spanish Caribbean islands such as Cuba and Puerto Rico and

5508-409: The Latin America and Caribbean region have large-scale school feeding activities, altogether reaching 88% of primary school-age children in the region. Compared to prior generations, Latin American youth have seen an increase in their levels of education. On average, they have completed two more years of school than their parents. However, there are still 23 million children in the region between

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5616-422: The Latin American population is Catholic and 19% is Protestant. Protestants are 26% in Brazil and over 40% in much of Central America. More than half of these are converts from Roman Catholicism. The entire hemisphere was settled by migrants from Asia, Europe, and Africa. Native American populations settled throughout the hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and

5724-402: The Latin race just to subject it to her exploitation regime; treacherous, because she speaks of freedom and nationality, when, unable to conquer freedom for herself, she enslaves others instead!" Therefore, as Michel Gobat puts it, the term Latin America itself had an "anti-imperial genesis," and their creators were far from supporting any form of imperialism in the region, or in any other place of

5832-415: The Netherlands. In May 2023, FEMSA sold €333 million in Heineken N.V. to the company. FEMSA will no longer hold any shares in Heineken N.V. and Heineken Holding N.V. other than the Heineken Holding N.V. shares underlying the exchangeable bond. FEMSA Comercio operates OXXO , the leading convenience store chain in Mexico and a growing portfolio of other small-format retail chains in Latin America. OXXO,

5940-495: The New World. The colonization process led to significant native population declines due to disease, forced labor, and violence. They imposed their culture, destroying native codices and artwork. Colonial-era religion played a crucial role in everyday life, with the Spanish Crown ensuring religious purity and aggressively prosecuting perceived deviations like witchcraft. In the early nineteenth century nearly all of areas of Spanish America attained independence by armed struggle, with

6048-485: The Pink tide lost support. The worst-hit was Venezuela, which is facing severe social and economic upheaval . Charges of against a major Brazilian conglomerate, Odebrecht , has raised allegations of corruption across the region's governments (see Operation Car Wash ). This bribery ring has become the largest corruption scandal in Latin American history. As of July 2017, the highest ranking politicians charged were former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , who

6156-436: The U.S. settled in northern Mexico. When the U.S. acquired its southwest by conquest in the Mexican American War , Latin American populations did not cross the border to the U.S., the border crossed them. In the twentieth century there have been several types of migration. One is the movement of rural populations within a given country to cities in search of work, causing many Latin American cities to grow significantly. Another

6264-525: The US and by Brezelkönig in Switzerland. The Valora Retail division comprises more than 2,000 small-scale points of sale at highly frequented sites in Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Austria. The division includes the formats k kiosk, Press & Books, avec, cigo, ServiceStore DB, U-Store and the own brand ok.– as well as a range of digital services. The Valora Food Service division comprises more than 700 small-scale points of sale at highly frequented sites in Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and

6372-442: The United Kingdom during the region's political turmoil, compounded by the rise of narcotrafficking and guerrilla warfare . During the Central American wars of the 1970s to the 1990s, many Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans migrated to the U.S. to escape narcotrafficking, gangs, and poverty. As living conditions deteriorated in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro , many left for neighboring Colombia and Ecuador. In

6480-495: The United Nations ECLAC , Latin America is the most unequal region in the world. Inequality in Latin America has deep historical roots in the Latin European racially based Casta system instituted in Latin America during colonial times that has been difficult to eradicate because of the differences between initial endowments and opportunities among social groups have constrained the poorest's social mobility , thus causing poverty to transmit from generation to generation, and become

6588-466: The United States and Canada, but a significant number arrived in Latin America. Although Mexico tried to attract immigrants, it largely failed. As black slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, coffee growers recruited Japanese migrants to work in coffee plantations. There is a significant population of Japanese descent in Brazil. Cuba and Peru recruited Chinese labor in the late nineteenth century. Some Chinese immigrants who were excluded from immigrating to

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6696-437: The United States remain in the hands of the original business owners. The company operates as a subsidiary of Femsa Comercio S.A. de C.V. As of 2017 the company claims more than 200 restaurants in 60 Mexican cities and towns. Gorditas Doña Tota started in 1952 when Carlota Murillo of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas began selling gorditas on the street, from a cart on the sidewalk. In November 2012, FEMSA announced it had purchased

6804-497: The acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Raizen Conveniencias. In March 2020, FEMSA acquired a majority stake in WAXIE Sanitary Supply and North American Corporation, to form a new platform within the Jan-San, Packaging and Specialized distribution industry in the United States. In 2022, FEMSA acquired Swiss retail and food service holding company Valora , which operates multiple brands of convenience stores and quick service food outlets in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and

6912-534: The ages of 13 and 17 years, only 80% are full-time students, and only 66% of these advance to secondary school. These percentages are lower among vulnerable population groups: only 75% of the poorest youth between the ages of 13 and 17 years attend school. Tertiary education has the lowest coverage, with only 70% of people between the ages of 18 and 25 years outside of the education system. Currently, more than half of low income or rural children fail to complete nine years of education. Valora (company) Valora

7020-558: The ages of 4 and 17 outside of the formal education system. Estimates indicate that 30% of preschool age children (ages 4–5) do not attend school, and for the most vulnerable populations, the poor and rural, this proportion exceeds 40 percent. Among primary school age children (ages 6 to 12), attendance is almost universal; however there is still a need to enroll five million more children in the primary education system. These children mostly live in remote areas, are Indigenous or Afro-descendants and live in extreme poverty. Among people between

7128-744: The borders of the country of origin. Research on Latin America shows that the extension of policies towards migrants is linked to a focus on civil rights and state benefits that can positively influence integration in recipient countries. In addition, the tolerance of dual citizenship has spread more in Latin America than in any other region of the world. Despite significant progress, education access and school completion remains unequal in Latin America. The region has made great progress in educational coverage; almost all children attend primary school , and access to secondary education has increased considerably. Quality issues such as poor teaching methods, lack of appropriate equipment, and overcrowding exist throughout

7236-641: The circum-Caribbean mainland (Venezuela, Colombia, Panama), as long as in the southern part of South America and Central America (Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Peru) a legacy of their use in plantations. All these areas also have significant white populations. In Brazil, coastal Indigenous peoples largely died out in the early sixteenth century, with Indigenous populations surviving far from cities, sugar plantations, and other European enterprises. Many mixed-race people in much of Latin America are tri-racial, usually of European, African, and Indigenous blood, where European (mostly Spanish/Portuguese) tends to be

7344-482: The colonial era, with a dearth initially of European women, European men and Indigenous women and African women produced what were considered mixed-race children. In Spanish America, the so-called Sociedad de castas or Sistema de castas was constructed by white elites to try to rationalize the processes at work. In the sixteenth century the Spanish crown sought to protect Indigenous populations from exploitation by white elites for their labor and land. The crown created

7452-484: The company was renamed to today's Valora Holding AG. In 2009, Valora generated 3 billion Swiss francs in turnover and employed 6,500 staff (on a full-time equivalent basis). Valora Trade took over Engelschiøn Marwell Hauge AS (EMH) in 2010 and thus opened up the sales and distribution of cosmetic products in Norway. In 2011, Valora Trade took over Scandinavian Cosmetics (ScanCo) and thus acquired access to cosmetic distribution in Sweden. In 2012, Valora has acquired

7560-457: The cosmic race ", according to Mexican intellectual José Vasconcelos , thus erasing other populations. There was considerable discrimination against Asians, with calls for the expulsion of Chinese in northern Mexico during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and racially motivated massacres . In a number of Latin American countries, Indigenous groups have organized explicitly as Indigenous, to claim human rights and influence political power. With

7668-410: The country's Caribbean coast English and Indigenous languages such as Miskito , Sumo , and Rama also hold official status. Colombia recognizes all Indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers of these languages. Nahuatl is one of the 62 Native languages spoken by Indigenous people in Mexico, which are officially recognized by

7776-474: The crash of the Mexican economy in the 1980s. Spanish refugees fled to Mexico following the fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–38), with some 50,000 exiles finding refuge at the invitation of President Lázaro Cárdenas . Following World War II a larger wave of refugees to Latin America, many of them Jews, settled in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Venezuela. Some were only transiting through

7884-599: The creation of Corporación Siderúrgica S.A. (later consolidated into Grupo ALFA ), which would be controlled by the Garza Sada family, and the beverage and banking operations led to the creation of FEMSA, whose control fell to the Garza Lagüera family. FEMSA was listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange on September 19, 1978. In 1985, Cuauhtémoc merged with Moctezuma to form Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma. FEMSA then undertook an extensive corporate and financial restructuring that

7992-572: The different plastic manufacturing processes: blowing, injecting, heat forming, and extrusion. Latin America Latin America often refers to the regions in the Americas in which Romance languages are the main languages. It is "commonly used to describe South America (with the exception of Suriname , Guyana and the Falkland islands ), plus Central America , Mexico , and most of

8100-503: The exceptions of Cuba and Puerto Rico . Brazil , which had become a monarchy separate from Portugal, became a republic in the late nineteenth century. Political independence from European monarchies did not result in the abolition of black slavery in the new nations, it resulted in political and economic instability in Spanish America, immediately after independence. Great Britain and the United States exercised significant influence in

8208-472: The forced migration of slaves from Africa. In the post-independence period, a number of Latin American countries sought to attract European immigrants as a source of labor as well as to deliberately change the proportions of racial and ethnic groups within their borders. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil actively recruited labor from Catholic southern Europe, where populations were poor and sought better economic opportunities. Many nineteenth-century immigrants went to

8316-759: The formats BackWerk, Ditsch, Brezelkönig, Caffè Spettacolo, Frittenwerk and SuperGuud. The company also includes own brands such as ok.– and bob Finance as well as the in-house pretzel production. Valora's around 2,700 small-scale points of sale of Valora are located at highly frequented locations in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Around 15 000 employees work in Valora's network. In 2021, Valora produced around 730 million baked goods with its 16 production lines operated by Brezelbäckerei Ditsch in Germany and

8424-409: The globe. The distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance language- and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Neither area is culturally or linguistically homogeneous; in substantial portions of Latin America (e.g., highland Peru , Bolivia , Mexico, Guatemala ), Native American cultures and, to

8532-1064: The government as "national languages" along with Spanish. Other European languages spoken in Latin America include: English, by half of the current population in Puerto Rico, as well as in nearby countries that may or may not be considered Latin American, like Belize and Guyana , and spoken by descendants of British settlers in Argentina and Chile. German is spoken in southern Brazil, southern Chile, portions of Argentina, Venezuela and Paraguay; Italian in Brazil , Argentina, Venezuela, and Uruguay; Ukrainian , Polish , and Russian in southern Brazil and Argentina; and Welsh , in southern Argentina. Non-European or Asian languages include Japanese in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, Korean in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile, Arabic in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile, and Chinese throughout South America. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil have their own dialects or variations of German and Italian. In several nations, especially in

8640-522: The highest levels of income inequality in the world. The following table lists all the countries in Latin America indicating a valuation of the country's Human Development Index , GDP at purchasing power parity per capita, measurement of inequality through the Gini index , measurement of poverty through the Human Poverty Index , a measure of extreme poverty based on people living on less than 1.25 dollars

8748-541: The idea that a part of the Americas has a linguistic and cultural affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier , who postulated that a part of the Americas was inhabited by people of a " Latin race ", and that it could, therefore, ally itself with " Latin Europe ", ultimately overlapping the Latin Church , in

8856-420: The islands of the Caribbean ". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America , and often it may also include Brazil ( Portuguese America ). The term "Latin America" may be used more broadly than Hispanic America , which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries; and more narrowly than categories such as Ibero-America , a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from

8964-565: The largest dairy bottlers in Mexico. In August 2015, FEMSA, through its subsidiary FEMSA Comercio entered the drugstore business in South America by acquiring a majority interest in Socofar, a leading South American drugstore operator based in Santiago, Chile. In March 2017, FEMSA's Imbera division announced their shift to hydrocarbons in manufacturing their Coke beverage coolers. The company enacted

9072-598: The manufacturing shift in order to meet higher efficiency standards. In October 2017, FEMSA Logistica rebranded to Solistica. In early 2019, FEMSA, through its subsidiary FEMSA Comercio, acquired Ecuadorean company Corporacion GPF. In September 2019, FEMSA signed a deal to acquire a minority stake in Jetro Restaurant Depot. In November 2019, FEMSA Logistics subsidiary Solistica completed their acquisition of Brazilian company AGV. Also in November 2019, FEMSA Comercio closed

9180-399: The mid-nineteenth century and widespread poverty, Germans, Spaniards, and Italians immigrated to Latin America in large numbers, welcomed by Latin American governments both as a source of labor as well as a way to increase the size of their white populations. In Argentina, many Afro-Argentines married Europeans. In twentieth-century Brazil, sociologist Gilberto Freyre proposed that Brazil

9288-522: The mid-twentieth century, especially in capital cities , or in the case of Brazil, traditional economic and political hubs founded in the colonial era. In Mexico, the rapid growth and modernization in country's north has seen the growth of Monterrey , in Nuevo León . The following is a list of the ten largest metropolitan areas in Latin America. Entries in "bold" indicate they are ranked the highest. Latin American populations are diverse, with descendants of

9396-427: The middle and bottom of the income distribution , as they rely mostly on wages for income. In addition, the report noted that 'highly-unequal land distribution has created social and political tensions and is a source of economic inefficiency , as small landholders frequently lack access to credit and other resources to increase productivity , while big owners may not have had enough incentive to do so. According to

9504-565: The most sophisticated textually written language, but since texts were largely confined to the religious and administrative elite, traditions were passed down orally. Oral traditions also prevailed in other major Indigenous groups including, but not limited to the Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers, Quechua and Aymara of the Andean regions, the Quiché of Central America, the Tupi-Guaraní in today's Brazil,

9612-404: The obsolescence of racial theory... But it is not easy to declare something dead when it can hardly be said to have existed," going on to say, "The term is here to stay, and it is important." Following in the tradition of Chilean writer Francisco Bilbao, who excluded Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay from his early conceptualization of Latin America, Chilean historian Jaime Eyzaguirre has criticized

9720-631: The passage of anti-colonial resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly and the signing of resolutions for Indigenous rights, the Indigenous are able to act to guarantee their existence within nation-states with legal standing . Spanish is the predominant language of Latin America. It is spoken as first language by about 60% of the population. Portuguese is spoken by about 30%, and about 10% speak other languages such as Quechua , Mayan languages , Guaraní , Aymara , Nahuatl , English , French , Dutch and Italian . Portuguese

9828-499: The pink tide, there was a Conservative wave across Latin America. In Mexico, the rightwing National Action Party (PAN) won the presidential election of 2000 with its candidate Vicente Fox , ending the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party . He was succeed six-years later by another conservative, Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), who attempted to crack down on the Mexican drug cartels and instigated

9936-652: The post-independence era, resulting in a form of neo-colonialism , where political sovereignty remained in place, but foreign powers exercised considerable power in the economic sphere. Newly independent nations faced domestic and interstate conflicts, struggling with economic instability and social inequality. The 20th century brought U.S. intervention and the Cold War 's impact on the region, with revolutions in countries like Cuba influencing Latin American politics. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw shifts towards left-wing governments, followed by conservative resurgences, and

10044-487: The production of labels and flexible packaging. During this period, FEMSA's operations were part of what became known as Grupo Monterrey ( lit. the Monterrey Group), which also included interests in banking, steel, and other packaging operations. In 1974, Grupo Monterrey was divided into two branches by the descendants of the founding families of Cervecería Cuauhtémoc . The steel and packaging operations gave rise to

10152-480: The regime recently established in Nicaragua by American William Walker and his band of filibusters who ruled Nicaragua for nearly a year (1856–57) and attempted to reinstate slavery there, where it had been already abolished for three decades In both Bilbao's and Torres Caicedo's works, the Mexican–American War (1846–48) and William Walker's expedition to Nicaragua are explicitly mentioned as examples of dangers for

10260-458: The region, but others stayed and created communities. A number of Nazis escaped to Latin America, living under assumed names, in an attempt to avoid attention and prosecution. In the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, middle class and elite Cubans moved to the U.S., particularly to Florida. Some fled Chile for the U.S. and Europe after the 1973 military coup. Colombians migrated to Spain and

10368-456: The region. For Bilbao, "Latin America" was not a geographical concept, as he excluded Brazil, Paraguay, and Mexico. Both authors also asked for the union of all Latin American countries as the only way to defend their territories against further foreign US interventions. Both also rejected European imperialism, claiming that the return of European countries to non-democratic forms of government was another danger for Latin American countries, and used

10476-415: The region. These issues lead to adolescents dropping out of the educational system early. Most educational systems in the region have implemented various types of administrative and institutional reforms that have enabled reach for places and communities that had no access to education services in the early 1990s. School meal programs are also employed to expand access to education, and at least 23 countries in

10584-485: The remaining stake in SOCOFAR in January 2020. OXXO Gas is an affiliate of OXXO, and as of 2020 operates approximately 550 stations in 17 Mexican states. FEMSA owns 47.9% of the world's largest bottler of Coca-Cola by volume, Coca-Cola FEMSA, S.A. de C.V. ( NYSE :  KOF ), which operates in ten countries covering the metropolitan area of Mexico City, southeast Mexico, Central America, and South America. Coca-Cola FEMSA

10692-722: The same word to describe the state of European politics at the time: "despotism." Several years later, during the French invasion of Mexico , Bilbao wrote another work, "Emancipation of the Spirit in America", where he asked all Latin American countries to support the Mexican cause against France, and rejected French imperialism in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. He asked Latin American intellectuals to search for their "intellectual emancipation" by abandoning all French ideas, claiming that France was: "Hypocrite, because she [France] calls herself protector of

10800-490: The service station shops into avec stores. In July 2022, Valora acquired Frittenwerk, a trendy format based in Germany. In 2022, Fomento Económico Mexicano (FEMSA) announced an acquisition of Valora for up to $ 1.2bn. The acquisition was completed on 7 October 2022. The Valora Group comprises the two divisions Retail and Food Service. The former includes the formats k kiosk, avec, Press & Books, cigo, ServiceStore DB und U-Store formats. The Food Service division comprises

10908-816: The strongest of the three. In most of Brazil and the Spanish Caribbean, the average ancestral mix is European and African blood, with much smaller amounts of indigenous blood. While the opposite is true in many mainland Spanish-speaking Latin American countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama, where the average ancestral mix is of European and indigenous blood, with smaller amounts of African. But in Mexico, and other places in northern Central America and southern South America, mixed race people tend to be completely of European and indigenous blood. Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil have dominant Mulatto/Triracial populations ("Pardo" in Brazil), in Brazil and Cuba, there

11016-527: The term 'Latin America' had already been used in 1856 by Central Americans and South Americans protesting US expansion into the Southern Hemisphere". Edward Shawcross summarizes Ardao's and Rojas Mix's findings in the following way: "Ardao identified the term in a poem by a Colombian diplomat and intellectual resident in France, José María Torres Caicedo, published on 15 February 1857 in a French based Spanish-language newspaper, while Rojas Mix located it in

11124-633: The term Latin America for "disguising" and "diluting" the Spanish character of a region (i.e. Hispanic America ) with the inclusion of nations that, according to him, do not share the same pattern of conquest and colonization . The Francophone part of North America which includes Quebec , Acadia , and Louisiana is generally excluded from the definition of Latin America. Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, democracy , demographics and culture. The basic geographical subregions are North America, Central America,

11232-415: Was a " racial democracy ", with less discrimination against blacks than in the U.S. Even if a system of legal racial segregation was never implemented in Latin America, unlike the United States, subsequent research has shown that in Brazil there's discrimination against darker citizens, and that whites remain the elites in the country. In Mexico, the mestizo population was considered the true embodiment of "

11340-488: Was arrested, and former Peruvian presidents Ollanta Humala and Alejandro Toledo , who fled to the United States and was extradited back to Peru. The COVID-19 pandemic proved a political challenge for many unstable Latin American democracies, with scholars identifying a decline in civil liberties as a result of opportunistic emergency powers. This was especially true for countries with strong presidential regimes, such as Brazil . Wealth inequality in Latin America and

11448-544: Was completed in December 1988. In 1993, Coca-Cola purchased a 30 percent stake in FEMSA, creating the Coca-Cola FEMSA division. In January 2006, FEMSA Cerveza acquired Kaiser Cervejarias from Molson Coors Brewing Co. On December 19, 2006, Coca-Cola FEMSA announced its attempt to buy out Mexican juice producer Jugos del Valle . It was acquired in 2007. On December 20, 2007, Cascade Investments LLC , whose main partner

11556-474: Was founded in the 1980s and is the largest drugstore chain in Chile, a strong presence in Colombia. In September 2018, FEMSA, through FEMSA Comercio, announced the acquisition of Ecuadorian drugstore chains Fybeca and SanaSana. In May 2019, FEMSA Comercio completed its acquisition of Fybeca. FEMSA Comercio announced in December 2019 plans to acquire the remaining 40 percent minority stake of SOCOFAR. FEMSA acquired

11664-438: Was preparing to launch consumer loans available throughout its network of kiosques. The company completed the sale of its Trade division to Aurelius Group. In 2017, Valora acquired the franchise business BackWerk based in Germany as well as the pretzel producer Pretzel Baron in the US. In 2019, the company launched the autonomous, cashier-free convenience store avec box at Zurich main station. In mid-2021, Valora announced

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