North America setting examples for the world

A Closer Look at North America

(North America Political Map, taken from Yahoo Images)

America is such a broad continent that it has been divided in different subcontinents: South America, Central America and North America.

However, there are different definitions on what really North America is. Some people talk about it as just the United States and Canada, other add to those two Mexico and other islands in the Atlantic and others take central America as well.

So in the presentation made by Natalia Barco, Laura García, Annika Ekström and Marie Nilsson, they define North America according to the National Encyklopedin, which says: “North America, the north part of the double continent America; 24.4 million sq km, 529 million inhabitants. Greenland, Canada, USA, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean belong to North America… In some occasions Central America and the Caribbean are separated as special regions and sometimes North America is used synonymously to the cultural concept Anglo America in contrast to Latin America.”

It is also important to highlight, that Greenland belongs to Denmark and like that it is consider as a part of Europe, and Hawaii geographically part of Oceania as a State of the USA is considered part of North America.

But as in the presentation, despite of how broad North America has been defined, there will be a focus on three countries, Canada, Mexico and the USA.
These three countries are linked geographically, share some similar historic roots and economically are very important due to its FTA, the NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement). This FTA was signed in 1992 and has been a reference in trade all around the world, inspiring many others FTAs.

The NAFTA according to the presentation has 2 main objectives, being one the gradual reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers for goods as well as for services and the other one is to create a free-trade bloc.

With the constitution of America, we have to consider the influence of Europe, and how the Spanish were important especially for Mexico, and British and French for the USA and Canada, among other European immigrants as the Dutch and the Irish.

But the American continent was not only occupied by European immigrants, before them there were many important indigenous communties, Some of the managed to survived, while others were killed by the many diseases European broughts such as the flues, or by the Europeans.

And Europeans didn’t come alone either, they brought the slaves making America a place where different cultures met and have been living together, shaping the continent.

However, dispite the similitudes each country faced different historical facts, geographical differences and many other things that made them unique.


United States

General Info:
· Its capital is Washington D.D
· It has an Area of 9826630 km2
· And they have a population of around 307 millions.
· Considering their GDP it is of USD 14,11 trillions and the GDP per capita is USD 46820. The USA is the number one economy in the world.

(Foto taken from Getty Images, "Bald eagle in front of American flag" by Vicky Hart)

In the presentation, they addressed some mains issues as:

Immigration, where they higlighted the importance of immigrants for the population groth in the States and the creativity and innovaion they have brought. Nevertheless, there has always been a difficult concerning the iligal immigrants entering the country, in some places as Miami and California there are also issues between “Americans” and Latin people (cubans, mexicans…) and after September 11 the rejection many immigrants face, specially the ones coming from the Middle East or who are muslims.

The other topic, was the Government, being important the institution of the three branches “legislative”, “judicial” and “gobernment” and how the idea of the democratic government was develop there in order to response to the abuses, specially with taxes, that Great Britain was imposing to its colonies in North America. There were a lot of important people who fought for the independence of the 13 colonies in North America and who build a governamental institution and structure that is very important in today’s world. The people form the States are proud of that and in many of their symblos as their flag you can see features realted to the 13 colonies and how they became what they are.
(Foto taken from Getty Images. "Mount Rushmore National Memorial" by Ed Freeman)


At the moment the US president is Barack Obama, something important is the fact that he is the first Africanamerican president.

With the culture, it is important to talk about the role of religion with a religious diversity, but clearly more towards Christianity, not all of them are catholics and there are christian religions as the mormons that were born there, but the common line is that they follow Christian beliefs.

The food has a huge european influence. But in the States they are facing problems as obesity due to the lack of a healthy food style and the junk food available everywhere. So it represents a major challenge for the States since it is better to have a population who knows about and has access to healthy food, undertake fitness programs and like that are able to have a healthy life.

And finally, the business culture, where they are individualistic, look forward to take advantage of all the posibilities out there and treasure time since “time is money”.

Canada

General Info:
· It’s capital is Ottawa
· It has an area of 9984670 km2, what makes them the second largest country
· It has a population of around 33 millions
· Its GDP is of USD 1307 trillions and the GDP per capita is of USD 39300

(Image taken from Getty Images. "Hand holding maple leaf with canadian symbols on it" by Kain Zernitsky)

In the presentation, they talk about facts as the weather, since due to its position they hace really cold winters, and in the north areas they actually have the Antartic.

The languages are also very important since Canada has two official languages English and French and there is also space for many other languages, which their immigrants and families keep as Mandarin. In the way they are supporting multiculturalism, there is also space in many schools according to the communities to teach classes in other languages, for example in the Province of Saskatchewan many slavic languages are the most common at school.

With the government they are a parlamientary government and constitutional monarchy. While they States was figthing for their independence, Canada took a different road, so they still are related to the British Crown having the Queen Elizabeth II as thier head of State with a governor acting on her behalf, but they have an independence in their decisions.

Culturally, Canada is very diverse. With the multiculturalism policy you can see space for different religions, foods, customs… everythin according to the background of people. But the most well known are the features coming from the British culture and the French one, who were the most and the ones who define and build the country. Anyway, those particular cultures also live with general ones, which are the culture of each province and the national culture. Each province has symbols and features that makes it different from the others and special for the country, and as Canada there are general things as the beaver and the mapple leaf, important for their history and they are also in the road trying to define what really means be a canadian.

(Foto taken from Getty Images. "Beaver carrying a stick through pond in Elk Island National Park, Alberta" by Peter Essick)

In the business culture, they appreciate punctuality, they are reserved and more conservative.

Mexico

General info:
· Its capital is Mexico D-F
· It has an area of 1972550 km2
· Its population is around 111 millions
· It has a GDP of USD 1559 trillions and teh GDP per capita is of USD 14200.

In the presentation they talk about Mexico and its most important features, drawing special attention to its natural resources with oil, copper, gold, zinc…, its climatic and geographical diversity, and its cultural background with the Spanish and the inidigenous cultures, that still play a significant role for the community.
With the exports they are very important with grain crops, being the most important the corn.

(Image taken from Getty Images. "Mayan Pyramid, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico" by Martin Shields)

Mexico is a presidential democratic republic.

Economically, they are growing fast, and they are becoming important in sectors as telecommunications not only inside Mexico, but in Latinamerica.

In their culture, the social stratifications and the machism play an important role. And they are in their body language very expressive and enjoy being close to people.

It is a very touristic country, and there are many nice places to explore and they have a very reach culture.

Finally, the corporate culture has values as puntuality, hey like to take time for the negotiations so they go slowly and Spanish is usually the language to go with for business.
(Foto taken from Getty Images. "Performers in front of Palacio de Justicia" by Ryan Fox)

North America, is definetly a place full of opportunities and interesting features to study and these three countries are leaders somehow in today’s world, so it is important to keep an eye on them, look for partnerships and learn from them.

Special Note:

This Blog was made and design by María Camila Restrepo Zuluaga, Julia María Rodas Jaramillo and María Natalia Suárez Vallejo

References:

1. Barco, N.. & García, L. & Ekström A. & Nilsson, M. 2009. Presentation "North America" part of the subject Organizations and Cultures at the University EAFIT.

2. Notes of the subject “North America studies” at the University EAFIT, 2008