Since independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Latin America has maintained close links with Britain. This book examines the cultural and social implications of the relationship through a series of case studies that focus on British, Irish, and West Indian immigrants and their descendants in Mexico, Central and South America. The contributors - historians, anthropologists and sociolinguists - explore the past, present and putative future of English-speaking communities in Latin America and the relationships with their host societies.

Collection of lucid individual studies of particular Anglophone communities

Notes on the Contributors List of Tables List of Maps Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: ORIGINS A Community of Purpose: British Cultural Influence during the Spanish American Wars for Independence; K.Racine The British Community of Bahia, Brazil, 1810-1823; L.Guenther From Speculative to Substansive Boom: The British in Mexico, 1821-1911; B.A.Tenenbaum & J.N.McElveen The Formation of Hiberno-Argentine Society; P.McKenna Conflicts in the Pailon: The British Experience in Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador, 1860-1914; G.Fisher PART II: ARGENTINA The Anglo-Argentines: Work, Family and Identity, 1860-1914; D.Jakubs New Nations and Old Identities: The Anglo-Argentines and the South Atlantic Conflict; F.Cortés-Conde PART II: CHILE The British Communities in Nineteenth-Century Chile: Engagement and Isolation; J.Mayo The British and their Descendants in Chilean Patagonia; L.Nock PART IV: BRAZIL Imagining Brazil: The Recruitment of English Labourers as Brazilian Colonos; O.Marshall British Football with a Brazilian Beat: The Early History of a National Pastime, 1894-1933; D.J.Davis PART V: CARIBBEAN BASIN The Bay Islands English: Stages in the Evolution of a Cultural Identity; R.A.Graham Identity in Transition: From West Indian Immigrant to Afro-Constarricense; R.N.Harpelle San Andrés: An Islander Comeback?; J.Ross Index