Latin America
Strictly speaking, Latin America is not only Latin. That name is not culturally correct. First of all, our culture is essentially not Latin, just like all that is Spanish is not Latin. Phoenicians, Romans, Goths and Arabs helped shape the Spanish peninsula, and collectively they had a greater impact than the Latin influence. Secondly, "Latin America" does not take into account the aboriginal and black peoples-millions of them-who are not Latin at all. Furthermore, there are other important minorities from the Near and Far East who have settled in these lands.

Amerindia and Indoamérica
These two names were coined to affirm those people who are from here. The names allude to those who have at least one non-European parent.

Abya-Yala
In 1977 the World Council of Indigenous Peoples adopted the name Abya-Yalasant'a for this continent. It was the name the Kuras from Panamd gave to the South American continent. Abya means "mature mother" or "total maturity," and Yala means "land" or "territory." Therefore, Abya-Yala means "land in its full maturity." This name was suggested by the leader Aymara Takir Mamani, who proposed that all indigenous people use this name in their documents and declarations.

Afroamérica
It is estimated that at least 9.5 million African Blacks arrived in America. Brazil and the Caribbean Antilles received about 90% of this human traffic. Blackness has a particular world-view as conscience and as praxis. (Tony Brun, in "Latin American Reality," Latin American Biblical Seminary, 1996.)