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The Franz Mayer Museum ( Spanish : Museo Franz Mayer ), in Mexico City opened in 1986 to house, display and maintain Latin America ’s largest collection of decorative arts. The collection was amassed by stockbroker and financial professional Franz Mayer , who collected fine artworks, books, furniture, ceramics, textiles and many other types of decorative items over fifty years of his life. A large portion comes from Europe and Asia but most comes from Mexico itself with items dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Many pieces in the collection are fine handcrafts , such as textiles and Talavera pottery , and they are important because they are items that often did not survive because most did not consider them worth preserving.

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107-422: The museum is housed in the historic center of Mexico City in the former San Juan de Dios monastery and hospital, an 18th-century structure which was rehabilitated for the museum. In addition to displaying the items Mayer collected, of which only over a quarter is visible, the museum still makes acquisitions, hold workshops, sponsors temporary exhibits and has a café located in the center courtyard/garden. The museum

214-705: 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

321-520: A Mexican citizen on 29 December 1933. From the 1950s, Mayer had conceived the idea of donating his collection of fine and decorative arts to Mexico. Finally in 1963 he set up a trust fund, and the Bank of Mexico was chosen as the fiduciary for the establishment of an art museum in Mexico City . At the same time a sponsor was found among the people closest to him. According to the wishes of Franz Mayer,

428-520: 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

535-770: 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

642-436: A collector, Mayer amassed more than 10,000 works of art and a similar number of books. Mayer began collecting fine art through different auction houses beginning in 1933, with many of the catalogues from these house at the museum. The museum also has a collection of letters Mayer wrote inquiring specialists about acquired pieces or those he had an interest in. Art was followed by books, including various editions of Don Quixote and

749-710: 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

856-553: 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

963-487: A landscape by José María Velasco and an early painting by Diego Rivera . In the 1920s, Mayer began collecting Talavera pottery from Puebla , one of the first collectors to do so. In Puebla, he was considered a bit crazy for buying all of the "old stuff" from the locals. The museum opened with the largest Puebla Talavera collection in the world with 726 pieces from the 17th to the 19th centuries and some 20th-century pieces by Enrique Luis Ventosa . One important part of

1070-520: 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

1177-449: 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 the Americas, and sometimes from Europe. The term Latin America

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1284-712: A number of hobbies including photography and travel in Mexico and abroad. As a photography, he admired Hugo Brehme and collected some photographs. These and photographs Mayer took himself are now part of the museum collection. However he is best known for his collection of decorative arts which filled his house in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, and first registered by Gonzalo Obregón, an antiques dealer, in 1953. He began collecting textiles as early as 1905, often buying Mexican ones to send to family and friends in Europe as gifts. As

1391-508: 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

1498-1245: 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

1605-542: 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

1712-729: A school run by the nuns of the Teaching of the Indies from 1830 to 1834, than the Sisters of Charity occupied it from 1845 to 1873. It began caring for the sick again in 1865, taken over by the Public Benefits Office in 1875 with the name of Morelos Hospital. It remained a hospital under one name or another until the 1960s, when it was used to display handcrafts during the Olympic Games. It would keep this function through

1819-518: A second facility and to have sites in other parts of the country. The museum studies decorative arts from the past centuries in order to see its effects on contemporary design. The museum has partnerships with modern ceramic and silver artisans to allow them to study the pieces in the collection and to allow for display of new designs and pieces. The museum offers guided tours, courses, lectures, concerts and other performing arts, children's workshops and special activities for members. One of its attractions

1926-746: 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

2033-476: A very large quantity of pieces from Mexico City, Puebla and Guanajuato . The collection of textiles is one of the most important in the country for its variety with about 260 pieces from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Many of his items are those which were susceptible to disappearing as they are everyday items often not considered worth preserving. The furniture collection is one of the richest in Mexico for its variety. The museum houses 710 pieces which date from

2140-400: 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

2247-642: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 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 the islands of the Caribbean ". In

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2354-479: 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

2461-480: 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

2568-524: Is dedicated to the history of the collection. The general director of the museum is Héctor Rivero Borrell. It is located in the Plaza de la Santa Veracruz, next to the Museo Nacional de la Estampa . The building was originally built as a flour mill, then was used as a hospital for about four hundred years. This hospital was founded by Dr. Pedro Lopez in 1582, the first medical doctor to graduate from

2675-624: 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

2782-779: 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

2889-488: 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

2996-447: Is its café located in the main courtyard which has been planted with a garden. The museum hosts frequent temporary exhibits of artwork and other collections. One recent temporary exhibit was a selection of about seventy early 20th century phonographs and other sound reproduction machines restored by engineer Salvador Vélez García. For its 25th anniversary in 2011, the museum inaugurated a temporary exhibit called “Susurros” (Whispers) which

3103-494: Is one of the most varied in Mexico, standing out as one of few collections in the country with significant samples. Much of the current collection consists of recent acquisitions, but it began with Mayer collecting rebozos , then blankets from Saltillo , Flemish tapestries, shawls from Manila , dresses and liturgical garments. Mexican textiles include those from the colonial period made on backstrap as well as European pedal looms. There are also pieces with fine embroidery including

3210-479: 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

3317-403: 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

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3424-409: Is represented by works by Lorenzo Lotto , and Alessandro Allori . Northern European painters include Jacob Grimmer and Bartholomeus Bruyn . Mexican works are mostly from the colonial period and include pieces by Juan Correa , Miguel Cabrera , Juan and Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez and others. Almost of these are religious in nature, with a few portraits from the 18th century. Post colonial works include

3531-502: 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

3638-645: 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

3745-571: 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

3852-552: 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

3959-633: 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

4066-649: 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

4173-656: 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

4280-456: 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

4387-522: The Nazi Anschluss in her native Austria to the years dedicated to the research on Mexico's indigenous populations. Anthropologists Marta Turok and Margarita de Orellana are the co-executors of the collection, which has been shown in several exhibits. In 2016, the Ruth D. Lechuga Center for Popular Art Studies ( Spanish : Centro de Estudios de Arte Popular Ruth D. Lechuga (CEAP-RDL) ) opened in

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4494-815: The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico . The hospital attended people from almost all of New Spain ’s social castes and called the Hospital for the Helpless. The hospital's church was dedicated to the Three Wise Men . The hospital was run by the Lopez family then the Dominicans , than the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God , starting in 1604. The current structure was built over most of

4601-565: 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 the idea that a part of

4708-631: 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

4815-713: The 16th to the 20th centuries. Most are from Mexico's colonial period although there are pieces from Europe and Asia. The silver collection contains just under 1,300 pieces from the 15th to 19th centuries, and is recognized as one of the most important in Mexico. The pieces include repoussé work, chiseling, graffito and filigree , along with pieces set with precious and semi-precious stones and those containing enamels and others with gold. Most are pieces related to Catholic liturgy and include censers , chalices , lamps, candlesticks, ciboriums , crosses and tabernacles , but there are also non-religious pieces such as gold cigarette cases, cutlery, plays and trays. The textile collection

4922-452: The 18th century with multiple adaptations and reconstructions since. In 1620, the complex was rebuilt as a church, hospital and monastery. The church's main altarpiece was inaugurated in 1650 and the infirmaries were completed in 1673. The order continued to run the hospital for the next two hundred years despite a fire in 176 and an earthquake in 1800. The Brothers were forced to abandon the complex after Mexico's Independence in 1821. It became

5029-552: The 1970s but in dilapidated condition. In the 1980s, the idea surged to make it into a museum. The Human Settlements and Public Works Ministry granted occupation of the building to the Franz Mayer Cultural Trusteeship, managed by the Bank of Mexico with the purpose of founding a museum. The current restoration dates from this time. The Franz Mayer Museum was opened to the public in 1986. The museum occupies

5136-494: 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

5243-721: 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 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

5350-523: 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

5457-656: 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

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5564-466: 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

5671-407: 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

5778-409: 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

5885-422: 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

5992-402: 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

6099-472: 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]

6206-495: 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

6313-485: 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

6420-436: 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

6527-442: 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

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6634-495: 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

6741-466: 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

6848-558: 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

6955-523: The basement of the museum. Franz Mayer-Traumann Altschu was born in 1882 in Mannheim Germany. He arrived to Mexico in 1905. He left the country for a time during the Mexican Revolution but returned permanently in 1913. In that year he married María Antonieta de la Macorra but she died shortly after. Mayer would never remarry and would not have any children. Mayer became an extremely successful businessman, mostly working in stocks and other financial services, gaining his Mexican citizenship in 1933. Mayer had

7062-744: 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

7169-641: 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

7276-417: The collecting of Talavera ceramics and tile began in 1943. Mayer also had a collection of orchids , cactus and azaleas , cared for by a gardener named Felipe Juárez. In 1963, Mayer decided to set up a trust fund for the purpose of donating his collection to a museum dedicated to it. The Bank of Mexico was chosen as the trustee. The donation was finalized on Mayer's death in 1975 and the museum to house it

7383-482: 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

7490-406: The contract established that the trusteeship would create a library, organize exhibitions, competitions and conferences. Mayer died in 1975 and donated his collection to the state and people of Mexico. The museum carrying his name was opened in 1986 in the former flour-weighing building and hospital, specially renovated in order to house this collection. This Mexican business biographical article

7597-457: 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

7704-410: 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

7811-537: 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

7918-510: 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

8025-433: The financial world at the age of 23 and by around 1908 he had already enrolled as an agent of an independent stock exchange , thus beginning a promising career. During the Mexican Revolution , he left the country and went to the United States , where he lived for two years, returning to Mexico in 1913. In 1920, he married Maria Antonieta de la Macorra but became a widower a few years later, having had no children. He became

8132-472: 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

8239-510: The former hospital with three of the original rooms of the cloister: a dining hall, a storage room and a chapel restored to its colonial look. The collection of the museum is mostly that of Franz Mayer himself, collected over the course of fifty years and is the largest collection of decorative arts in Latin America . The museum has 9,500 pieces of art, 1,400 pieces of ceramics and 10,000 books, with only 28% able to be shown at any time in

8346-409: 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

8453-1070: 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

8560-535: 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

8667-536: The library is a Classical design with shelving made of cedar to protect the books. The wood floor of the library was that of the Mayer's original house as well as the terrarium and the candelabra . In 2004, anthropologist Ruth D. Lechuga donated her private collection of artifacts and personal items to the museum. The collection contained over 14,000 artifacts, 5,000 books and magazines and 1,000 personal effects documenting Lechuga's life from her family's flight from

8774-399: 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

8881-528: 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

8988-427: 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

9095-579: 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,

9202-556: The museum complex is the Rogerio Casas-Alatriste H. Library, named after the first director. It is dedicated to Mayer's book collection most of which were bought to research pieces which Mayer had bought or was interested in. The library is in the cloister area, containing with over 14,000 volumes, which includes 800 different editions of Don Quixote and the Chronicles of Nuremberg, edited in 1493. The interior of

9309-445: The museum proper. The collection includes silverwork, ceramics, furniture, textiles, fine arts and decorations made of pre Hispanic style feather work, lacquer, ivory, shell, glass and enamel, mostly of pieces from the 16th to the 19th centuries with a variety of places of origin, materials and styles. Most of the pieces are those used in everyday life, but finely handcrafted. A number of pieces come from Europe and Asia, but Mayer acquired

9416-404: 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

9523-644: 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

9630-512: 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

9737-657: 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

9844-485: 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

9951-466: 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

10058-456: 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

10165-415: 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

10272-734: 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

10379-828: 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

10486-536: 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

10593-638: 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,

10700-451: 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 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

10807-436: The use of gold and silver thread. Many of the rugs are from Europe and Spain but with Oriental motifs. The museum is one of the few places where European and Mexican painting is displayed together. European works date back as far as the 14th century, with those from Spain dating from the 14th to the 20th centuries. These include works by José de Ribera “El Españoleto”, Francisco de Zurbarán , and Ignacio Zuloaga . Italian art

10914-415: 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 "

11021-488: 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

11128-442: Was donated to the museum foundation. The permanent exhibitions are still based on Mayer's acquisition although researchers of the institution still look for new acquisitions. One of the latest pieces acquired by the museum is a silver skull from Guatemala . At any time, only just over a quarter of the total collection is on display at the museum, with the rest often sent out on loan to other museums. The museum has plans to expand to

11235-541: 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 the 1860s as Latin America to justify France's military involvement in

11342-434: Was founded and continues to operate as a place to house the extensive collection of art and other objects collected by Franz Mayer over fifty years of his life. Before his death in 1975, Franz Mayer set up a trust fund with the Bank of Mexico called the Franz Mayer Cultural Trusteeship. However, the museum was not opened until 1986, eleven years after his demise. It was opened in a former monastery and hospital building which

11449-516: Was opened in 1986. 19°26′13.61″N 99°8′35.52″W  /  19.4371139°N 99.1432000°W  / 19.4371139; -99.1432000 Franz Mayer Franz Mayer Traumann , better known as Franz Mayer (1882, Mannheim , Germany – 1975, Mexico ) was a German-Mexican financier, photographer and collector, and the founder of the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City . Franz Mayer arrived in Mexico in 1905. He moved into

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