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[[caption-width-right:350:[-''Panama Canal Zone and Porto Rico'' (crop), Ruth Taylor-]]]
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South of SouthOfTheBorder (because Mexico is the only Latin American country in many North Americans' minds), this is the version of the rest of Spanish, Portuguese and very rarely French speaking countries of America in fiction. That's in case there is even a non-Spanish speaking one, because everybody knows that TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires, right?

[[CulturalBlending One big country]] with different names at best, where temperature is warm all year round, [[WarmPlaceWarmLighting air has a yellow tinge]], buildings are old and rustic, [[ChristianityIsCatholic Christianity really is Catholic]], and everyone is dirt poor outside of TheCartel and the [[TheNapoleon petty]] [[TheGeneralissimo military dictator]] whose megalomania is [[SmallNameBigEgo inversely proportional]] to the actual power of his armies ([[DamnedByFaintPraise still beats]] [[DarkestAfrica life in]] [[{{Bulungi}} Africa]], though). Where the [[LatinoIsBrown universally brown]] population is made of TallDarkAndHandsome [[LatinLover Latin Lovers]], [[SpicyLatina feisty well-figured women]], simple but [[MagnificentMoustachesOfMexico magnificently moustached men]], [[StreetUrchin Street Urchins]], and more [[ForeignCorrespondent American]] missionaries, doctors, scientists and naive tourists than you can shake an M16 at. Also a good place to find great big wildlife, be it of Earth origin ([[MisplacedWildlife American or not]]) or extra-terrestrial.

The BananaRepublic part is now fairly inaccurate in RealLife. It's rather [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dictatorship#In_the_Americas a historic penchant for getting in this kind of situation]] that created the trope. Nothing to do with AncientRome.

If you mix this trope with a shot of TropicalIslandAdventure, you get UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}}, the UsefulNotes/DominicanRepublic and UsefulNotes/PuertoRico, and UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}}. If you mix it with a shot of HolidayInCambodia, and substitute basketball for UsefulNotes/TheBeautifulGame, you'll get something like the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, though for what it's worth, that country is mixed with ''so many and so disparate cultural influences''—owing to nearly 500 years of Western colonialism more pervasive than almost any other country in its region—that it's a challenge to even represent ''at all'', let alone accurately, in most media; for one, almost all its ancient structures are [[ChristianityIsCatholic Catholic churches]]. Because of this, among other reasons, the country comes off as looking like Asia's own special piece of Latin Land.

See also: [[UsefulNotes/LatinAmerica Useful Notes On Latin America]]. Compare {{Spexico}}. Often linked to DevelopingNationsLackCities.

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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The Marvel ''[[ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel G.I. Joe]]'' comics featured the fictional BananaRepublic of Sierra Gordo.
** The main Marvel universe has Santo Rica, the republic with a Spanish grammatically incorrect name.
* Wally Wood's ''[[ComicStrip/SallyForthWood Sally Forth]]'' regularly had adventures in fictional Latin American countries, such as Rio de Gringo and the Republic of San Forizo.
* The real Philippines as depicted in ''ComicBook/AngBarbaro'', which is set in the late Spanish-colonial regime (with its Catholic churches and clergy and its effectively dictatorial governor-general), so a JustifiedTrope here.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* The state of Paraquat, in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal. Described as having jungle at one end where it borders [[UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}} Tezuma]], then mountains, then wide rolling ''pampas'' plains which run on into land variously described as [[UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} the Steppes]] or [[{{Eagleland}} the Prairies]] depending on whose atlas you are looking at, and formetly a colonial outpost of [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Toleda]]. This is an all-inclusive Latin Land. It is of course benevolently ruled by TheGeneralissimo, currently Augusto Richochet.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
%%* ''Moon Over Parador''
%%* ''Salvador''
* ''Film/{{Predator}}'' is set in the jungles of fictional Val Verde. [[ShoutOut The same]] BananaRepublic of Val Verde appears in ''Film/{{Commando}}'' and ''Film/DieHard2''.
* Bogota got this treatment in ''Film/MrAndMrsSmith2005''. The locals were not very pleased.
* San José, Costa Rica in ''Film/JurassicPark''. Because certainly a small modern city in the middle of a valley surrounded by mountains looks like a Hawaiian beach resort.
** On the other hand, the [[Literature/JurassicPark book]] does take care in portraying Costa Rica as a stable nation and leading economy in the region with notable achievements in nature conservation and health care. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Costa_Rica And, well, an Airforce, too]].
%%* ''The Dancer Upstairs'' (John Malkovich's directorial debut).
* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'':
** In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'', Indy claims he learned Quechua... while [[Series/TheYoungIndianaJonesChronicles fighting]] in Pancho Villa's army. He also finds a {{Mayincatec}} temple deep in the Brazilian Amazon, built by the "[[{{Prehistoria}} Ugha]]" people after AncientAstronauts taught then complicate matters they were apparently [[UnfortunateImplications too stupid to discover on their own]], like farming.
** People who got offended by the representation of Peru in ''Crystal Skull'' are not advised to read Creator/FrankDarabont's earlier draft ''Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods'', where the portrayal is so over the top that people accused Darabont of being racist. For comparison, in ''Crystal Skull'' Oxley was put in a rural mental hospital run by nuns that looks more like a prison than a hospital. In ''City of the Gods'', we are told that the whole country has no infrastructure to deal with the mentally ill, so he was used as an attraction in a travelling circus.
%%* ''Lima: Breaking the Silence''
%%* Vilena in ''Film/TheExpendables''.
* On the 2007 movie ''Film/TheReaping'', the Chilean city of Concepcion is depicted as a [[ArtisticLicenseGeography tropical]] location inside a BananaRepublic.
* ''Film/RomancingTheStone'' is set in Colombia, but all the Hispanic characters speak with a Mexican accent due to [[CaliforniaDoubling the movie being filmed in Mexico]].
* ''Film/{{Selena}}'': Jennifer Lopez is American, of Puerto Rican ancestry, and not a fluent speaker of Spanish. This caused a small uproar when she portrayed the Mexican-American singer Music/{{Selena}}. Who had also not been a fluent Spanish speaker; her first and fluent language was English. She had only learned Spanish after phonetically singing it, and was never entirely fluent in it.
* The Creator/StevenSeagal direct-to-video vehicle ''Submerged'', allegedly set in Uruguay but filmed [[CaliforniaDoubling in Bulgaria]]. The background jumps from using the Argentinian flag to the Uruguayan and back again as if they were one and the same, and a Mayan temple in a jungle supposedly near Montevideo appears at one point[[note]]For the record, Uruguay doesn't even have jungles, it's mostly plains and it's climate is temperate. Besides, its territory wasn't part of any Amerindian empire[[/note]].
* Invoked by Don Cheadle's character in ''Film/{{Crash}}''. He cuts short a phone call with his mother because he's "having sex with a white woman." He later remarks that she's Mexican. His girlfriend, who is Hispanic but not Mexican, is ''not'' amused. Her father came from El Salvador and her mother from Puerto Rico -- she helpfully points out, "Neither of those is Mexico." His response: "The question we have to ask ourselves is -- who gathered together those remarkably different cultures and taught them all to park their cars on their lawns?" in keeping with its theme of "insult every ethnicity imaginable."
* Similarly in ''Film/{{Clueless}}'', Cher makes her maid Lucy talk to the gardener for her, and tells her it's because Cher doesn't speak "Mexican". This infuriates Lucy, as she is from El Salvador, which Josh explains. Cher doesn't get what the big deal is; Josh points out that Cher gets mad if anyone thinks she lives below Sunset.
* ''Film/{{Amigo}}'', set in the Philippines just after breaking free from Spanish rule, consequently is full of very Catholic Filipinos, mostly with very Hispanic names. There's even a Spanish friar and soldiers!
* ''Film/QuezonsGame'' is set in {{UsefulNotes/Manila}} in the {{UsefulNotes/Philippines}} in the late 1930s just before UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. In this era, though now under American colonial rule proper, Manila (and of course much of the Philippines with it) had been previously under Spanish rule for 300+ years, and so a lot of Hispanic or Latinoesque cultural trappings are evident, like the names, some architectural styles, and cobblestoned streets. [[note]]The production even manages to make period Manila look even more Hispanic than the RealLife Manila was by the late 1930s, since it was mostly shot in a purpose-built living museum town, where old Spanish-era houses were transplanted for restoration and where streets are purposely cobblestoned. In reality Manila at the time already had a lot of more modern, 20th-century buildings and flat paved roads; most of these were since destroyed by wartime shelling, or else demolished by politicians and land developers, or otherwise radically modified or left to decay.[[/note]]
* In the Franchise/JamesBond movie ''Film/LicenceToKill'', most of the action takes place in the fictional nation of Isthmus, which is '''blatantly''' based on UsefulNotes/{{Panama}}, the most famous isthmus in the world. The James Bond movies rarely fictionalize the countries he visits unless the nation gets an extremely unflattering portrayal, and Isthmus being every 80's Latin America stereotype in the book certainly qualifies.
* Part of the joke in ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'', where one of the [[ThrowawayCountry throw away foreign locations]] is the Panama Canal. All the natives are brown skinned, moustached, and dark haired, wearing stereotypical "Hispanic" dresses including a donkey driver in Mexican poncho and sombrero. They speak [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Spanish-sounding gibberish]] with the only intelligible line being ''¡No me gusta!'' ("I don't like it!") said when [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction they die in a flood]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Agualar in the second ''Literature/FinneganZwake'' book is one of these.
* ''Bel Canto'' by Ann Patchett is set in an unspecified small country in South America that is supported--just barely--by exporting narcotics. It was based on the hostage situation in Peru (the TropeNamer for LimaSyndrome).
* ''Literature/OnHeroesAndTombs'': Set in Buenos Aires, but inverted to non-Hispanics in that the descriptions would fit New York very well. "City of the Pessimists"
* In Isabel Allende’s novel ''Literature/TheHouseOfTheSpirits'', the actual name of the country is never said, although it is generally accepted that it is the author’s native Chile. Nevertheless, the description and situations could easily happen in any South American country.
* Santa Barbara, featured in several of Creator/JohnMasefield's adventure novels, including ''Literature/SardHarker'', ''Literature/{{Odtaa}}'', and ''Literature/TheTakingOfTheGry''. Complete with its own megalomaniacal dictator, Don Lopez de Meruel. It also appears in the backstory of ''Literature/TheMidnightFolk''.
* Any depiction of the Philippines during Spanish rule counts as this by default, even if that country ''is'' nominally in Asia:
** ''Literature/{{Ninay}}'' definitely counts, as it was written in the early 1880s and published in 1885, when there was no hint that Spain would very suddenly lose control of its entire Asian colonial footprint only 13 years later.
** "Literature/MayDayEve" features a typical upper-class Filipino household between the specific years of 1847 and 1890, explicitly still under Spanish rule, and featuring a central couple with very Latinesque [[GorgeousPeriodDress dress]], [[MagnificentMoustachesOfMexico grooming]], [[LatinLover personality]] and [[SpicyLatina mannerisms]]. It's even somewhat plausible that the characters might have Spanish blood, though this isn't a ForegoneConclusion in a colony still largely dominated by Asian genes.
* American-era Philippine examples:
** "Literature/DeadStars", if we assume its setting to be contemporary, puts it [[GenteelInterbellumSetting within American colonial rule]], but only a few decades removed from Spanish rule, hence its characters with Hispanic names (e.g. Alfredo Salazar, Esperanza, Julia Salas, etc.) and families with aristocratic bearing, who still use GratuitousSpanish greetings on each other, and still attend very Catholic fiestas (though in fairness, the last is still true today).
** ''Literature/WithoutSeeingTheDawn'', while set in the American Philippines at the start of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in the Pacific, still retains features of this trope, and apart from the Chinese businessmen and signages in American English, it's chock-full of Catholics with (mostly) Hispanic given names and holding (mostly) Catholic rituals, such as weddings and funerals. Not to mention the obvious that said Catholics are mostly working as feudal peons on very Latinesque ''haciendas'' (plantations) controlled by abusive landlords—some of who actually have Spanish blood to boot!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
%%* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'', a number of occasions.
%%* ''Series/{{Airwolf}}''
%%* ''Series/TheSentinel''
* One episode of ''Series/{{JAG}}'' in season 1 takes place in the U.S. Embassy in Peru, and another episode in season 2 takes partially place in the U.S. Embassy in Colombia.
** Harm and Mac go to Panama in "The Colonel's Wife".
** Also multipart adventures in Paraguay in season 8/9
* PlayedForLaughs with Catalina's unnamed native country in ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', which is made of whatever over-the-top stereotypes of Latin America the writers have in mind at the moment. In an example of NegativeContinuity, Catalina angrily told Joy that she was not Mexican when she called her that, yet was deported to Mexico (the SouthOfTheBorder version) when she was found to be an illegal immigrant. A green card marriage later, she appeared on TV where she was said to be from La Paz, Bolivia.
* The new show "Off The Map" begins "Somewhere in South America."
* As does an episode of ''Series/HumanTarget'', even though it is [[CaliforniaDoubling obviously filmed in Canada.]] Guerrero handwaves it by saying that they are near the Andes and it is too cold to run around in a t-shirt.
* In an episode of ''Series/SixFeetUnder'' a Mexican-American family comes to Fisher and Sons to bury their son who was killed in a gang shooting. Nate asks Rico to deal with them, since Rico is Hispanic. Rico takes offense -- because Nate assumes that he knows how to deal with gangs, but also because Rico is ''Puerto Rican,'' not Mexican.
* Oswaldo Witalcoche (aka ''El Machupichu''), the BeleagueredAssistant of racist bartender Mauricio Colmenero in the Spanish sitcom ''Aída'', started as a generic charicature of low-income Latin American immigrants in Spain. Eventually, the writers settled on him being Ecuadorian (the largest Latin American community in Spain), after which his early references to Tenochtitlan or his tendency to insult people by calling them a "son of Pizarro" ceased to make sense.
* An unusual ''African'' example happens in ''Series/WhiteCollar'''s two-parter episode "Wanted"/"Most Wanted", in which Neal hides from the FBI in UsefulNotes/CapeVerde. The episode is filmed entirely in [[CaliforniaDoubling Puerto Rico]] and there is no attempt to hide it. So while Cape Verde is correctly stated to be a former Portuguese colony, everyone speaks Spanish and has Spanish names. And in spite of Cape Verde being off the coast of Africa and a former hub of the Slave Trade, with a 78% Creole and 21% Black population, the only black people seen are the American FBI agents trying to find Neal.
* The Fox News Channel got into some trouble when it aired a report on the Central American refugee crisis in March 2019. The offending graphic mentioned that [[https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-central-america-mistake-chyron-three-mexican-countries-immigration-1381053 "[President] Trump cuts U.S. aid to three Mexican countries."]]
* Parodied in ''Series/{{The Boys|2019}}'' with Homelander acting like Hispanic American Supersonic is Mexican despite him saying he's not, talking to him in Spanish and serving tacos at Supersonic's first meeting. It is not entirely clear if Homelander is ignorant, racist, bullying Supersonic as a proxy for his OldFlame Starlight, or a decent mix of all three.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Swedish singer/poet/whatever Evert Taube had many songs set in LatinLand (especially Argentina)
* Chicago-based alt-rock band The Biochem Wars has two songs ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8dkGEF7-_M See the Red Sun]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CngiBJHIDTY Waves and Rocks, Sea and Fire]]) set in Costa Rica, inspired by a hiking excursion the lead singer took there.
* The setting of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqIIW7nxBgc La Isla Bonita]]" by Music/{{Madonna}}. The lyrics mention the samba, but that's a dance from Brazil—which, of course, ''Portuguese''-speaking, even when the rest of the song explicitly indicates a clearly ''Spanish''-speaking setting. It's in the title!
* Music/CarlosSantana is of Mexican descent, but his musical style embraces cultural strains from throughout Central and South America and even the Caribbean, including places where there is little to no Spanish influence.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The board game "Junta" is set in "La Republique De Los Bannanos" and revolves around various high-level functionaries in the place trying to get as much foreign aid money into their secret Swiss bank accounts as possible.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* While set in the {{UsefulNotes/Philippines}}, ''Theatre/APortraitOfTheArtistAsFilipino'' certainly counts, as it plays up as much as possible the Hispanic cultural legacy in Spain's sole Asian colony. It revolves around the wealthy elite families who lived in the CitadelCity of Intramuros, {{UsefulNotes/Manila}}, prior to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and it stands to reason that—even as an ''American'' colony by the setting of the play—the elites of the time retained the most of Spanish high culture left after the Spaniards were defeated and retreated in 1898.
* ''Theatre/{{Florodora}}'' presents an even more stereotypically-Latin Philippine setting[[note]]with the titular island having a lush, tropical, flowery, almost ''Theatre/SouthPacific''-esque character[[/note]], with many of the local girls, including Dolores, the lead, having typically Hispanic names and explicitly described as "Spanish Girls" in the script, even if there's an even chance they could have native Filipino blood.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Che Taraval from ''Wheelman'' is Dominican, but he speaks Argentinian Spanish. When coupled with his name and the fact that [[https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/square_small/17/171291/2484276-wheelman+2013-05-18+14-02-19-82.png he looks like this]], he becomes [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/argentina-is-white unintentionally hilarious.]]
* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'' takes place in one of these, a fictional MicroMonarchy called Arulco whose exact location in Central or South America is somewhat vague. It used to be a poor but stable constitutional monarchy until the heir to the throne's new bride turned out to be an unusually literal GoldDigger, deposing her husband and turning the country into a brutal dictatorship in order to profit from the gold and silver deposits that had recently been discovered in most of the country. The player's job is to lead a team of mercenaries hired by the rightful king to serve her with divorce papers etched onto a bullet.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Invoked and subverted in [[https://notalwaysright.com/puerto-rico-and-mexico-are-different-places/218188/ this]] story on ''Website/NotAlwaysLearning'', where a Latina Spanish teacher (who is a Mexican Catholic), expects the one Latina student in her class (a Puerto Rican Protestant) to know about and celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. Of course, she doesn’t, as the Day of the Dead is a uniquely Mexican holiday tied to the Catholic All Saint’s Day.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado'' is particularly egregious. The actual legend of El Dorado took place in Colombia, not in Central America as it is depicted in the film, and it was [[AnachronismStew posterior]] to Cortés' (and Pizarro's) conquests.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'': In "The Ape Army of the Amazon", the mayor of a Brazilian river village appears to be a Mexican peon.
* ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'' features an episode in Ecuador, including a trip to the mountaintop capital of Quito. Later seasons also take Carmen and her gang to various other Latin American countries, including possible candidates for her parentage in Argentina and Mexico, as well as to Brazil for the Rio Carnaval, and the show takes great pains to demonstrate the cultural differences between all these.
[[/folder]]
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