Latinoamrica, by Calle 13

5/25/12

Clearly, this song is important because of the many economic, social and political themes it deals with. We can say that the main message and the main objective is to make LatinAmerican cultural identity stronger, and to expell economic and political forces from our lands.

5/25/12

 When we mention economic and political forces, we are referring

to imperialism, constituted by the richest countries of the world and multinational companies that exploit the less powerful nations with the only objective of greater self-development and growth. They take our natural resources and they use us as their consume force and as their workers. For this last reason, we can call this relationship neocolonialism: strong and influential nations behave likecolonialpowers of imperialism but in a post- colonial world.

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That is why we are not actually living in freedom; this is why the song shouts at the foreign powers, particularly the economic ones, that they cannot buy several aspects of Latin America such as the wind, the sun, the rain, the happiness, etc .These characteristics are clearly showed in the chorus of the song:

T no puedes comprar al viento, T no puedes comprar al sol T no puedes comprar la lluvia, T no puedes comprar al calor. T no puedes comprar las nubes, T no puedes comprar mi alegra, T no puedes comprar mis dolores.
The tu refers to those economic foreign forces we have already mentioned,

and we can see how Calle 13 denies them the right to buy Latin Americans lands and its peoples lives.

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 What is more, the song uses phrases to refer to the army,

the governments and their policies of repression which took several lives and made many people disappear. Why? Generally speaking, because the army was supported by the nations and the economic organisms we have mentioned, like the United States of America, England, IMF, and a lot of multinational companies, just to increase their winnings and protect imperialism, the most important tool of capitalism to manipulate people. The phrases used in the song to fight these ideas are the following:

Este pueblo no se ahoga con marullos, Y si se derrumba yo lo reconstruyo, Tampoco pestaeo cuando te miro, Para que te recuerdes de mi apellido, La operacin cndor invadiendo mi nido, Perdono pero nunca olvido, oye!

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Even though the people of Latin America appear as the victims of this oppression, the song asserts that freedom, cultural identity and autonomy over such manipulation is possible.

5/25/12