Latin American Community: A Very Latino London
Image Courtesy of Migreat Blog
By Maximilian Frederik van Oordt
On the doorstep of a second lockdown in the Great British capital, now is a brilliant opportunity to glance at this city with a microscope and notice just how Latin Americans have influenced the city’s culture and gastronomy; with its effects on display now more than ever before.
Even before the flags of the newly independent republics could be unfurled outside our embassies in London, the British metropolis had already hosted several leading independence figures including Simon Bolivar (1810), Bernardo O’Higgins (1795), Jose de San Martin (1824), and Francisco de Miranda (1802). They would lead a long line of Latin Americans choosing to visit London and, oftentimes, to make it their home.
Nowadays, Latinx culture flows throughout the city, manifesting itself in what we hear, taste, and smell. No London nightclub is complete without a nod to Reggaeton at some point in the night. Some even dedicate themselves exclusively to the genre, with Time Out publishing a list of its favourite London Reggaeton discotheques in 2019 to reflect a soaring demand for the tunes. Match these musical exports to the wide array of salsa, bachata, and tango clubs all around the city and its safe to say our culture has been welcomed with open arms.
Once the music is over and the dancing has stopped, a mealtime trip to the high street will inevitably greet you with Argentine and Uruguayan steakhouses, Mexican eateries, Chilean and Peruvian Pisco bars, and marketplaces dotted with Venezuelan arepa stalls. Despite each of these cuisines being so remarkably different from the other, every one of them has met with a delighted (and satisfied) audience.
These are displays of our region’s phenomenal cultural and gastronomical assets, presented in all their glory by those Latinos who have chosen to bring a taste of home to the English capital. Had Bolívar and San Martin visited today, I am sure they would have felt right at home.
Maximilian Frederik van Oordt is a second-year International Relations student at King’s College London. interested in politics, history and law, he enjoys focusing on Latin American affairs, with a particular emphasis on these three areas.