Short answers, pulled from the story.
Latin America includes 21 countries or territories across North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean. Mexico sits in North America while Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama occupy Central America. Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay fill out South America.
Mestizos make up the majority population in half of all Latin American countries. They result from intermixing between Europeans and Amerindians during the early colonial period. White Latin Americans form the largest single group accounting for more than one-third of the total population.
Portuguese stands alone as the sole language of Brazil which remains the biggest and most populous nation in the region. Spanish serves as the official language for most mainland countries plus Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. French appears in Haiti along with French overseas departments like Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Christianity dominates the spiritual landscape covering 90% of the Latin American population. Roman Catholicism claims about 71% of all residents according to polls conducted around 2005. Latin America holds the world's second-largest Christian population after Europe.
About 3.3 million Colombians live abroad according to 2005 census data. Major destinations include the United States, Spain, France, Canada, Italy, and Japan. Salvadorans number between 1.5 and two million primarily within the United States.