I am doing a project in spanish class, and I need to interview 3 people: one from Mexico, one from Spain, and another from either Argentina or Chile. this won't take long at all and the biggest question I have is what type of influence the United States has in the country. thanks!
-casey :pinkdaisies:

The first influence is related to economic and military weight of the United States and leads to the idea that anything that harms their interests will be carried out by any NATO or European country.
The second is cultural, both American movies and their television series, are the most viewed. Thus, we receive and assimilate easily the way the Americans think, as we identify with your movies characters we identify with the American people too.
However, we can not avoid a sense of rejection, also derived from this type of entertainment. The fact is that we are aware that the idea that each country has the rest of the world comes from the descriptions that of it can make the American productions. In the case of Spain, we are always the losers, the picture we get of ourselves through the American television series and movies is very close to that of the "Black Legend" and it is full of racist stereotypes, like the fact that all the Spanish characters have to be darksinned and darkhaired persons, engaged in drug dealing or being an unhearted conquerors without no mercy at all. Honestly, although this is my personal oppinion, I think most part of Spanish people is upset wiht the Unites States because of this.

As I'm not sure if my message answered your question, I'd like to tell you some exemples that probably will be more usefull to you. You may think it is a contradiction, but most of Spanish people love the Apple gadgets, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Burger King, McDonnad's, Levi's, Nike... We prefer to watch the NBA to our own ACB Basketball league. Our teenagers watch the MTV, and the Spanish journalists frequently quote the CNN, to credit the news from foreign countries. We watch NCIS, CSI, House, Grace's Anatomy, The Good Wife, ... Though in my oppinion Ford and Chrisler have lost some part of our cars market, they are still important brands in Spain. We read Edgar Allan Poe, Heminway, Marc Twain, John Setimbec, Truman Capote... We admire the sense of humour of the Marx brothers, and Woody Allen, and as I said before, most of us consider that there is not cinema like American cinema. In spite of all we don't trust in the Americans as a group or as a nation, many of us we are suspicious of the Americans intentions. During the eighties and nineties some American companies wanting to settle down in Spain were so aware of this that they did it under the name of firms from the Netherlands or other countries.