ABSTRACT
O Ften, A Venezuelan Will Meet An American While visiting the United States and find that the first question asked of him will be: “And what language do they speak down there?” Most Americans are surprised to learn that Venezuela is so close to their country, perhaps because it sounds exotic, or perhaps because they confuse it with faraway places like Argentina or Chile. They might remember that Venezuela has oil but know nothing of its delicious coffee and world-class cacao. Of course, Americans are not more ignorant of the outside world than are Venezuelans—neither would probably get very far if they had to converse together about Paraguay or Bolivia, not to speak of Slovakia or the Sudan. It is just that the United States is relatively well known by its neighbors in Latin America because of the large role it plays in their lives and in the destinies of their countries. Yet even among Latin American countries, Venezuela ranks behind Brazil or Mexico or even Argentina and Chile in the American imagination, despite the fact that its oil might seem to put it second only to Mexico in terms of its strategic importance to the United States. Why the low level of interest and knowledge?
