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The secret to happiness in Latin America. And the false positives in Donald Trump’s gang deportations to El Salvador

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Lucas Berti & Ignacio Portes
March 28, 2025 • Reading Time: 2 minutes

Hello, and welcome to the LatAm Report, your pulse on Latin America’s power plays and economics. If you have any questions about this newsletter, or topics you’d like to see covered in future issues, you can reach us at [email protected] 

Latin Americans are happier than their pockets are full

Latin American countries are, on the whole, happier than their per capita GDP would suggest. Photo: Arturo Verea/Shutterstock

Latin American countries are, on the whole, happier than their per capita GDP would suggest. Photo: Arturo Verea/Shutterstock

Happiness is an invariably subjective state of mind, and quantifying something so personal is even harder, but modern social scientists have tried to do so in an attempt to escape purely economic-based welfare measurements. The World Happiness Report, a yearly publication by the UN, is one of these attempts, surveying people’s emotions and investigating its correlation with more classic socioeconomic parameters. 

Bad headlines. Followers of Latin American news know that the region’s headlines do not scream “happiness” to readers, from its history of colonization to a present full of political conflict and economic crisis.

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