I was rather startled when I saw the first e-mail from a new colleague, when either our e-mail system thought ASCII was good enough for everyone or, (more likely in this case) the accent got lost earlier due to migration and someone's indifference to ancestral heritage.
I would be intrigued to learn the actual story, but it's not the kind of question to ask casually of slight acquaintances, I think.
Latin America refers to the countries in Central and and South American that were colonized by Spain and Portugal. It has nothing to do with the Latin language.