New Colonialism

In the physical sense, colonists of the Americas, of the New World, left their trace. In Canada, there were attempts at integrating polyethnic societies, yet genocide, racism, and the such still existed. U.S. colonists often took a different route - either complete genocide, reservationism, or other related policies. In South America, the colonists mixed more often that their counterparts to the north. 

Today, the majority of the countries are sovereign nations, and yet, in many ways - they are still being colonized to an extent. After using dictators - like Batista in Cuba and Somoza in Nicaragua - and supplating U.S. friendly governments in countries, the U.S. came up with a new and less obvious stragety - soft power economic colonialism. Although the military is still directly used in many areas, most U.S. power is exercised through international institutions and unequal trade agreements. Panama was once a favored colony, and now we have our sight on Colombia and other countries. 

The point is - things have not really become different - colonialism is still colonialism, though in a different and more subtle form.