Although Guevara begins by thinking of his home country, Argentina, as very different from its neighbor, Chile, by the end of The Motorcycle Diaries he has come to hold the quite different view that all the countries in Latin America share a common history and culture, and that any division of them into distinct nation-states is artificial. He appears to have been influenced by the remarks of Dr. Valenza, who sees all the nations of the Americas as being in their infancy; one may also speculate that the similarities he observes among the exploitation of workers, degradation of Indigenous peoples, and treatment of the sick in different countries also influenced this view. In any case, Guevara mentions Pan-Americanism three times: once when recounting Dr. Valenza's statement, once when recalling his own toast in his diary, and once when reporting that same toast in a letter to his mother.

Guevara's most striking statements about the working classes occur during his visit to the mines in Chuquicamata, where he enquires about the number of people who have died in the mines and the nature of the settlements their families received and gets no answer. He clearly finds the working conditions in the mines appalling.