Preventing Latin American countries from forming alliances with the USSR does not constitute turning Latin American into imperial possessions: they are different levels of influence or control.
American imperialism moved past that. Our tools are economics and banking. Places like Central America and Indonesia were all about economics. Guatemala has historically been dominated by fruit companies.
Sometimes it spills over. The domination of Chile transitioned from pulling the levers of banking and capital access to a full on CIA sponsored coup, followed by the Pinochet experience. NAFTA was great for the top-line numbers for the US and Canada, but nuked the Mexican agricultural economy. (Repeating what we did within the US)
Critical thinking is a good thing. When you read about people packing up their family and meager belongings to walk through hostile Mexico, to then pay a gangster to smuggle you across the Sonora, so you can work some menial labor job in the US… the question “why?” should come to mind.
Let's not argue semantics here: The fact that latin american countries did not turn into Puerto Rico does not mean the imperialist action was not executed.
I think you might be missing a lot of history about US intervention in Latin America. A good place to start might be with the history of the United Fruit Company, particularly in Guatemala.
