Identities in conflict? Latin (African) American

Cultural identities were defined not long ago in terms of encompassing general categories based on differences and related mostly to continental markers or to the political delimitation of a given nation state. Today, however, we are more sensitive to culture, gender, beliefs, and general capabilities, and this has made a difference in our understanding of identities. In the case of culture— understood broadly—"American,” a term that refers to a continent and to a nation, was one of those encompassing categories, which became synonymous with a “melting pot.” Today, it seems that this type of qualification has become obsolete, for we always want to know more particularly what kind of American we are referring to. For example, we now use the term “Latin American” to indicate those populations to the south of the United States who were colonized by the Spanish and Portuguese, with some crossing the border toward the north. We have also made room for categories such as “Native American,” which indicate those whose forerunners belonged originally to different parts of the American continent and who have been displaced from their territories. We have also come to the conclusion that it would be more polite to use the expression “African American” to denote those who came as slaves in a diasporic process and were earlier called “niggers” or “Negroes.” In short, we have become more sensitive to cultural particularities within and beyond the traditional marker of the nation state. But one may ask: is this “cultural fine tuning” to differences enough to deal with conflicts involving cultural differences

Aesthetics · Genealogy · Identity (music · Immigration · Latin Americans · Linguistics · Melting pot · Politeness · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Sociology · State (computer science · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law

• Syncretism as a Form of Multicultural Politics

  Amos Nascimento•Latin American and Caribbean…•2012

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