In 2004, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva published an article in which he argued that the US system of race is beginning to resemble that of Latin America. This article is a critical reply to Bonilla-Silva’s Latin Americanization thesis. The author introduces a Latin American perspective.
Christina A. Sue commented on my 2004 article in Ethnic and Racial Studies on the Latin Americanization of racial stratification in the USA. Almost all her observations hinge on the assumption that racial stratification in Latin American countries is fundamentally structured around ‘two racial poles’. I disagree with her and in my reply do three things. First, I address three major claims or issues in her comment. Second, I point out some methodological limitations of American-centered race analysis in Latin America. Third, I conclude by discussing briefly the Obama phenomenon and suggest this event fits in many ways my Latin Americanization thesis.
Deals with two interrelated topics. The first one is the extent to which the rejection of racism has led to a rejection of racial self-identification, and its group-differentiated dimension: for indigenous people in the countries under study, the rejection of racism did lead to a rejection of racial self-identification; for people of African descent, by and large, it did not. The second topic is the extent to which collective action and the political claims voiced by minority groups rely on cultural distinctiveness and, again, its group-differentiated dimension: the paper suggests that for indigenous people, the politicization of culture has been both more extensive and more successful than for people of African descent.
