In these two chapters of text from the book ¿Existe América Latina?, Luis Alberto Sánchez discusses the idea of “Latin America” as both a political bloc and a cultural value, ultimately arguing for a dynamic concept of Latin America that is oriented more toward a visionary future than a historical or cultural past. In chapter one, “El Problema de la Fisonomía,” he considers Latin America as an entity that has always felt the conflicting pressures of its need to aggressively assert its unity and of the reality of its heterogeneity. He examines these pressures from a number of vantage points, showing how Latin America has been a concept foreign powers have used to control the region, on the one hand, and how it has been an idea that has allowed the region to feel and act with great political unity in the face of imperialism (which was what occurred between 1926 and 1934 when all of Latin America rallied for the guerilla resistance in Nicaragua). Throughout his analysis Sánchez compares the heterogeneity of Latin America with that of the United States and Europe, emphasizing how all regions are comprised of a far more heterogeneous population than nationalist discourses acknowledge. He argues that, culturally, Latin America’s sensibility can be located in the street, in a culture of gallantry and “piropos” [flirtatious compliments;] and reviews a number of arguments (European and American) that Latin America’s culture’s defining characteristic is that of being “eminently aesthetic.” Parsing European concepts of Latin American culture by Germanic and Latin (French) cultures, he returns (as he does throughout this chapter) to the subject of Europe and Latin America’s extremely religious and racial heterogeneity. In chapter twelve, “Conclusión para empezar de nuevo” [“An end to start again,”] Sánchez finishes his book by arguing that a dynamic Latin American culture is biologically moving closer to the Native one, while intellectually becoming more European. This assessment does not discount, he emphasizes, the value of extreme diversity of Latin American cities. Warning against concepts that seek to locate Latin American culture in the static, indigenous past, he locates a redemptive culture for a world in crisis in Latin America, and charges his readers with realizing this potential.
