Brazilian literary critic and essayist Afrânio Coutinho (1911–2000) was influential in introducing the New Criticism to Brazil in the 1950s. He wrote this article in Spanish in 1969 for the Parisian-based journal Mundo Nuevo created by the Uruguayan literary critic Emir Rodríguez Monegal. Staunchly defending Brazil’s cultural autonomy, Coutinho echoes Eduardo Prado’s denunciation of the Eurocentric use of the term “Latin” to homogenize the autonomous character found in each of the republics in the continent [SEE DOCUMENT III.1.2]. At the time that he wrote “¿Qué es América Latina?” Coutinho served as editor of the literary journal Cadernos brasileiros [(Rio de Janeiro: Editora Vida Doméstica)] and was also the author of influential critical books such as A filosofia de Machado de Assis (1940), Por uma crítica estética (1953), and Da crítica e da nova crítica (1957). This translation is based on the original Spanish-language text [Mundo Nuevo (Paris), no. 36 (June, 1969), 19–20].
THIS IS THE QUESTION that always strikes any sensible member of a Latin American community whenever [“Latin America”] is used by a European or a North American. Does Latin America exist? Do its countries constitute a uniform bloc of customs, thoughts, feelings, and aspirations? Do an Ecuadorian, Argentinean, and Brazilian have something in common that allows them to understand each other and to sense each other’s problems while keeping harmonious solutions in mind?
The term “Latin American” always seemed absurd to me. I never felt there was any validity in the generic designation of Latin America. I do not consider it appropriate as it refers to a homogeneous bloc. We are not truly “Latin” in a strict sense. To apply that term to the inhabitants of this part of the globe is to misuse an expression that is completely at odds with the historical, social, cultural, literary, and artistic facts.
In Brazil, every day we feel less and less Latin. The great Brazilian intellectual Silvio Romero once stated that we Brazilians are Mestiço [racially mixed], if not by blood, then by culture. Our civilization is mestiça, and we have been proud of that for some time. Until the beginning of the century, a Eurocentric attitude prevailed in Brazil, which led us to conceal our mixed heritage. After the Modernist movement erupted in 1922, we began to acknowledge and proudly proclaim that our mixed heritage was the great advantage to our culture. So we began to have an intellectual awareness of it: to study it, analyze it, emphasize its components, and value its contributions.
Instead of approaching our civilization as the mere result of a Portuguese endeavor, we affirm that Brazilian evolution was the work of Brazilians—and by “Brazilian” I mean every one of the individuals who came here. [Spanish philosopher José] Ortega y Gasset declared that Europeans became Americans from the first moment they set foot on the new continent. Thus Brazilians, Argentineans, Peruvians, Chileans, and Mexicans arose immediately from the confluence of culture and interracial mixture. Cultures and bloodlines came together, giving birth to something new, something that Europe could not claim as its own.
The Brazilian critic [Tristão de Alencar] Arape Júnior devised a theory he named obnubilação brasílica [Brazil-born bewilderment] in order to explain the phenomenon of the “oblivion” that takes hold in the mind and mores of Europeans who come here. In this way they brought themselves into contact with the new land, new animals, new fruits; they had to overcome enormous difficulties with native inhabitants and fauna, while also trying to develop innovative methods of coexistence and adaptation. They then created a new psychology, a new type of behavior and mental attitude, feelings, ideals, and a certain musicality. They adapted to the new habitat, from which a new man evolved.
Two camps in Brazil, the Westernists and the Brazilianists, were always in opposition regarding the interpretation of Brazilian civilization. The former considered Brazil a mere extension of white, European civilization, and advocated subordination to Western culture by means of its Portuguese heritage and the Catholic Church. These were the society’s aristocrats, who prevailed until this century.
The others, the Brazilianists, considered Brazilian society a native product and therefore natural, made up of both European and local elements. It was not European, Portuguese, Negro, or Native, but rather a product of this melting pot, something new, original and distinct: Brazilian civilization. Europeans can see that what we have is our own, and this offends them. Our music, our folklore, our architecture, the sculpture of [Brazil-born colonial artist] Aleijadinho, our literature—all these are elements of a different civilization, precisely because it is the result of mestiçagem, the mixture of various cultures and ways of life.
How can we call this “Latin,” except by forcing an expression that in the end must have no meaning? Catholicism itself was profoundly altered in its approach to social interaction as a result of syncretism with other religions.
Thus, there is no reason whatsoever to designate the peoples of this continent as “Latin”—not Latin, or Hispanic, or Iberian. Latin America is a historical absurdity that stems from a colonialist bias whose sense of superiority in the face of a multitude of peoples forces them to pose as Latins, or heirs to the “superior” civilization of Europe. We are not Latin; we are Argentinean, Ecuadorian, Chilean, Paraguayan, Bolivian, Uruguayan, Colombian, Venezuelan, Brazilian, and so on.
Each one of our nations has its own unmistakable individuality; Argentineans and Colombians are not mistaken for each other or for anyone else. We are all different in accordance with our country’s historical evolution, through which we developed our own social and cultural typology. While the colonizers were consolidating their position and operating on the surface of our societal strata, the anonymous peoples in the cities and in the fields built new societies without even lifting their gaze. And they built them naturally, automatically, with no shortcuts or commotion—societies new in body and soul that would one day be seen as the true civilization of all the peoples of our continent.
Today, current generations in Brazil tend to value this aspect of our civilization. The mestiço civilization: this is the authentic Brazilian civilization. It is not Portuguese, or Negro, or Indian, or European, or Western; it is Brazilian, period. Therefore I cannot accept this “Latin American” designation. It is absurd and incompatible with historical, social, cultural, and artistic reality.
We, the Brazilian people, are not Latin, nor do we feel that we are Latin; we are Brazilians. And I assure you that the same is true for the rest of the so-called Latin American nations. As such I leave the matter here settled.