Mestizaje: "I understand the reality, I just do not like the word:" Perspectives on an Option Catherine Poupeney-Hart To assert peopleare mëtissé, that nÉti-rsage has I,alue , is to deconstruct in thisway thecategory of ,rlri.ç that rsconsidcred ashallway betwecn two "pure" cxtremes. It is only in thosc countries whose exnloitation is barbaric (south A|rica,lbr instance) thatthisrnrermctriarv catcsorv hasbeenoflicially rec.gnizeci. This is perhaps what was i"lt t,y tfr. Caribbean poet who, in rcsponse to my thoughts on our métissé Caribbean cultures, saidto me: ,,1 understancl thc reality, I just clo not fike the word." (Edouard (llissant, Le tli.tcours antillai"-)l The heterogeneous and conflicti'e nature of socialcomponents and cultural practices is by no means exclusive to Latin America. Many critics argue, horvever, thatthese traitsmanifest themselves in particularly complex, polyvalent and extreme ways in the subcontinent. suffice it to mention the constant focuses of violence (highly ideologized or not),the juxtaposition of ostentatious wealth and extreme poverty in urban settrngs, theco-presence ofradicallydifferent languages, ethnic groups, historical temporalities, forms of spirituality or world vjewsthat may be found in the same national territory, in the same region, or evenin the same text (asin José MarfaArguedas's ELzorro de arribay al z.orro cte abajo). Inevitably, theextent of this heterogeneity and"conflictivity" has been attributed first to the circumstances of colonization, that is to say, to a contact among diverse populations thatreached dimensions unheard of in the history of mankind; to the particularly unprecedented violence resultingfrom that contact,2 and the diversity of the sectors affected. violence was exerted in physicalas well as intellectual or spiritual relations, in such a way thatthe "contact" appeared moreakin to extorsion, I We found it necessary to moclily Dash's translation. 2 Heightened by the initial demographic catastrophe thatresulted from the microbial impact.