Mestizaje

The concept of mestizaje expresses the tensions, contradictions, and ambiguities of its birth in the New World. More important, it is a concept that continues to have spiritual and aesthetic dimensions. Mestizaje refers to racial and/or cultural mixing of Amerindians with Europeans, but the literal connotation of the word does not illuminate its theoretical applications and its more recent transformations. Since its inception in the New World and during those moments when race was a significant factor in social standing, mestizaje has been invoked to remedy social inequality and the misfiring of democracy.