“What is there in the (USA) that is so celebrated?  A social finesse, stemming from education and experience, thanks to which men despite detesting each other (always) respect one another”, stated Felix Varela y Morales, a Jesuit priest and publisher of “El Habanero”, the first Spanish-language newspaper in Philadelphia in 1824.

Such an American “habit” made it possible for men who abhorred each other manage not to disrupt social harmony, and if it indeed happened, “general prudence” dictated that according to Cuban Varela, the one offended without hesitation be granted restitution.

America manages indeed to simultaneously juggle bigotry and social audacity, but not necessarily without cost.  The war resulting in more casualties for America was its very own Civil War and the struggle for civil rights continues.

On the other side of the spectrum, speaking of a “cosmic race” Mexican author and politician José Vasconcelos waxed lyrical about the promise held by a Latino culture of indiscriminately mixed races, without erecting “ethnic walls” as was the case –and still is- in the “north” (America). So elated was Vasconcelos with the prospect of a renewed mankind that he concluded his social essay saluting the apparition of the “fifth race” as the first truly universal culture.

Nevertheless, as mixed as Latinos are we still struggle to acknowledge our own roots.  A recent series of stories we published anecdotally addressed everyday-life experiences of Dominican women.  Unexpectedly those stories stirred up furious controversy on how certain realities only pertained to black women south of the Dominican Republic, and not the “whiter” women of Cibao the fertile valley north of the island.

Some Hispanics are quick to mention their European roots, but prove tardy to embrace their very apparent indigenous and African ancestry.   Which reminisces too often of bizarre anecdotes such as the indigenous woman not admitted into a beauty contest in Otavalo Ecuador, because she wasn’t “white”.

In America despite pervasive prejudice, that incident would have triggered an affirmative action; in Latin America there was a lot of mulling over the incident, and without ceremony or Anglo-style apologies, life carried on.

Today, in America the 4th largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world, the growth and prominence of Hispanics pose important questions on whether they will embrace each other and pull together as one “cosmic race”.

The challenges affecting Latin America, such as overcoming “regionalism lacking universal breath” and the “reneging of each other” in the words of José Vasconcelos, still affects Hispanics in America.

Perhaps America’s “social finesse” may allow us to maneuver as if through the tight places of our social differences and “mutual abhorrence”, but it will certainly not lead us into becoming a fabled “cosmic race”.