Votre América: Blackness and Pan-Latinism in Les démocraties latines de l’Amérique

This article deconstructs the convergence of race and geopolitics in Francisco García Calderón’s Les démocraties latines de l’Amérique (1912). Focusing on the contours and implications of an ideology of Pan-Latinism, the article explores the Peruvian writer’s attempt to locate “Latinity” in culpable geographies (defined by the presence of indigenous peoples and members of the African diaspora), in order to bolster a cultural imaginary that privileges whiteness and blames blackness for Latin America’s subaltern position on the global stage. Moreover, García Calderón’s racializing strategy exploits imperial antagonisms and ambitions between France, Haiti, Germany, Japan, and the United States, with the objective of enticing the French state to recognize “Latin” America as the saving grace of the Latin race on the verge of the opening of the Panama Canal. This reading poses Latinity as a contradictory anti-imperialist maneuver—predicated on strengthening ties with imperial Europe— and calls into question the efficacy and agency of Latin Americanist thought and projects at the height of US imperialism in the region, as well as the supposed colorblindness of Arielism.