ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that contrary to common belief, the discussion of modernism so far fails to grasp the full complexity of its development. As former colonized or enslaved peoples, Harlem Renaissance and Latin American writers constructed modern traditions and discourses which moved constantly within and without modernity's identifiable settings. Latin America started playing the role of an alternative "national allegory." The pervasive consumption and construction of prejudices against African-Americans, even among indigenistas, deterred even more a cultural and political appreciation of what was being written by African-Americans in the United States. Latin American and Harlem Renaissance writers had to confront multiple expectations in their desire to have their own artifacts and writings performed as commodities in the marketplace. Some European art critics used the association with primitivism to denigrate the artistic qualities of the avant-garde. Cubism is a good example of this strategy.
