From ‘café con leche’ to ‘o café, o leche’: National Identity, Mestizaje and Census Politics in Contemporary Venezuela

Venezuela used to be presented as an exemplary case of mestizaje in Latin America.1 When depicting national idiosyncrasy, mainstream politicians, national chroniclers and foreign visitors found common ground in portrayals of the country as an outstanding instance of racial and cultural admixture. This was well captured by the ‘cafe´ con leche’ (coffee with milk) metonym popularised by Winthrop Wright’s study of race and class relations in Venezuela.2 That metonym encapsulated the idea that most of the population is the product of admixtures that in turn reflect on ‘neither black nor white’ skin tonalities.