Negotiating New Identities

Abstract

Fears about the loss of national identity and the idea that Argentines formed a distinctive ethnocultural group that was threatened by foreign influences were constant and pervasive themes of the cultural debates of the Argentine Centennial period. As Carlos Altamirano maintains, a moral crisis emerged at the time of the Centenario, which revolved around three principal themes: the racial constitution of the nation, the critique of materialism, and the level of participation in the political process.¹