Taking race seriously: Whiteness in Argentina's national and transnationalimaginary

Middle class portenos (the inhabitants of Buenos Aires) display their ambiv alence about the whiteness of Argentina and their own belonging to the nati on through their use of the intermittently racializing discourse of "seriou sness." The discourse of "seriousness" is used to talk about the status of Argentina's political, economic, and cultural "development" and Argentina's place in the global hierarchy of nations. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1994-1997), this essay analyzes the contradicti ons of porteno articulations and disarticulations of their own Agentine-nes s in relation to racial identity. The analysis centers on how portenos' ass essments of President Carlos Menem's representative-ness reflect the instab ility of racial norms in contemporary Argentina. Portenos' ambiguous positi on in their own national and transnational imaginary-privileged within Arge ntina but marginal in the world-is reflected in their use of racial categor ies and racializing discourses.