The main theme of Rodriguez's essay is that Latin American culture will not disappear as Latin American people immigrate to the United States; instead, Latin culture will form a synthesis with North American culture. As he writes, "The genius of Latin America is the habit of synthesis. We assimilate." He writes about the way in which Latin America has created new "bloodlines" through the introduction of one culture to another. For example, the music of Latin America is a "litany of bloodlines," as he writes. In other words, Latin music merges many traditions, including the African drum, the German accordion, and the Muslim call to prayer. While the U.S. was shaped by Protestantism, which insisted on maintaining a distinction and distance between Europeans and Native Americans, in Latin America, there was what Rodriguez calls "meltdown conversion" characteristic of the Catholic conception of the world. This means that different cultures combined in Latin America.
Rodriguez, who wrote this essay in 1988, believes that the American culture, long insistent on individualism, is ready to embrace more communal cultures--the Asian culture and the Latin American culture. He believes that North Americans might embrace the Latin idea of leisure and of emotional expression. He thinks that now is the time for Latins to express a less timid version of their culture in the United States. As he writes, "expect marriage," meaning that both the Latin American and North American culture will change as the two cultures mingle.
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