“If you gotta ask, man, you ain't never gonna know,” satchmo Armstrong once said when someone asked him, “What is jazz?” Such an answer might also fit the question, “What is the state of our knowledge of what to do about illiteracy and ignorance in Latin America.” But the question has been asked in serious company accustomed to thoughtful answers—answers that guide and energize. So we will try to examine what is speculated, what is known, what is being investigated, and what we need to know most in order to establish contact with that vast terra incognita in Latin America comprising the illiterate and the unlearned.