This chapter addresses the prominent role of literature in the emergence of a racialized discourse affecting Andean populations of Colombia that marginalized and subordinated perceived “non-white” subjects inside the Andean highland region. I place specific emphasis on the representation of poor whites, mestizos, indigenous, and mulatto subjects in costumbrista articles, novels, and essays. In these narratives, the depiction of non-white characters was a device used by lettered elites to establish the definition and limits of “whiteness” in the Andean highlands. The elite's use of racial depiction of the region as whiter than others became a key element in the formation of a hierarchical nation-state in Colombia, making the symbolic power of the Andean highlands powerfully associated to its racial representation.

This essay examines interracial unions, as depicted in literature, especially in the works produced under the influence of costumbrismo; these works reveal the nineteenth-century notion of mestizaje, the mix of populations of different racial backgrounds, as a progressive process of becoming white. Despite the relevance of the concept of mestizaje in the nation-building process, interracial subjects are not frequently represented in literary texts of the time. Yet, when they appear, they conform to specific patterns marked by the intersection of race and gender: Women are often represented as white, and men as mulattos. By focusing on the depiction of gendered unions in stories such as Federico y Cintia (1859) by Eugenio Díaz or Mercedes (1869) by Soledad Acosta de Samper, this study explores the limitations and possibilities of the concept of mestizaje in Colombia and the pivotal role of gender in the construction of racialized representations of identity and alterity. Texts such as Peregrinación de Alpha (1853, The Pilgrimage of Alpha) by Manuel Ancízar and Ensayo sobre las revoluciones políticas (1860, Essay about Political Revolutions) by José María Samper created powerful racial images of “white” and “light-skinned mestizo” Andean peasants. These racial representations have survived over centuries and are continuously being reproduced by intellectuals, politicians, and scholars and used as a tool of racial discourse. Their permanence suggests that they served as a racial pedagogy intended to convince regional, national, and transatlantic audiences of the “whiteness” of Colombian Andean populations. It also exposes a contrast to other Andean nations, specifically Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, where the concept of “lo andino” (the Andean) is strongly associated with an indigenous identity, often constructed on the basis of racial categories.