For Laó-Montes, the term 'Africana' refers to African peoples both on the continent and in the diaspora and is understood as a 'global translocal [...] space of multiple exchanges and travels back and forth'. Laó-Montes also assigns racial categorization to a much earlier period, indicating that when they were conceived as continents, Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe became equivalent to the four principal racial classifications of black, Indian, oriental, and white. These 'ethnic-racial' categories, he indicates, are part of the long-term process of globalization and took off in the fifteenth century as capitalist modernity began consolidating power. Current racial classifications and representations are, in a sense, derivative. Variations on the meanings of 'negro' or afrocubano as signifiers of Afro-Cuban difference show a consciousness of specificity within the national constellation of cultures and ethnic-racial identities. While the denominator 'negro' has longstanding significance as an imposed category in Latin America, in many locations it has become the descriptive equivalent of 'black'. The more recent descriptor afrodescendiente also has a variety of contradictory meanings, as it can be applied easily to people self-defining as blanco-mestizo. Categories also overlap and prove the racial illogic in their creation. Indeed, both 'negro' and afrodescendiente flourish as positive signifiers of blackness and Africanity across Latin America. Further, for Laó-Montes, the fact that afrodescendiente is becoming a staple of the language of governments, transnational institutions and everyday use indicates a 'small political-cultural revolution [...] against racism' as Afro-Latin Americans move from invisibility to presence.