Almenas, Egberto2016-09-232016-09-232009-08-301536-1837http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/19658A version of this article was read at Virtual Caribbeans: A Conference on Representation, Diaspora and Performance in and on the Caribbean. Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. February-March 2008.This article argues that José Martí’s brand of tropicalism (unrelated here to the Brazilian artistic movement) transcends the merely ornamental and activates in turn a ratifying device with respect to a deeper notion of Caribbeanness. The reading will contend that his discourse defies in retrospect a construct of the Caribbean fashioned after a postmodernist leveling that runs in tandem with a neoliberal model of globalization, and which he had already predicted and fought beforehand with astonishing accuracy.en-USCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlikeArticle