Furthermore, this is why the African Yoruba gods of my grandmothers, Yemaya, Obatala, Chango and all others are represented as Catholic Saints like Saint Barbara and Saint Lazarus. Syncretism is about integration of ethnic identity. To apprehend the syncretic nature of ethnic identity one must distinguish it from the broader category of culture, with which it is so often confused. From this, it follows that in the context of the Americas, Indianity or Indianness, Blackness, Spaniardness, is necessarily a postconquest phenomenon. As you know, complex relationships relate culture and ethnic identity.
Culture provides the raw materials, so to speak, for the elaboration of ethnicity.
But ethnicity does not reflect culture. To add even more complexity to the picture, ethnicity often refers directly or indirectly to a power structure. Syncretism acted as the necessary working tool to reconceptualize and many times subvert the structure. Not only is there no such thing as cultural essence, but our very conceptualization of collective identity is subject to interpretation, renewal, and criticism. It is not only the conception of identity and community in the center that is criticized, but also that of emergent and oppositional identities of marginalized ethnic groups.