How do today's Latin American elites understand and relate to ideas of power, race, ethnicity, and mestizaje? And what impact does that understanding have on the dynamics of socioeconomic development in ethnically mixed societies? Focusing on the case of Ecuador - a country struggling to recast its mestizo identity in the aftermath of dramatic indigenous uprisings - Karem Roitman reveals how the urban upper classes represent their ethnicity in ways that both hide discriminatory practices and impede social and economic mobility for the 'other'. This book also reveals how Ecuador's urban upper classes represent their mestizo identity in ways that both hide discriminatory practices and impede social and economic mobility for the 'other'.