What North Americans term "race" is not structurally isomorphic to and, thus, not synonymous with what Latin Americans apply the term to. The social identities determined by "race", and consequently the expected behavior ascribed to these identities, are so dissimilar that meetings between persons of both cultures produce uncertainty and discord. In both the United States and Latin America, the racial phenomenon emerges from cultural assumptions which attribute function as identity credentials for the social structure, and what expectations are ascribed to such identities. Given the fact that what are dealt with are cultures based on such unlike assumptions, it is difficult to understand why the elementary principle of cultural relativism is ignored, only to fall into rampant ethonocentrism. Particular attention is given to the case of Puerto Rico. Although the North American image of the Puerto Rican is of a human unaware of racism and accepting of a non-white identity, the reality is quite different. The social and political implications of racial characteristics in Puerto Rico became accentuated through the Puerto Rican's misunderstanding of what to a North American constitutes membership in a racial category other than white. [Due to the quality of the original, several pages of this document will not be clearly legible when reproduced.] (Author/JM)