Resumen
The category ethnic identity acquired popularity in the Eighties and Nineties,and since the late Nineties has made inroads in Brazil as well as in the rest ofLatina America. The notion of multiculturalism followed the example, fi rst inpart of the Global North and little by little in our region as from the decade of2000. Here I analyse the sudden rise of popularity of multiculturalism in Braziland the rapid crisis it got into over the last few years, also on account of the rise of a new stock of an extreme right-wing populism.Keywords: Identity, multiculturalism, cultural policies, inequalities.