The article addresses the following questions from the perspective of history: Is there a Latin American translation theory? What are its contents? First, it identifies the “Latin American need” for translation resulting from the emergence of nation states, and describes its specificities through a comparison with the initial debate on modern Western translation theory carried out in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. It then traces the subsequent diverse uses of translation as a procedure in the search for identity. Finally, it discusses the debate between Arguedas and Cortázar at the end of the 1960s, which reveals the tension underlying a Latin American theory of translation. On the basis of the debate and of history itself, the article concludes that one of the main roles of translation in Latin America has been to designate markers of foreignness as a cultural self-definition mechanism.