Transculturation came into common usage due to its use by Cuban anthropologist, Fernando Ortiz, in the 1940s to describe the colonial processes where subaltern cultures effectively select and manipulate the materials transmitted by dominant cultures into their own, unique, cultural expressions. Where cultures meet is not simply where the so-called “dominant” culture overtakes the “marginalized” ones existing within it. Ortiz describes transculturation in Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azucar (1940) “as a substitute for the term acculturation,” using “transculturation to express the highly varied phenomena that have come about in Cuba as a result of the extremely complex transmutations of culture that have taken place” (Ortiz 2:2, 98). The original, anthropological use of the term, with respect to Cuban resources, tobacco and sugar, and their variable commodification through Spanish colonization in Central and South America, continues to be adapted across disciplines.