Proceed with Caution, when engaged by minority writing in the Americas (1999) notices signs of reluctance to belong to one coherent collectivity. Not everyone wants to be redeemed from the cultural differences that allegedly blocked national consolidations. The book expands our “toolbox” of rhetoric in a multicultural world. Classical rhetoric assumed that orator and listener shared the same culture and the same assumptions. The best rhetorician was the one who best manipulated the monoculture. Today, we cannot assume continuity, but should expect discontinuity. The difficulty in literary criticism (part of all educated readers' training) is that we don't yet expect it. We presume to be co-authors of what we read, intimates—or even experts—who exceed the inspired but confused writer in interpretive clarity. A range of rhetorical figures and tactics block these arrogant habits. They demote, or refuse complicity (or "slap and embrace" readers in Toni Morrison's phrase) to engage admiration and resist control. This range of possible techniques develops from readings of el Inca Garcilaso, Rigoberta Menchu, Toni Morrison, Cirilo Villaverde, and Mario Vargas Llosa, among others.