Our countries are pluralistic, multilingual, multicultural societies, and they need governments that acknowledge the pluralism embedded in the ethos of its people. In Latin America, interculturality is perceived as the pursuit of a new societal model, one that is radically democratic and that requires a new type of national state. This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I analyse the origins of the Latin American discourse on interculturality. In the second part, I evaluate official intercultural discourses and practices, demonstrating their functionalist role in our monocultural states. In the final part, I suggest some approaches to ways in which intercultural discourse and practices can be changed so that interculturality does not lose its capacity for creating new modes of living together. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis.