This article analyzes the linguistic negotiations of two characters in the second part of the novel, “The American Muntu”: Pupo Moncholo and Domingo Falupo. From this I examine how the Afro-diasporic collectivity that Zapata Olivella proposes is one that assumes an agency of liberation through the gaps of the language imposed by the colonizer and exposes an heterogeneous project of modernity, as well as alternative notions of tradition and culture.