The present work sought to analyze the ideas on “the Latin-American” ―as historical ontologism― in the historiographical production of Edmundo O'Gorman, Guillermo Bonfil Batalla and Leopoldo Zea. In order to do so it, I paid attention to the sense of utopia and dystopia that has been associated with the interpretation of the processes that have made Latin America into its present expression. The analysis of the works was focused on the categories proposed by Hayden White (emplotment, argument and ideology), which allowed to establish breaks and continuities so in the formal attributes and intrinsic senses of historical speech. The convergence of these elements consolidated an iconic conceptualization of “the Latin American" in Latin American social thought that, with the passing of the years, has not ceased to have validity in broad sectors of humanistic and social thinking in the present.