Cold War containment began as a political doctrine pursued by U.S. policy-makers to secure anti-Communist compliance in domestic and international contexts. The ideology swiftly diffused into cultural discourses to explain hard and soft power efforts to confine people and behavior into normative boxes. This project explores the proliferation of containment/contención in inter-American diplomacy, popular press, film, theater, and sculpture of the 1960s. While a constellation of artists are considered, I particularly spotlight Venezuelan-American artist Marisol; her sculptures rigorously examined the midcentury forces that sought to box-in/encajar gender, sexuality, communism, Americanness, selfhood, and other institutionalized categories designed to order fluid concepts and experiences.