Below is one explanation for the word "Raza."
And this organization make it sound like they are my buddy.
nclr.org
Are we confused yet?
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What does "Raza" mean and where does it come from?
It has often been said that the practice of Chicanos to refer to the overall Mexican American population as "Raza" is inherently racist. This is because the translation of this term into English removes its philosophical baggage and makes it look as if Mexican Americans are the race, similarly to Nazi claims that the "Arian" was the race that should inherit Earth.
Understanding how this term originated is important to know its meaning. One must be aware that the term is originally from México and it was first promoted by José Vasconcelos, a respected and venerated Mexican intellectual (1881-1959). It was given shape in his book La Raza Cósmica (1948) and it was introduced as a response, based on "scientific" evidence then available as well as Catholic theology. I have translated parts of the prologue of the second edition and parts of the first chapter where the philosophy is defined.
In the early 1900's Mexican intellectuals were trying to come up with an identity for the Mexican people during a time of social upheaval. This social change was being fueled by two revolutionary changes in thought: Marx and Engels "Das Kapital" and C. Darwin's "Theory of Evolution of the Species." The first one challenged the position of the moneyed class (whether old or new money) while the second challenged the position of mankind itself in the general scheme of things and went against biblical teaching.
The most successful of them, José Vasconcelos, came up with a kooky concept where he claimed that the indigenous people of America had had their day in the sun but their mixture with the "better" Europeans gave rise to a new race, the mestizo. (In those days, it was common to divide Homo Sapiens into four races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, and Amerindian. Thrown as evidence, he cited the lost continent of Atlantis.) He called this new race "La raza Cósmica" and argued that it would be the one that would show "the way" to the rest of the world. It is a very catchy and feel-good concept. Over the years, that concept was semi-officially promoted by the Mexican government to give "atole con el dedo" to the population (that is where the custom of calling "Día de la Raza" to "Columbus Day" came from).
The concept was also taken by the Chicano activists (some founded "La Raza Unida Party," go see the PBS series "Chicano" for more information. A good bibliography can be found in its Web site.) but I don't think that any of them had bothered to read Vasconcelos' book. To this day, there are some who worship this concept together with the very nice slogan that Vasconcelos devised for the Universidad Autónoma Nacional de México (he was one of the co-founder of this most recent incarnation of the oldest University in the Americas): "Por mi Raza hablará el Espiritú." Given Vasconcelos' zeal for the Catholic religion, it would not surprise me that he had in mind the Spirit that is part of the Holy Trinity.
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J. Manuel Urrutia
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
UCLA
Box 951547
Los Angeles CA 90095-1547
310-825-7898 (voice)
310-825-4057 (fax) lasculturas.com
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