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The Cosmic Race/La Raza Cosmica, by Jose Vasconcelos, translated from Spanish by Didier T. Jaen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Paperback, 160 pages, $13.95. Nonfiction.
The best-known term that emerged from the heroic Chicano movement in the United States in the sixties was "La Raza"-The Race. The Mexican Americans who used it as a rallying cry were inspired by Mexican educator, philosopher, and intellectual Jose Vasconcelos (1882-1959), who published an influential essay in 1925 titled "La Raza Cosmica," reprinted in this bilingual edition.
The Oaxaca-born Vasconcelos. the son of Italian and Spanish parents, authored more than 50 works on Mexican and Latin American culture...