Assuming that at the beginning of 20th century there has been a change in the way of conceiving miscegenation in Mexico, this article intends to investigate how this change was related to the concept of race. I analyze the essay La raza cósmica (1925), by José Vasconcelos, who sustained that in Latin America a new race would be formed, in a spiritual miscegenation. Through a semantic inversion of the concept of race, the author presents a new proposal of Latin-American identity, with the political purpose of legitimating the nations of the continent and confronting U.S. imperialism.
cosmic race; miscegenation; Mexico; Latin America; José Vasconcelos
