Summary Of The Cosmic Race By Jose Vasconcelos

The Cosmic Race, by Mexican politician, activist, and intellectual Jose Vasconcelos, is an essay about a new race in Latin America brought about by the fusion of all other races and the society they will live in. It is an extremely influential essay in Mexico. The Cosmic Race says that America is the ancient home of the now lost Atlantean civilization (Vasconcelos 7). The subsequent Atlantean downfall spawned four races the Indian, natives in America, the Black, the Mongol, and the White (Vasconcelos 9). Latin America, already a racial melting pot, is in the perfect condition to . This essay, both intentionally and unintentionally shows us Latin American race relations, Latin American nationalism, Latin American liberalism and its differences

Conservatives throughout South America were largely loyalist in the fight for independence against Spain. Since independence, most, while not wanting to become a colony again, wanted to go back to the racial status quo of colonial life where Mestizos and Blacks knew their place and whites are on top. Which is ironic given José Vasconcelos very liberal attitudes toward race. If anything he can show the contradiction between the South American conservatism and liberalism. While many South American liberals, especially Brazilian liberals, claim to be liberals while supporting extremely conservative if not outright racist views on race in society, such as Brazil continuation of slavery well into the 1880s. It should be noted however that while many South American liberals were hypocritical, José Vasconcelos was Mexican and the Mexican Revolution was a conservative revolution and many of the Mexican elite unlike their further southern counterparts claimed to be conservative. This more points to the complicated politics of Latin America at the time of independence where lofty ideals often took a backseat to hard economics and power. For example during the neocolonial era, many of these governments came to power as liberals but their policies hurt the poor agrarian farmers much more than during the colonial era or the postcolonial era when conservatives mainly held power. This elite hypocrisy can be traced to wanting to maintain control of the economics and the desire to become more civilized, or create a more civilized nation. To do this, Latin American elites turned to Europe, to adopt European ideology. While they called themselves Liberals, in actuality they were very far from European liberalism. This is thanks to the Caudillo, or strongman, of Latin American politics. These