Bronze race

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Bronze race (Spanish: raza de bronce) is a term used by early 20th century Latin American writers of the indigenista and americanista schools to refer to the mestizo race that arose in America with the arrival of European (particularly Spanish) colonisers and their intermingling with the New World's indigenous Native American peoples.

Bolivian indigenista writer Alcides Arguedas first used the term in his 1919 work, La Raza de Bronce, a study of the indigenes of the Andean altiplano. It was later used by Mexican luminary José Vasconcelos in La Raza Cósmica (1925).

The term was revived in the 1960s by Chicano ethnic group MEChA to refer to Latinos in the United States and the people in Mexico as a unified "race", similar to the black and white races. In this sense it is largely synonymous to the notion of the Chicano nation. The decision to call it a separate race may have been influenced by the contemporary negative views of "ethnic" or "nation" based nationalism and positive views of "race" based nationalism. The notion was first enunciated in the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan document.

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