n. Mexicans or Mexican Americans considered as a group, sometimes extending to all Spanish-speaking people of the Americas. [Mexican Spanish, literally, "the Race" (from shortening of la raza cósmica, the cosmic race, term used by José Vasconcelos Calderón (1882-1959), Mexican revolutionary writer and educator, in his 1925 essay La raza cósmica to designate the future global community developing from the mixture of the diverse ethnic groups of the world, a process that he believed had begun in Latin America) : Spanish la, the + raza, race (from Old Spanish, fro + raza, race (from Old Spanish, from Old Italian; see RACE).] |
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