Peter Wade’s Rethinking Mestizaje, I thought, was an insightful anthropological look into the way that Mestizaje in Latin America reconstructs black and indigenous identities. Thoughts below:

– Wade calls into question scholarly pre-occupation with focusing on the negatives of Mestizaje, both in how, through homogenization, it marginalizes and how it is a nationalistically exclusive process. But I got the sense that his argument is against these scholars rather than for the people themselves. He gives evidence that Mestizaje benefits the traditionally marginalized, but it seems to me that it all amounts to him wanting to counter the dominant scholarly view. While this is anthropology and this is bound to happen, it would be nice to a) hear Latin American perspectives (getting to Vasconcelos in a minute) on their take on Mestizaje and b) see attention brought towards marginalized cultures, whether Mestizaje benefits them or not.

– The image of a mosaic of national identity works to a certain extent. I don’t think it does enough as an image to refuse binary oppositions. Not a big deal, he just refers to it a lot (see below).

– I found it very interesting how the three predominant racial influences (Spanish, Indigenous, Black) were represented individually in folklore, art, dance. Sort of counterposes the idea that the three need to be mixed into one in order to be considered Mestizaje. The fragmentation of the ideology is interesting

– Is the ideological goal of Mestizaje true homogenization? Based on ^ i’m not so sure.

– The body is a unity of processes, Mestizaje  shouldn’t be treated phenomenally, especially when it is the base of existence for a person.

– Art/music as a reflection of the body and its processes (Mestizaje being one) is an idea I can very much get behind.

– “People who saw themselves as mestizos, or at least recognised themselves as the product of mixture, did not necessarily see themselves as internally homogeneous and undifferentiated. Instead, a mestizo or mixed person could be a mosaic of elements, which were racialised with reference to the tri-racial origins of the nation” (Wade 249). The idea of the mosaic is good to resemble the refusal of homogeneity, but still doesn’t refuse binary oppositions. It does not rule out the possibility that one aspect of the Mestizaje, say the Spanish mother, looks down on another part, say an Indigenous Father, as per the colonial hierarchy.

Jose Vasconcelos’ writing The Cosmic Race reads almost as a sort of religious dogma. As a genetic manifest destiny that is founded on misguided principles. In many instances it seems to overlook atrocities when convenient, in order to elevate the Spanish conquest to a neo-pilgrimage. The one thing it does seem to do right, however, is to call out Anglo-Saxon conquest of the American continent for what it was; genocide. More detailed thoughts below:

– The existence of Atlantis is questionable. but ok.

– As far as my understanding of the colonial period goes, Vasconcelos is right that Iberian and Albion colonies rarely interacted. If he’s right about this, I wonder why that is, and if it was an active decision on the part of either.

– Vasconcelos argues that the downfall of Latin America began the day that Portuguese and Spanish colonies decided to live apart, but it wasn’t like the Northern European colonies exactly got along well.

– Vasconcelos traces the cosmic racial destiny of Latin America back to Spanish colonialism, inherently (whether intentionally or not) marginalizing afro-latin and indigenous peoples. In Vasconcelos’ theory, they exist to better the Spanish bloodline. While his race may be mestizo, while it may be cosmic, it will be forever unequal.

– Going off of that, he idolizes colonial figures such as Pizarro and Cortes as founders of this cosmic race, either ignoring or normalizing the devastation their adventures caused to the indigenous people who call Latin America home.

– Vasconcelos identifies an enemy common to all of Latin America, the anglo-saxon. This immediately brings to mind Evita Peron. While Vasconcelos cannot be a populist (he is no champion of the people as they are, but of what they could be) he uses populist rhetoric here.

– Vasconcelos on the bloodshed of colonialism “It is an accursed stain that centuries have not erased, but which the common danger must annul.” Basically, a necessary evil.

– Vasconcelos does right in calling out Anglo-Saxon conquest for destroying the races it encountered in the New World. But ‘assimilated’ is much to nice a word to describe how Latin colonizers treated Native Americans.

Theory of Mixture

Rethinking Mestizaje: Ideology and Lived Experience* – Peter Wade

Peter Wade begins this text by grounding his understanding of mestizaje or mixture in Latin America as “not just as a nation-building ideology—which has been the principal focus of scholarship, but also a lived process of racial-cultural mixture…” (239).  The author works to acknowledge the nuanced understanding of mestizaje, with no single definition, but a negotiation between diversity and homogeneity. Wade asserts that the scholarly discourse that surrounds mestizaje, “privilege[s] two assumptions: first, that nationalist ideologies of mestizaje are essentially about the creation of a homogeneous mestizo (mixed) future, which are then opposed to subaltern constructions of the nation as racially-culturally diverse; and second, that mestizaje as a nationalist ideology appears to be an inclusive process, in that everyone is eligible to become a mestizo, but in reality it is exclusive because it marginalizes blackness and indigenousness, while valuing whiteness” (240). He maintains these assumptions are reductive. His piece reemphasizes the notion of “lived-experience” not limited to Latin America, but also in the US and Europe, moving through the ambivalence and confliction in the “process of hybridity” (241). This notion is interesting to me because the same sort of rhetoric is often touted in regards to Canadian nationality and identity construction with the terms like “multiculturalism” or “cultural mosaic.” Multiculturalism works similarly to homogenize an identity of difference or holding all cultures in a position of “equality.” This too is a sort of highly contested ideology wherein the term is used navigate a culture of hybridity.

The Cosmic Race // La Raza Cósmica – José Vasconcelos

I really only had time to read the first reading so far, but it was definitely an entertaining one, to say the least.

Many statements that Vasconcelos made I found to be pretty racist. While clearly very passionate, his logic seemed a little bit flawed and slightly disconnected. It’s funny, he’s a politician but his statements are incredibly biased. Kind of reminds me of a certain individual and his ideologies that are running rampant in the US…

His views on Christianity are a little bit unsettling. Regarding this specific religion as the religion that “civilized” a group of people? Yikes. The rhetoric he employs is pretty convincing; seems like a whirlwind of propaganda in favour of the Latin American race, in my opinion. His perspective on the mixing of races and cultures is definitely interesting, though. He paints an peculiar picture of growth and development of this “cosmic race”; it’s notable how he illustrates that this final race is both independent AND intertwined with the different cultures. The idea can even be described as idealistic, but the language he uses still continues to make me just a little uncomfortable.

Anyways, I’d describe his goal as basically a ‘melting pot’, which is a term that is tossed around Western societies pretty frequently. It’s the culmination of different races – but I think even in Canada and the United States, there are very clear boundaries between the different cultures. As a second generation Asian Canadian, I often find myself more clearly identifying as a “Westerner” rather than a person with a mixture of both cultures. In this case, I’m not sure Vasconcelos’ idea would actually work out, but it’s intriguing.

Soooooo ridiculous! Reading the Cosmic Race was an experience this morning. So many lines made me crinnnnge. Even in the very first chapter: it ends with saying that the Christians made American Indians advance from “cannibals” to “a relative degree of civilization.” Yeeeeshhh. I was thinking what the hell am I about to read here?

Reading this chapter reminded me of when you sometimes get in a conversation with an elderly person who uses pretty offensive language sometimes, and doesn’t really realize there’s anything wrong with it, and they don’t see any issue in the things they are saying. There is a ton of racism in this text, but it doesn’t come across as malicious. It’s like he’s this sad man with really bad ideas, but he’s very confident about all of it.
Into the chapter, when he starts getting into the specifics of a cosmic race- how it would come about, what implications it would have, how exactly it would function… Kinda made me feel like I was reading somebody’s dream journal. Vasconcelos idea’s are pretty wacky. He seems like a very imaginative fellow, with not a lot of room for logic in his thoughts.
Overall though, the idea of this piece is that the cosmic race will someday occur and there will be peace on earth. Right now though, today, the world is seeing the highest number of refugee’s than there ever has been. There is a ton of racial mixing that is on-going. And hey, there is no peace. Actually, there’s more conflicts, racial and ethnic and otherwise than ever before. It seems like even though there is mixing happening, the state of the world is just getting worse. This idea that someday there will be one super-race, where we are all the same and no problems exist, is a myth.

[These are just initial thoughts. I’m sort of embarrassed in case I am interpreting it all wrong. That’s what class is for though, right!? See you all soon. ]

“Defeat has brought us the confusion of values and concepts; the victor’s diplomacy deceives us after defeating us: commerce conquers us with it’s small advantages”(10) For me, this statement stood out and really resonated with me. I think it expresses the conundrum of the simultaneous horrors and conveniences which colonialism has introduced to “Latin American” countries. His Prologue was defiant and impassioned but his anecdotes about Eugenics and the end left a weird taste with me. This was my reception to most of this reading- being amazed by the clarity and beauty of a lot of his phrases and simultaneously a little disturbed by others.

The author seems to be torn between wanting to preserve what was great about the native cultures and wanting to embrace what is, although I think his pursuit for a celebration of the mestizorace he (intentionally or not) had to assert it’s greatness through diminishing other races. I think exploring the place the mestizo holds in Latin American culture is incredibly important, but a lot of his exploration is merely opinion based and somewhat troubling. He insists certain things are true about ENTIRE races of people (I’m sure a few black people in the world aren’t the embodiment of dance) which makes us all very squirmy in 2017.
“Race” is a fabricated social concept that humans invented, and not an inherit or finite thing as it is often spoken of (as with in this essay.) It is easy to see why humans have created it, and the function it serves- to describe physical differences in an attempt to categorize or group types or regions of people, and yet describes no actual THING (words do this, often to our own detriment.) That is not to deny that certain groups of people have been racialized, and that their race is a very much real part of their identity, I’m simply trying to stress how our entire notion of that word (to this day) asserts is that “whiteness” (no actual group of people…not real) is the ‘Norm’ and “others” (groups who do not fit the empirical requirements of “whiteness”) are not. Clearly this is not biological (we are all completely genetically unique) or inherit to our existence some guys literally just made it up. Our concept of race also involves a great deal of retroactive speculation with very little certainty. We can see this in our authors constant return to his imagined “atlantean” people. I understand that we are approaching this “cosmic race” from a Darwinist perspective and so there are certain conventions which go along with it but i thought it was worth pointing out (also this essay gives me mid 20th century vibes and so perhaps that is why some of the terms aren’t up to my stuffy pc standards.)

I think what is so (contemporarily) troubling about this essay, and the perspective of it’s author, is this particular breed of nationalism (or culturism??) mixed with nostalgia. A longing for the “golden age” of his people (which is not before colonialism??)….. (maybe we are so appalled by this because our bumbling orange puff of a president seems to cling to this idea as well in perhaps more harmful ways?) In fact, this retroactive glorification of one’s history is a rhetoric used by crazed leaders (and old men at rural pubs/bars) the world over. It seems as though when a particular group or nation undergoes a period of depression, oppression or unrest this naturalized racial superiority or”biological greatness” of their people is used to boost morale creating an “us” which always necessitates a “them”= POPULISM. Even at one point he credits the ‘superior spaniards’ as well as the christian religion from rescuing his people from “cannabalism.” I think dismissing his feelings (however uncomofortable they make me,) and overlooking the dynamic which has produced them would be a disservice to myself and to the text.He feels pride for both sides of his heritage and perhaps is reacting against scholarship released at the time that harkened back to pre-colonial times as somehow pure or better, he seeks to prove the mixed identity as not only better but the “cosmic race” or destiny of the world. There is some merit to this thought perhaps and I too believe one homogenous “mixed” identity to be the “cosmic race” of the world. I do take issue with him lowering the status of marginal races, along with other groups he resents, such as the “Anglo-saxon” people of the United Sates (because every person in the USA can trace 100% anglo-saxon lineage…right?) “They (anglo-saxon colonialists) and their masters did nothing else but spoil the work of Spanish genius in America” (14) His contemporary Latin American view of the USA as the belligerent, militant right-wing “paternal figure” (huge eye roll) is exactly what they were and so it is not hard to imagine why he assumes his “Spanishness” is the separation between the two cultures which makes his somehow better. Unfortunately crediting their modern political disposition to their pre-historic “Anglo-saxon” race really diminishes all of his other thoughts on the subject. Additionally, he seems almost to believe in cultural (or racial..?) determinism and that perhaps it was the destiny of the “Latin” and Anglo Saxon” people to conquer the Americas because of their racial greatness.

Still having to encounter this kind of thinking to this day may exhaust us but it is really important to not say “screw everyone who thinks like this evil racists, evil misogynists, evil trump supporters” etc the only way we can change this kind of thinking for good is understanding what built the perspective of the person, and how they are able to justify it to themselves.

“Defeat has brought us the confusion of values and concepts; the victor’s diplomacy deceives us after defeating us: commerce conquers us with it’s small advantages”(10) For me, this statement stood out and really resonated with me. I think it expresses the conundrum of the simultaneous horrors and conveniences which colonialism has introduced to “Latin American” countries. His Prologue was defiant and impassioned but his anecdotes about Eugenics and the end left a weird taste with me. This was my reception to most of this reading- being amazed by the clarity and beauty of a lot of his phrases and simultaneously a little disturbed by others.

The author seems to be torn between wanting to preserve what was great about the native cultures and wanting to embrace what is, although I think his pursuit for a celebration of the mestizorace he (intentionally or not) had to assert it’s greatness through diminishing other races. I think exploring the place the mestizo holds in Latin American culture is incredibly important, but a lot of his exploration is merely opinion based and somewhat troubling. He insists certain things are true about ENTIRE races of people (I’m sure a few black people in the world aren’t the embodiment of dance) which makes us all very squirmy in 2017.
“Race” is a fabricated social concept that humans invented, and not an inherit or finite thing as it is often spoken of (as with in this essay.) It is easy to see why humans have created it, and the function it serves- to describe physical differences in an attempt to categorize or group types or regions of people, and yet describes no actual THING (words do this, often to our own detriment.) That is not to deny that certain groups of people have been racialized, and that their race is a very much real part of their identity, I’m simply trying to stress how our entire notion of that word (to this day) asserts is that “whiteness” (no actual group of people…not real) is the ‘Norm’ and “others” (groups who do not fit the empirical requirements of “whiteness”) are not. Clearly this is not biological (we are all completely genetically unique) or inherit to our existence some guys literally just made it up. Our concept of race also involves a great deal of retroactive speculation with very little certainty. We can see this in our authors constant return to his imagined “atlantean” people. I understand that we are approaching this “cosmic race” from a Darwinist perspective and so there are certain conventions which go along with it but i thought it was worth pointing out (also this essay gives me mid 20th century vibes and so perhaps that is why some of the terms aren’t up to my stuffy pc standards.)

I think what is so (contemporarily) troubling about this essay, and the perspective of it’s author, is this particular breed of nationalism (or culturism??) mixed with nostalgia. A longing for the “golden age” of his people (which is not before colonialism??)….. (maybe we are so appalled by this because our bumbling orange puff of a president seems to cling to this idea as well in perhaps more harmful ways?) In fact, this retroactive glorification of one’s history is a rhetoric used by crazed leaders (and old men at rural pubs/bars) the world over. It seems as though when a particular group or nation undergoes a period of depression, oppression or unrest this naturalized racial superiority or”biological greatness” of their people is used to boost morale creating an “us” which always necessitates a “them”= POPULISM. Even at one point he credits the ‘superior spaniards’ as well as the christian religion from rescuing his people from “cannabalism.” I think dismissing his feelings (however uncomofortable they make me,) and overlooking the dynamic which has produced them would be a disservice to myself and to the text.He feels pride for both sides of his heritage and perhaps is reacting against scholarship released at the time that harkened back to pre-colonial times as somehow pure or better, he seeks to prove the mixed identity as not only better but the “cosmic race” or destiny of the world. There is some merit to this thought perhaps and I too believe one homogenous “mixed” identity to be the “cosmic race” of the world. I do take issue with him lowering the status of marginal races, along with other groups he resents, such as the “Anglo-saxon” people of the United Sates (because every person in the USA can trace 100% anglo-saxon lineage…right?) “They (anglo-saxon colonialists) and their masters did nothing else but spoil the work of Spanish genius in America” (14) His contemporary Latin American view of the USA as the belligerent, militant right-wing “paternal figure” (huge eye roll) is exactly what they were and so it is not hard to imagine why he assumes his “Spanishness” is the separation between the two cultures which makes his somehow better. Unfortunately crediting their modern political disposition to their pre-historic “Anglo-saxon” race really diminishes all of his other thoughts on the subject. Additionally, he seems almost to believe in cultural (or racial..?) determinism and that perhaps it was the destiny of the “Latin” and Anglo Saxon” people to conquer the Americas because of their racial greatness.

Still having to encounter this kind of thinking to this day may exhaust us but it is really important to not say “screw everyone who thinks like this evil racists, evil misogynists, evil trump supporters” etc the only way we can change this kind of thinking for good is understanding what built the perspective of the person, and how they are able to justify it to themselves.

But mostly the Cosmic Race, because I found the paper so controversial (and also funny and quite amusing in parts). Two VERY different papers this week: one, an impassioned and very forthright essay written by the Mexican philosopher, Jose Vasconcelos, and the second, an academic and scholarly essay written by the anthropologist, Peter Wade.

Often times while reading the essay “Cosmic Race”, I would stumble upon a ridiculous sentence and think, “Wait, what? You concluded THAT from that?” For example, he states that there are four fundamental human races, and the Mestizo will form the fifth race. Additionally, global history is divided into three stages – material/warlike, intellectual/political and spiritual/aesthetic. Taken together (I don’t understand why he decided to literally sum up these two disconnected ideas, to begin with), he somehow rises to the conclusion, “This gives us five races and three stages, the number eight which in the Pythagorean gnosis represents the ideal of the equality of all men. Such coincidences are surprising when they are discovered.” It’s the kind of ‘logic’ I expect from Trump…

Other statements left me amazed. Not because he thought like that because I’m certain many people to this day do, in private. What stunned me was that despite being a politician, he wrote something so politically incorrect and upsetting and then published it. For example, on page 32, he writes, “In this way, in a very few generations, monstrosities will disappear; … The lower types of species will be absorbed by the superior type. In this manner, for example, the Blacks could be redeemed, and step by step, by voluntary extinction, the uglier stocks will give way to the more handsome.” He fails to mask his racism, despite his attempts to come across unbiased. The idea of mixing races is not offensive in itself, it can even be beautiful, as Vasconcelos describes it, and Peter Wade also concedes; a blended cosmic race of people with the greatest attributes of culture, beauty, warmth, love and spirituality sounds wonderful. What is enraging is the reason behind Vasconcelos’ desire to erase individual races, especially the “inferior” races, and by inferior, he means the Blacks, or dark-skinned. But why do these ‘inferior’ races need redemption at all? For what do they need to be forgiven? He’s also very fixated on the aspect of physical beauty. He repeats several times that the ugly should not procreate. He doesn’t fixate half as much on intelligence, or wisdom, or artistic abilities. Furthermore, even though he challenges the prevalent white supremacist racism, it is pointless and hardly revolutionary in my opinion, given his justifications for racism towards Blacks in the same breath. All along, he echoes the same sentiment over and over again: his people, the Mestizo Mexicans are better than the rest of the world. Which is funny, because at one instance he himself points out this fallacy, “Throughout history, every great nation has thought of itself as the final and chosen one.” Aren’t you guilty of doing the same here yourself, Vasconcelos?

The essay contains many contractions too. On one hand, he talks about how humanity “loses each time a race disappears by violent means”. But then suggests that we should systematically erase the Black physical features and unique indigenous cultures for a superior blended race.

Despite all that, I do agree with some sensible statements or arguments Vasconcelos proposes. Historically, the most “illustrious epochs of humanity” have definitely been those in which people from several different countries came into contact and intermingled. From the Greek, Roman and Indian civilizations of the past to the multicultural societies such as Canada, UK, Latin America of today, these are definitely more enriched in terms of culture and human experiences. And finally, this beautiful sentence he wrote, “Beyond good and evil, in a world of aesthetic pathos, the only thing that will matter will be that the act, being beautiful, shall produce joy. To do our whim, not our duty; to follow the path of taste, not of appetite or syllogism; to live joy grounded on love – such is the third stage.” An inconceivable yet magnificent future indeed.

Contrastingly, Peter Wade’s paper is very academic and balanced. But Wade’s paper is also written in 2005, so we maybe we shouldn’t be judging Vasconcelos as harshly for his opinions. Wade makes interesting points that reveal that the seemingly all-inclusive Mestizo identity that is marketed isn’t all that inclusive after all. Even mestizos who have black and indigenous heritage aren’t free from racial categorization. The elites and middles classes “want to re-establish the possibility of making hierarchical distinctions of race (and thus also class and region), distinctions which threaten to vanish if the process of mestizaje were really to reach its ideological goal of homogenisation”. Therefore, even though a unified mestizo-identity is supposed to eliminate racial hierarchy, it rarely achieves that goal. People are “constantly thinking in terms of roots and (racial) origins”.

While Vasconcelos describes mestizaje as different races coming together and blending to form an absolutely new and distinct identity from its sum parts, Wade describes a patchwork quilt. Each piece of the mixed race is separate and stand-alone; it’s a racial mosaic opposed to a Vasconcelos’ racial melting pot.

In conclusion, the best point overall was again made my Vasconcelos. That is a different thing that he himself failed to adhere to it.

Humanity “loses each time a race disappears by violent means”.

And for that reason, our individual identities, racial or cultural, shouldn’t be forgone in favour of a unified mixed identity.

But mostly the Cosmic Race, because I found the paper so controversial (and also funny and quite amusing in parts). Two VERY different papers this week: one, an impassioned and very forthright essay written by the Mexican philosopher, Jose Vasconcelos, and the second, an academic and scholarly essay written by the anthropologist, Peter Wade.

Often times while reading the essay “Cosmic Race”, I would stumble upon a ridiculous sentence and think, “Wait, what? You concluded THAT from that?” For example, he states that there are four fundamental human races, and the Mestizo will form the fifth race. Additionally, global history is divided into three stages – material/warlike, intellectual/political and spiritual/aesthetic. Taken together (I don’t understand why he decided to literally sum up these two disconnected ideas, to begin with), he somehow rises to the conclusion, “This gives us five races and three stages, the number eight which in the Pythagorean gnosis represents the ideal of the equality of all men. Such coincidences are surprising when they are discovered.” It’s the kind of ‘logic’ I expect from Trump…

Other statements left me amazed. Not because he thought like that because I’m certain many people to this day do, in private. What stunned me was that despite being a politician, he wrote something so politically incorrect and upsetting and then published it. For example, on page 32, he writes, “In this way, in a very few generations, monstrosities will disappear; … The lower types of species will be absorbed by the superior type. In this manner, for example, the Blacks could be redeemed, and step by step, by voluntary extinction, the uglier stocks will give way to the more handsome.” He fails to mask his racism, despite his attempts to come across unbiased. The idea of mixing races is not offensive in itself, it can even be beautiful, as Vasconcelos describes it, and Peter Wade also concedes; a blended cosmic race of people with the greatest attributes of culture, beauty, warmth, love and spirituality sounds wonderful. What is enraging is the reason behind Vasconcelos’ desire to erase individual races, especially the “inferior” races, and by inferior, he means the Blacks, or dark-skinned. But why do these ‘inferior’ races need redemption at all? For what do they need to be forgiven? He’s also very fixated on the aspect of physical beauty. He repeats several times that the ugly should not procreate. He doesn’t fixate half as much on intelligence, or wisdom, or artistic abilities. Furthermore, even though he challenges the prevalent white supremacist racism, it is pointless and hardly revolutionary in my opinion, given his justifications for racism towards Blacks in the same breath. All along, he echoes the same sentiment over and over again: his people, the Mestizo Mexicans are better than the rest of the world. Which is funny, because at one instance he himself points out this fallacy, “Throughout history, every great nation has thought of itself as the final and chosen one.” Aren’t you guilty of doing the same here yourself, Vasconcelos?

The essay contains many contractions too. On one hand, he talks about how humanity “loses each time a race disappears by violent means”. But then suggests that we should systematically erase the Black physical features and unique indigenous cultures for a superior blended race.

Despite all that, I do agree with some sensible statements or arguments Vasconcelos proposes. Historically, the most “illustrious epochs of humanity” have definitely been those in which people from several different countries came into contact and intermingled. From the Greek, Roman and Indian civilizations of the past to the multicultural societies such as Canada, UK, Latin America of today, these are definitely more enriched in terms of culture and human experiences. And finally, this beautiful sentence he wrote, “Beyond good and evil, in a world of aesthetic pathos, the only thing that will matter will be that the act, being beautiful, shall produce joy. To do our whim, not our duty; to follow the path of taste, not of appetite or syllogism; to live joy grounded on love – such is the third stage.” An inconceivable yet magnificent future indeed.

Contrastingly, Peter Wade’s paper is very academic and balanced. But Wade’s paper is also written in 2005, so we maybe we shouldn’t be judging Vasconcelos as harshly for his opinions. Wade makes interesting points that reveal that the seemingly all-inclusive Mestizo identity that is marketed isn’t all that inclusive after all. Even mestizos who have black and indigenous heritage aren’t free from racial categorization. The elites and middles classes “want to re-establish the possibility of making hierarchical distinctions of race (and thus also class and region), distinctions which threaten to vanish if the process of mestizaje were really to reach its ideological goal of homogenisation”. Therefore, even though a unified mestizo-identity is supposed to eliminate racial hierarchy, it rarely achieves that goal. People are “constantly thinking in terms of roots and (racial) origins”.

While Vasconcelos describes mestizaje as different races coming together and blending to form an absolutely new and distinct identity from its sum parts, Wade describes a patchwork quilt. Each piece of the mixed race is separate and stand-alone; it’s a racial mosaic opposed to a Vasconcelos’ racial melting pot.

In conclusion, the best point overall was again made my Vasconcelos. That is a different thing that he himself failed to adhere to it.

Humanity “loses each time a race disappears by violent means”.

And for that reason, our individual identities, racial or cultural, shouldn’t be forgone in favour of a unified mixed identity.

The first reading was ‘The cosmic race’ by Vasconcelos. Well, I have to say this reading was kind of unsettling. I still don’t know how to feel about it. In the beginning it was intriguing me more and more and I found myself very interested in reading what the author had to say. He was talking about the legend of Atlantis, and was giving a quick broad picture of how different ‘races’ developed throughout history. I have always been drawn to the myth of Atlantis and already research more about it; I enjoyed reading about it even though the theories of its existence or non-existence still confuse me. I was also drawn to the style that Vasconcelos used: no citations, not looking like an academic paper like all the others we read in classes at UBC, the text very colloquial and seemed to be written straight out of his thoughts, which captures my attention more than just a plain list of proofed arguments. This of course means that he gave little evidence to the arguments he was proposing and that they were completely intuition-based, as it looks like to me. I am aware of the bias of the text and also about the way he was using racist terminology. He was contradicting himself by saying this ‘new, fifth race’ should rise from the ashes of the ‘old world’ and that everyone would be equal and rooted in love, and yet talking about other races very repugnantly, sometimes even insulting, and fully stereotype-based. Plus, putting his own race on top of any other, naming it the one destined to ‘breed’ or start the new final cosmic race of humanity.

After all we talked about, all this race talk unsettles me for sure. Of course we are different in looks and actions, but to me it seems more and more that race is purely an invention of eurocentric thought. We were just discussing this topic in my class of Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. It’s funny to see the hurt in the author’s words concerning the past and the current situation of humanity on this planet, and so trying to find a solution – but doesn’t he do exactly what he is talking against for? Isn’t he picking out a race out of all the others, even if still non-existing, and putting it on this utopian pedistal?

Of course the thought of this perfect amalgamated Earth pleases me and I think everyone else, because who would not want harmony and equality once and for all as the base for human life. As I said before, even if so utopic, and even if denigratory and racist as it might be, it sparked an idea inside of me that will for sure develop in further discussions and debates. Maybe we should point to the best, to the utopic (however not how Vasconcelo does), in order to unify all races on the planet. I think about this a lot, actually. However, let me continue to the second reading – I could not finish it for today but will update the blogpost as soon as I do.

Beginning with the Vasconcelos’ The Cosmic Race, the idea of a sort of post-racial society made up almost entirely by his “fifth race” or “Cosmic Race” seems desirable in theory.  To have a society in which people no longer feel the need to distinguish the race of others seems promising for the prospects of inclusion and peace in a society.  Yet, I have a couple with this concept.

First off, while the world may be moving very slowly in a post-racial direction, having a true single fifth race is just too idyllic for me to realistically embrace. I think that abolishing racial discrimination goes against human nature, since the construct of race is so deeply intertwined into various social structures.  Vasconcelos doesn’t really seem to face the feasibility of his dream (also he was writing in the 1920s???).

Second, even if the races were indeed to blend together, I think it would have unintended consequences for cultures and future cultural presentation.  I think the elimination of race would further the phenomenon of the cultural melting pot- an concept popularly associated with American culture.  In the melting pot theory, all different cultures are tossed in together to create one new blended culture with aspects of each “ingredient” culture.  Just as the races would blend together in Vasconcelo’s vision, I feel that culture too would blend together.  This idea of the cultural melting pot is popularly associated with the United States.  While we discussed in class how culture is a multi-faceted concept, in my mind I do associate it somewhat with race, even if subconsciously (that may be just me, I’m not sure).  Whether such a cultural blending would be a bad or good thing I think is up for debate- we talked in class about how some anthropologists may rally for the “preservation of culture” in order to maintain their jobs.

For the Wade reading, I thought that the way he described mestizaje as an “all inclusive ideology of exclusion” that is actually dependent on “the ideology of its excluded others” on page 243 was nicely nuanced.  Also makes me think about the United States, where popular culture has long borrowed from African American culture while the country has marginalized its black citizens (I’m thinking culture mainly in terms of music right now, particularly regarding the development of the Swing Era, rock n’ roll, and rap/hip hop/R&B).