José Vasconcelos: The Prophet of Race

Ilan Stavans

Published by Rutgers University Press 2011

José Vasconcelos

The Prophet of Race

Ilan Stavans

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813551043

Overview
Contents

About this book

Mexican educator and thinker Jose Vasconcelos is to Latinos what W.E.B. Du Bois is to African Americans a controversial scholar who fostered an alternative view of the future. In Josè Vasconcelos: The Prophet of Race, his influential 1925 essay, "Mestizaje" key to understanding the role he played in the shaping of multiethnic America—is for the first time showcased and properly analyzed. Freshly translated here by John H. R. Polt, "Mestizaje" suggested that the Brown Race from Latin America was called to dominate the world, a thesis embraced by activists and scholars north and south of the Rio Grande. Ilan Stavans insightfully and comprehensively examines the essay in biographical and historical context, and considers how many in the United States, especially Chicanos during the civil rights era, used it as a platform for their political agenda. The volume also includes Vasconcelos's long-forgotten 1926 Harris Foundation Lecture at the University of Chicago, "The Race Problem in Latin America," where he cautioned the United States that rejecting mestizaje in our own midst will ultimately bankrupt the nation.

Author / Editor information

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He is the general editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Culture and the author of classics such as The Hispanic Condition and Spanglish. Josè Vasconcelos (1882-1959) was a philosopher, a pedagogue, Mexico's secretary of education, and the founder and inaugural chancellor of U.N.A.M., Latin America's preeminent public institution of higher learning.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
The Prophet of Race Ilan Stavans Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Mestizaje José Vasconcelos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
The Race Problem in Latin America José Vasconcelos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Chronology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123

Languages: English, English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 142
Illustrations
- Other: 1

eBook

Published: May 7, 2011
ISBN: 9780813551043