La Raza

La Ra·za

 (lä rä′sä)

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).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.