Bronze race is a term used by early 20th century Latin American writers of the indigenista

Indigenismo

Indigenismo is a Latin American idea and movement pressing for a greater social and political role for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the revindication of indigenous rights and including compensation for past wrongdoings of the colonial and republican states...

and americanista schools to refer to the mestizo

Mestizo

Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

 population that arose in America with the arrival of European (particularly Spanish) colonists and their intermingling with the New World's indigenous Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 peoples.

Mexican poet Amado Nervo

Amado Nervo

Amado Nervo also known as Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo was the Mexican Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay, journalist, poet, and educator. His poetry was known for its use of metaphor and reference to mysticism, presenting both love and religion, as well as Christianity and Hinduism...

 wrote "La Raza de Bronce" ("The Bronze

Bronze (color)

At right is displayed the color bronze.Bronze is a medium brown color which resembles the actual alloy bronze.The first recorded use of bronze as a color name in English was in 1753...

 Race") as an elegiac poem in honor of former president Benito Juárez

Benito Juárez

Benito Juárez born Benito Pablo Juárez García, was a Mexican lawyer and politician of Zapotec origin from Oaxaca who served five terms as president of Mexico: 1858–1861 as interim, 1861–1865, 1865–1867, 1867–1871 and 1871–1872...

 in 1902. Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

n indigenista writer Alcides Arguedas

Alcides Arguedas

Alcides Arguedas was a Bolivian writer and historian.-Background and political and diplomatic roles:He was born in La Paz, where he studied law and political science. He later studied sociology in Paris and represented his country at several diplomatic missions in both Europe and America...

 used the term in his 1919 work, La Raza de Bronce, a study of the natives of the Andean altiplano

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

. It was later used by Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 luminary José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos Calderón was a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of "indigenismo" affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic...

 in La Raza Cósmica (1925).

The term was revived in the 1960s by Chicano

Chicano

The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...

 ethnic group MEChA

MEChA

M.E.Ch.A. is an organization that seeks to promote Chicano unity and empowerment through political action. The acronym of the organization's name is the Spanish word mecha, which means "fuse"...

 to refer to Latino

Latino

The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...

s 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

Chicano

The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...

 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

Plan Espiritual de Aztlán

The Plan Espiritual de Aztlán is a manifesto advocating Chicano nationalism and self-determination for Mexican Americans...

 document.

See also

• Brown people
  Brown people
  Brown people or brown race is a political, racial, ethnic, societal, and cultural classification, similar to black people and white people. Like these, it is a metaphor for race based on human skin color, reflecting the fact that there are shades of skin colour intermediate between "Mediterranean" ...
  
  
• Cosmic race
  La Raza Cósmica
  Published in 1925, La Raza Cósmica is an essay written by late Mexican philosopher, secretary of education, and 1929 presidential candidate, José Vasconcelos to express the ideology of a future "fifth race" in the Americas; an agglomeration of all the races in the world with no respect to color or...