Paper short abstract:

The first eugenics movement categorized non-Caucasians human beings as second class. José Vasconcelos, Mexican philosopher, contested this idea by proposing the creation of a new race “The Cosmic Race” as a way to bring national identity to the post-revolutionary Mexico; and to refute eugenics and racism.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to present and contextualize one of the first American philosophical counter-arguments against racism in the context of the first eugenics movements. From late nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century eugenic supporters, movements and policies proliferated through Europe and America. The allegedly "scientific" research, and results, on the differences between races gave racism a "scientific" foundation that was largely embraced by conservative policy makers. In some places, like the United Sates, laws were tailor made in accordance with these "scientific" results; prohibiting interracial marriages, supporting sterilization and restricting formal education to certain racial groups. Mexico and Latin America were no strangers to the influence of eugenics and therefore racism; nonetheless the political and intellectual situation in Mexico, particularly with the Mexican Revolution of 1910, filtered in a very peculiar way the ideas of the eugenics movements. José Vasconcelos argued against a strong version of eugenics that regarded that Caucasians were at the top of the scale, and claimed in favour of the emergence of a new race "The Cosmic Race". The intention behind the emergence of this new race had two goals: the first one was to make race a materialization of Mexican national identity and the second one was to prove that traditional eugenics and racism were clearly mistaken.