[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).]