José Vasconcelos

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José Vasconcelos (28 February 1882, Oaxaca, Oaxaca – 30 June 1959, Mexico City) was a Mexican writer, thinker and politician of Native American and Portuguese ancestry. He married Serafina Miranda of Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca in 1906.

1 Life
2 Quotation
3 Publications
4 See also
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Life

After graduating as a lawyer from the Escuela de Jurisprudencia in Mexico City (1905), he represented the Anti-Reelection Club in Washington, D.C., USA, and supported the Mexican Revolution of 1910 headed by Francisco I. Madero. Later, after a brief period of exile in the United States following a disagreement with Venustiano Carranza (1915–20), he returned and directed the National University of Mexico (1920) and created the Ministry of Public Education. He served as the first Secretary of Public Education under Álvaro Obregón (1920–25). From that position he worked in favour of the education of the masses and oriented the nation's education efforts along secular, civic, and pan-American (americanista) lines. He ran for president in 1929 but lost to Pascual Ortiz Rubio and again left the country. He later directed the National Library (1940) and presided over the Mexican Institute of Hispanic Culture (1948). Although an important figure in the history of Mexico's intellectualism, he is now recognized as an antisemite and Nazi sympathizer <ref>http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:j7kFKIKCBqgJ:cvc.cervantes.es/obref/aih/pdf/04/aih_04_1_018.pdf+jose+vasconcelos+judios&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=safari</ref> , as well as anti-US, anti-British and anti-Slav. Vasconcelos also had negative views of Asians and indigenous people of Mexico ; however, unlike the eugenics movement and the Nazis, Vasconcelos believed in racial mixing and assimilation as a means to eliminate what he deemed as undesirable groups, rather than segregation, ostracism, or genocide. <ref>http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:oL1pIlvZfvcJ:ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Anthropology/21A-240Spring2004/E10B4055-14A6-4B16-B32C-2F4BC874F203/0/lecnotes_03_11.pdf+jose+vasconcelos+jews&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=12&client=safari</ref>. While Vasconcelos' concept of La Raza, based on miscegenation or assimilation of minority groups percieved to be undesirable, was arguably more progressive than widely held attitudes in the USA at the time, his advocacy of destroying the culture of indigenous peoples might be considered cultural genocide by some today.

[edit] Quotation

"Hitler, although he disposes of absolute power, finds himself a thousand leagues from Caesarism. Power does not come to Hitler from the military base, but from the book that inspires the troops from the top. Hitler's power is not owed to the troops, nor the batallions. but to his own discussions...Hitler represents, ultimately, an idea, the German idea, so often humiliated previously by French militarism and English perfidy. Truthfully, against Hitler we find civilian governed 'democracies' fighting. But they are democracies in name only". ("La Inteligencia se impone," Timon No. 16, 8 June 1940)