# La Raza

In Mexico, the Spanish expression la raza ('the people'; literally: 'the race') has historically been used to refer to the mixed-race populations (primarily though not always exclusively in the Western Hemisphere), considered as an ethnic or racial unit historically deriving from the Spanish Empire, and the process of racial intermixing during the Spanish colonization of the Americas with the Indigenous populations of the Americas. The term was not widely used in Hispanic America in the early-to-mid-20th century but has been redefined and reclaimed in Chicanismo and the United Farm Worker organization since 1968. It still remains in active use specifically in the context of Mexican-American identity politics in the United States (see Chicano).