This article illuminates why Nicolás Palacios’s 1904 monograph, Raza chilena: Libro escrito por un Chileno i para los Chilenos [Chilean Race: A Book Written by a Chilean for Chileans], is central to the creation of a myth of Chilean racial homogeneity at the turn of the twentieth century. Placing Palacios in the context of Latin American eugenic discourse, it demonstrates how he selected a specific racial origin story in order to accommodate his belief in racial hierarchy while also depicting race mixing in a positive light. Specifically, the article highlights how the myth of Chilean racial homogeneity elided the difference between the term “mestizo,” which was applied to people of mixed racial heritage, and “white.” I contend that Palacios sought to differentiate Chileans from other Latin Americans by emphasizing their racial distinctiveness. The article therefore highlights that Latin American eugenics was concerned with the creation of national narratives that historicized particular racial mixtures in order to reify and affirm national differences. As such, it connects to literature regarding the history of eugenics, race, nation, and the creation of whiteness.
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César Leyton;
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Santiago/Chile on wheels. Three distinctions to help understand how automobiles have impacted Latin American cities (1900--1950)
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Walsh, Sarah Irene;
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Reason and Faith: A Study of Interwar Chilean Eugenic Discourse, 1900--1950
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Sarah Walsh;
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The executioner’s shadow: Coerced sterilization and the creation of “Latin” eugenics in Chile
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Eden Medina;
Ivan da Costa Marques;
Christina Holmes;
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Avatares de la medicalización en América latina 1870-1970
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“An absolutely Chilean institution”. Línea Aérea Nacional, Chile (1929–45)
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Big Blue in the Bottomless Pit: The Early Years of IBM Chile
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R.A. Fisher, eugenics, and the campaign for family allowances in interwar Britain
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Hoßfeld, Uwe;
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Carlos López-Beltrán;
Eduardo Restrepo;
Ricardo Ventura Santos;
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Genomic Research, Publics and Experts in Latin America: Nation, Race and Body
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Vivette García-Deister;
Carlos López-Beltrán;
Ricardo Ventura Santos;
Ernesto Schwartz-Marín;
Peter Wade;
(2015)
Building the Genomic Nation: ‘Homo Brasilis’ and the ‘Genoma Mexicano’ in Comparative Cultural Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB543686037/)
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