 Similarly, in the southern part of the Western hemisphere, theorists such as José Vasconcelos and José Carlos Mariátegui were articulating specifically racialized forms of social identity with political implications (Vasconcelos 1925 [1997]; Mariátegui 1928 [1993]; Von Vacano 2011). For Vasconcelos, racial identities are the product of both biological and social forces, but racial rankings are simply tools of “imperialistic policy” to generate self-justification (Vasconcelos 1925 [1997, 33]). Vasconcelos was concerned to defend racial mixing, which was a practice widespread in Latin America and also the target of criticism by European intellectuals who justified their own superior ranking on the basis of claims to purity and unified cultural essences. Vasconcelos held that such claims ignore the fact that all races are in a constant process of interaction and mutual influence. Diversification improves humanity, he believed, and will eventually produce a more unified or cosmic race stronger than any “pure” race. Yet, while advocating in this way for mestizahe, or the mixing of races and cultures, Vasconcelos reproduced a new form of racial ranking in which “pure” blacks and Indians were ranked lower than mixed race peoples, or mestizos.