360 To the River Plate and Back 



only in small degree the perpetuation of the Latin 

 race. It would be far more correct from the stand- 

 point of the ethnologist to speak of these peoples 

 as Iberian Americans, if some comprehensive term, 

 pointing back to their origin, is required. 



But while the process of racial amalgamation has 

 been going on, there has also been going on a process of 

 differentiation. The population of South America is 

 not homogeneous. There are distinctions observable, 

 which have their root in the past. There are racial 

 distinctions which make themselves manifest. There 

 are historical traditions and points of view which are 

 radically different. These republics are, as they claim 

 to be, nations, and not states, such as those of the 

 American Union in North America. The provinces of 

 the South American republics correspond to our states. 

 In each of these Iberian American republics a distinct 

 national consciousness has been evolved. The Argen- 

 tine is proud that he is an Argentine, the Chileno that 

 he is a Chileno, the Brazilian that he is a Brazilian. 

 With the lapse of time this national consciousness will 

 be deepened and intensified, and in the lapse of time 

 the commingling of blood will go further than it has 

 yet gone. To-day in Argentina the population is 

 becoming most complex, every race and people under 

 the sun is being melted into the human mass. But is 

 not this precisely what is taking place in the United 

 States of North America? 



The reader must be cautioned not to conclude from 

 what has been said that the process of racial amalgama- 

 tion has been absolutely universal, and that there is 

 no remnant left among the descendants of the early 

 settlers who are of pure Spanish or Portuguese extrac- 

 tion. Just as in the United States there survives an 



