The Spanish expression ('the people' or 'the community'; literal translation: 'the race') has historically been used to refer to the Hispanophone 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 of the Spanish colonizers with the indigenous populations of the Americas (some utilizations of the term include racial mixing with enslaved Africans brought there by the Atlantic slave trade). The term was in wide use in Latin America in the early-to-mid-20th century, but has gradually been replaced by . It remains in active use specifically in the context of Mexican-American identity politics in the United States (). History The term was in use by 1858 in local California newspapers such as El Clamor Publico by californios writing about and , and identifying as as the abbreviated term for their "membership in ". The shortened name of (now often, though not always, with a capitalized R) was used in 1939, when the feast day was celebrated in Zaragoza in combination with a special devotion to the (Our Lady of the Pillar). Chilean foreign vice-secretary Germán Vergara Donoso commented that the "profound significance of the celebration was the intimate inter-penetration of the homage to the Race and the devotion to Our Lady of the Pillar, i.e. the symbol of the ever more extensive union between America and Spain." Francisco Franco wrote a novel under the pen name "Jaime de Andrade" which was turned into the film Raza of 1942. It celebrates idealized "Spanish national qualities", and exemplifies this usage of as referring specifically to Spanish Roman Catholic heritage. In Central America and Mexico, emphasizes an Amerindian or heritage, or it may express Latino identity ( being taken as short for , following Vasconcelos). The Monumento a la Raza was inaugurated in Mexico City in 1940. La Raza metro station in Mexico City was inaugurated in 1978. The term (feminine ) likewise arose in the early 20th century as a designation of Mexicans. In the 1960s to 1970s, the term became associated with the Chicano Movement in relation to Mexican-American identity politics activism. In the United States, the terms and subsequently became closely associated. Various Hispanic groups in the United States still use the term. The Raza Unida Party was active as a political party representing Mexican-American racial identity politics in the 1970s.