Mexicans use the term "race" (La Raza) in the same context that 19th Century Americans used the term "Anglo-Saxon Race".
To the Mexican, the term "La Raza" refers to the Mexican Mestizo "race" which had its origins sometime around 1515 A.D., given or take three years.
In 1511, fifteen Spanish sailors were shipwrecked in Yucatan and captured by the Mayan. A few were served for dinner, others died but two of them survived, including one Gonzalo Guerrero who became a military advisor to a Mayan chieftain and had married a rich Mayan woman and had had children with her.
When Cortez landed in Cozumel, he heard about these two Spanish survivors and sent messangers inviting them to join him. One survivor joined Cartez and became a translator. However, Guerrero declined saying, "Look at my beautiful children, look at my beautiful wife. And how could I ever go back to Spain looking as I do?" He'd been extensively tattooed by then, in recognition of his achievements on the battlefield.
Guerreos children were the first Mexican Mestizos (people of mixed European and indigenous non-European ancestry).
Today, Mexico's population is approximately 60% Mestizo, 30% pure Indian and 9% white.
The Mexicans consider the Mestizo to be "the Mexican race", consider Guerrero's children to be "the first Mexicans" and consider Guerrero to be "El Padre del Mestizaje".........literally, "The Father of the Mestizo Race".
Monument to Gonzalo Guerrero, his wife Ixpilotzma and their children, the first "Mexicans".
Regardless of the use of the term "race" in either a moder-day anthropological context or as a cultural heritage context, the fact remains that the opposition to illegal aliens is not based on race but on the fact that illegal aliens are making a mockery of our national core value of the Rule of Law.