America as a Base of Regeneration and Cohesion for a Plural Spain: “Hispanic Race” and October 12th, Sources of a Composite Spanish Identity

Abstract

This study analyzes how the American myth contributed to the construction of the imagined Spanish identity during the Bourbon Restoration. While Spain lost its status of colonial power in America and underwent an identity crisis at the end of the 19^th century, the rising Spanish Americanist movement revitalized the myth of the “Hispanic Race” as a substrate of an imagined, presumably cohesive national community. Strengthened by the expansion of the Americanist associations in the outer regions of Spain, the revival of the imperial dream took shape particularly in the politics of memory carried out at that time. Celebrated for the first time in 1892, the anniversary of the Discovery of America became “Día de la Raza” and a national symbol during the 1910s. Like other Americanist commemorations that arose in those years, the annual celebrations of October 12^th served as a stimulus for the nation, which was obsessed by the fear of social fragmentation. Besides, they helped to redefine the contours of the collective identity. Therefore, America became a base for the regeneration and the national cohesion of Spain. The progressive implementation of the “Día de la Raza” (Spanish National Day), advocated by several pioneer collectives of Catalonia, Andalusia and Spanish America, reveals that they had the ambition to offer the plural Spain a common and positive narrative. In other words, the events organized that day over all Spanish territories, as well as the myth associated to it, aimed at reuniting the multiple references (local, regional, national and even pan-hispanic) which have been important in generating the imagined Spanish identity.