Mexican Identity and the Death: Juan Rulfo’s “Diles que no me maten” and Carlos Fuentes’s “Chac Mool”

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Kyeong-Min Lee
Keyword(s):  
Mexican Identity

Paisanos Chinos

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredy González
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Language ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
Mexican Identity

Threatened by the violence of the anti-Chinese campaigns, Chinese Mexicans strengthened their ties to China as a way to safeguard their presence in the country. Paisanos Chinos illustrates the ways in which these transpacific ties helped Chinese Mexicans make a claim to belonging in Mexico and challenged traditional notions of Mexican identity and nationhood. From celebrating the end of the Second World War alongside Mexican neighbors, to carrying out an annual community pilgrimage to the Basílica de Guadalupe, Chinese Mexicans came from out of the shadows and sought to refute longstanding caricatures about the Chinese presence in the country. Using English-, Spanish-, and Chinese-language sources, Paisanos Chinos is the first work on Chinese Mexicans after 1940.

scholarly journals War-Time Portraits of the Gringo: American Invaders and the Manufacture of Mexican Nationalism

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Bruce Colcleugh
Keyword(s):  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The North ◽  
Mexican Nationalism ◽  
Political Pamphlets ◽  
The Way ◽  
Mexican Identity

Abstract The 1846 American invasion of Mexico sparked an intensely nationalist response among members of Mexico's Liberal and Conservative intelligentsia. This paper documents and analyzes that nationalist reaction. To rally the nation to the cause, Mexican intellectuals constructed and presented to the Mexican masses frightful, negative caricatures and stereotypes of the invading Americans. An abject race of vile and perfidious usurpers, Anglo-Saxon invaders were, the intelligentsia warned, intent upon the spoliation of Mexico and the enslavement of her people. If not stopped by a vigorous prosecution of the war, they warned, the greedy and cruel heretics from the north would soon descend over the whole nation, raping Mexico's daughters along the way and desecrating her holy shrines. Disseminated through newspapers, political pamphlets and broadsides, it was against such caricatures that the allegedly positive features of the Mexican identity were defined and delineated. Against the dark and fiendish stereotypes of the Americans stood, in stark and powerful contrast, the moral and benevolent Mexicans. Where the American caricature evoked the dreadful image of a marauding, degenerate infidel, the Mexican portraiture called forth the equally evocative image of an upright, generous defender. While the Americans fought because of their greed, the Mexicans, it was maintained, resisted for the honour of their families, their Church and their motherland.

Octavio Paz: The Search for Mexican Identity

1982 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Hoy
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Octavio Paz ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Jose Vasconcelos ◽  
Mexican Nationalism ◽  
Intellectual Revolution ◽  
Mexican Philosophy ◽  
Mexican Identity

The question of national identity has been a central theme in Mexican thought since the Revolution of 1910. The writings of Octavio Paz, one of Mexico's most prominent literary figures, are an important and provocative locus for this question. The contribution of Paz to an analysis of Mexican identity must be seen in the broader context of an intellectual revolution in Mexico. This began in the late 1920's and was directed against the prevailing philosophical romanticism represented by Antonio Caso and Jose Vasconcelos. This was, in part, a protest against the anti-intellectualism inherent in an “aesthetic-intuitive” approach of these writers. But it was also the demand for a philosophical perspective more relevant to an emerging Mexican nationalism already being articulated in literature and art. The writings of the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset were of crucial importance in influencing Mexican philosophy towards realism. The key concept taken from Ortega was that of “historical perspectivism”: the view that reality cannot be grasped independently of the point of view from which it is being observed. Perspectives do not distort reality; they constitute it. Philosophy, then, is changed from something abstract and eternal to something concrete and historical. Ortega's historical perspectivism became the inspiration for Mexican thinkers who wished to develop a national philosophy and a concept of “Mexicanidad.”

scholarly journals Corridos, Tequila (and others), and Mexican/Chicano Masculinity

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Amaia Ibarraran-Bigalondo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Symbol ◽  
Life Issues ◽  
Mexican Identity

The Mexican corrido is one of the most popular cultural manifestations both in the United States and Mexico. From its origins in the mid-nineteenth century, the corrido has dealt with “people’s stuff,” such as war, love, honor, immigration and/or belonging to a land, among other everyday life issues. The corrido is, in short, a symbol of identity and belonging, and can be considered a marker of the Mexican identity on both sides of the border. In this sense, it is to be expected that the corrido, as an expression of “people’s stuff,” voices the relevance of a “national” symbol. In the same way, tequila is regarded, at least internationally, as directly related to “lo mexicano/chicano,” and in many cases also to Mexican/Chicano masculinity. Starting from this premise, the aim of this article is to observe the presence of tequila and its significance as a symbol of “lo mexicano/chicano” in the work of Los Tigres del Norte, one of the most prominent corrido bands, both locally and internationally.

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