Orienting the Occident Italian Travel and Migrant Writing in Mexico (1890-1932)

Abstract

This article addresses a comparatively neglected corpus of Italian travel and migrant writing in Mexico, ranging from Luigi Bruni’s Attraverso il Messico (1890) to Emilio Cecchi’s Messico (1932). It does so from the methodological angle of nation-making and through the seemingly counter-intuitive prism of Italian Orientalism(s). This article focuses on two key moments of both Italian and Mexican history: Post-Unification/Porfiriato and Ventennio/Post-Revolution. The discussion revolves around the problematization of the construction of an Otherized subalternity as a way for the emerging elites to discursively develop and circulate their worldview.