Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos relate the question of Mexican nationalism-and the process of forging a nation-to more general considerations about nationalism and nation building.Scholars are keen to assert the overriding importance of nationalism in the modem world. Loyalty to nation, it is often said, exceeds loyalty to community, class, or, indeed, to any other "imagined community," be it religious, regional or political. "Of all the visions and faiths that compete for men's loyalties in the modern world," Anthony Smith observes, "the most widespread and persistent is the national ideal" (Smith 1979, 1; Connor 1978, 377). The ostensibly powerful Second International, committed to peace and workingclass solidarity, could not avert the First World War. Post-1918 nationalism nurtured fascism, while, in the wake of the Second World War, anticolonial nationalism transformed the political map of the Third World. As Clifford Geertz observed some twenty years ago: "Nationalism-amorphous, uncertainly focused, half-articulated, but for all that highly inflammable-is still the major collective passion in most new states, and in some it is virtually the only one" (Geertz 1993, 237). Thus the newly independent states of Asia and Africa readily adopted the norm of the nation-state-whose subsequent demise, at the hands of internationalist forces (be they nongovernment organizations or transnational companies), proved to be much exaggerated. If there was a threat to the nation-state, as constituted, it seemed to come from an insurgent "neonationalism" from within, which-in the shape of Basque, Occitanian, or Quebecois separatism-challenged nation-states whose "imagined community" had appeared to be powerfully and durably "imagined" (Smith 1979, chap. 6). Most recently, nationalism has proved a solvent not only of the Soviet bloc, but also of its fragile successor states; hence the savage bloodletting in erstwhile Yugoslavia or the Caucasus. Nationalism's prominent historical role has, of course, provoked abundant scholarship. Within this scholarship, however, Latin America has been somewhat neglected (Gellner 1987, 43; Smith 1983, preface; Anderson 1983, chap. 4 is an exception). The major comparative studies of nationalism-those which seek to present a compendious, comparative analysis of its genesis and character-are either Eurocentric, or, at least, Old World-centric (a neologism is clearly called for) (Breuilly ). Conversely, there are few broad studies of Latin American nationalism which engage with the mainstream literature.1 There are, of course, valuable 1. Masur 1966, is something of an exception. Konig 1979, offers a useful bibliographical resume. This content downloaded from ...

Indigenous myths and nation building in Latin America

“…Mexico is the classical example using Aztec and Maya Archaeology as a prime idea for national identity (The periodization of pre‐Hispanic times is divided into three stages: Preclassic 2500–200 bc : Classic 200 bc –900 ad and Post‐classic, 900 bc –1521). Another primordial idea of origin, involving indigenous peoples, is the myth of descent, the mestizo myth, the idealized union between male European and female indigenousness, whose influence has guided nation‐building policies throughout the twentieth century (Glantz, ; Knight, ; Lomnitz‐Adler ; Paz, ; Vasconcelos, , Gutierrez, ). Peruvian intellectuals and nationalists were prone to reject and exclude the pre‐Hispanic past from the nationalist imaginary, notwithstanding the splendid Archaeology of the Inca state or Tahuantisuyo (twelfth to sixteenth centuries). Frequent indigenous rebellions in the sixteenth century were reasons for rejecting and suppressing indigenous cultural revivals or admiration for the past.…”

The Movement That Dare Not Speak its Name: The Return of Left Nationalism/Internationalism

“…75 Similarly, Creole nationalisms in Latin America and the US South were based as much on white settlers maintaining property rights over conquered and enslaved peoples as about in dependence from their European-born rulers for whites born in the Western Hemisphere. 76 Second, the idea of the nation as "one and indivisible" led to oppression of internal minority nations, minority political views, and to cultural assimilation. Post-Revolution France waged a war against its many languages, disparagingly called patois, which the state considered "remnants of the barbarism of past ages."…”

Exploring Mexican Images of the United States

“…Since the mid-1980s, the primarily U.S.-educated elite in Mexico, led by Presidents Miguel de la Madrid (1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988), Carlos Salinas (1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994), and Ernesto Zedillo (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000), has dropped the historic anti-U.S. narrative of preceding governments and adopted a modernist narrative stressing Mexico's openness to the world. On Mexico's historic anti-Americanism see Basave (1992), Knight (1994), Smith (1996), and Turner (1968). This dramatic modulation rang particularly loud during the pro-NAFTA campaign in the early 1990s when the Salinas administration heralded a new era in the country's relationship with the United States, one free of the weight of nationalism and based on a new period of mutual respect.2 Supported at every turn by the U.S. government, national, and foreign business interests, and a giant lobbying apparatus, the ruling elite dismissed once official anti-American sentiments and postures as decidedly anachronistic.…”

“…The use of the male figure to represent the United States speaks to a gendered view of power, while the fact that the symbols tend to refer to the U.S. government, as opposed to the American people, lends support to the conclusions of Alan Knight (1994) and Turner (1968) that Mexicans are not necessarily xenophobic or negative toward the Americans, but rather directs anger or frustration toward the U.S. government. In some ways, the images reinforce the themes stressed earlier, while in other cases they add other dimensions or points of contrast.…”