IV.1.3 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 1061603
This landmark essay on Mexican American culture by Mexico-born, California-reared, anthropologist and writer Octavio Ignacio Romano (1923–2005) disavows the widely held notion of Mexican Americans as a homogeneous monolith. Romano draws on Mexican history as well as on pervasive ideological currents in Mexican American society including: Indianism, confrontation and its multiple manifestations, mestizo-based cultural nationalism, and manifold immigrant experiences. Ultimately, Romano underscores the demands of living in-between the United States and Mexico. Moreover, he stresses the Mexican American invention of innovative, plural (and even subversive) forms of culture. Widely considered a programmatic document for Chicano studies, the Berkeley-trained Romano was equally influential in his founding of two of the most important vehicles for the widespread dissemination of pioneering Mexican American and early Chicano thought: a publishing house, Quinto Sol Publications (founded at Berkeley in 1967), and El Grito. A Journal of Contemporary Mexican American Thought (issued by Quinto Sol from 1967 through 1971). This essay first appeared in El Grito [(Berkeley: Quinto Sol), vol. II, no. 2 (Winter 1969): 32–46].
DURING AND FOLLOWING THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION OF 1910, it is estimated that one of every ten people left the country. Some went to Spain, some to France, some went to Cuba, to Guatemala, but most went north to the United States. Among those who went to the North were printers, poets, civil servants, merchants, farmers, school teachers, campesinos, musicians, bartenders, blacksmiths, jewelers, carpenters, cowboys, Mestizos, village Indians, religious people, atheists, infants, mothers, Masons, counter-revolutionaries, philosophers.
Among those who went north was José Vasconcelos who later became Secretary of Education in Mexico. So did Martín Luis Guzman, author of the classic novel of the Revolution, El Aguila y la Serpiente. Adolfo de la Huerta started the rebellion in northwest Mexico, was Provisional President (1920), and persuaded Pancho Villa to settle on the Canutillo Ranch. Huerta finally fled to Los Angeles, California, worked there as a singing instructor, and later returned to Mexico. Another northern migrant was José María Maytorena, governor of Sonora, supporter of Madero, follower of Villa, who finally ended up in California. Ramón Puente was a doctor, teacher, journalist and writer in the Villa army. Following Villa’s defeat, Puente left for the United States. Along with the others, these men were among the great number of people who became the “immigrants” and “refugees” from the Mexican Revolution. In the words of Ernesto Galarza: “As civil war spread over the republic after 1911 a major exodus from the countryside began. Landowners fled to the large cities, principally the capital, followed by hundreds of thousands of refugees who could find no work. This was one of the two great shifts that were to change radically population patterns, until then overwhelmingly rural. The other current was in the direction of the United States, now accessible by rail. It moved in the dilapidated coaches with which the Mexican lines had been equipped by their foreign builders, in cabooses fitted with scant privacy, on engine tenders and on flat cars for the steerage trade. “A la capital o al norte” (to Mexico City or to the border) became the alternatives for the refugees from the crossfires of revolution.1
In the North they worked on the railroad, in the clearing of mesquite, in fish canneries, tomato fields, irrigation, and all other such work that became so drearily familiar to the people living in the colonias [neighborhoods]. At the same time, for many, the Mexican Revolution was still fought in the barrios in the United States, as described by José Antonio Villarreal in his novel, Pocho: “The man who died under the bridge that night had no name. Who he was, where he came from, how he lived—these things did not matter, for there were thousands like him at this time. This particular man had fought in the army of General Carrillo, who, in turn, was one of the many generals in the Revolution. And, like thousands of unknown soldiers before and after him, this man did not reason, did not know; [he] had but a vague idea of his battle. Eventually there was peace, or a lull in the fighting, and he escaped with his wife and children and crossed the border to the North.”2
Not only did an attenuated version of the Revolution continue in the North, with plot and counterplot, avoidance and memories of hate, but there also continued the ideas, the intellectualizations, and the philosophies of the day. In the Northern colonias, as was happening in Mexico, people still discussed and argued over the relative merits of Indianist philosophies, of Historical experience and Confrontations, and about the philosophical and historical significance of the Mestizo. These relevant philosophies became a part of the common poetry readings of those days in the barrios. They also appeared in the colonia newspapers of the day, in stage and other dramatic presentations, in the music of the trumpet and guitars, in schools of Mexican culture, in the rationales and goals of the autonomous labor unions as well as in the constitutions and by-laws of the sociedades mutualistas. In some cases, the ideas had been transplanted from Mexico. In others, they were merged with pre-existent philosophies among the Mexican descended people already in the United States. And through it all, they continued the human quest and the conflict between Nationalistic Man and Universal Man, between Activist Man and Existential Man, Cleric and Anti-Cleric, Mutualist, Classical Anarchist,3 Nihilist Man, Agrarian and Urban Man, Indian Man, and Mestizo.
These are the principal historical currents of thought that have gone into the making of the mind of el mexicano, the “refugee,” el cholo, the Pocho, the Chicano, Pachuco, the Mexican-American. They have their roots in history and currently appear in three main steams of thought—Indianist Philosophy, Historical Confrontation and the philosophically transcendental idea of the Mestizo in the form of Cultural Nationalism. These are philosophies, styles of thought, ideas as they persist over time. At times, they coincide with actual historical occurrences. Other times they lie relatively dormant, or appear in a poetic metaphor, a song, a short story told to children, or in a marriage pattern. These philosophies were articulated in the post-Díaz days in Mexico and in the days of the Revolution.
The ideologies and philosophies that gave air to the smoldering fires of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 were pluralistic, reflecting the composition of Mexico at that time. Many worldviews, numerous projected plans, desires of power, and historical precedents all contributed to this fiery outburst that led to untold human agonies, an attempted reconstruction, and a massive exodus. In the Labyrinth of Solitude, the philosopher-poet Octavio Paz attempted bravely to deal with these crisscross currents in their historical relation to the present. His published effort resulted in a somewhat Quixotic quest for THE Mexican—el Puro Mexicano,—a quest that fluttered between the two extremes of National Man and Universal Man. What emerged from his search were NOT only masks, as Paz insisted in the Freudian-esque overtones of his work. Instead, what emerged from his search were but different lifestyles which represented different historical trends, a variety of individual experiences, multiple intellectual currents—in short, Many Mexicans, just as today there are Many Mexican-Americans. Quite often, this seemingly endless multiplicity represents many men. Equally often, it represents every man.
In 1926, José Vasconcelos—former Secretary of Education in Mexico—wrote: “The struggle of the Latin American revolutionist is the struggle of democratic European ideas to impose themselves upon the Oriental indigenous type of despotism.”4 Vasconcelos condensed his notions into the “philosophy of the Ibero-American Race,” having its origins in an ethnically pluralistic Spain, transplanted into an equally pluralistic Mexico, reinforced by the universalistic components of the Catholic faith, and ultimately manifested in the Mestizo—genetic assimilation with European ideology integrated into the contemporary Mexico of his day.5 The heart of his argument, of course, was that ideas invariably supersede the biological imperatives of miscegenation. Therefore, if miscegenation was the best vehicle for advancing pre-existing ideas, then such a course was desirable for Mexico. In all this process he envisioned “. . . the hope that the Mestizo will produce a civilization more universal in its tendency than any other race in the past.”6
This was not the only view that depicted the thought currents of the time. Octavio Paz has also written: “The Revolution had antecedents, causes, motives, but in a profound sense it lacked precursors. . . . The Revolution began as a demand for truth and honesty in the government, as can be seen in the Plan de San Luis (October 5, 1910). Gradually the movement found and defined itself, in the midst of the battle and later when in power. Its lack of a set program gave it popular authenticity and originality. The fact accounts for both its greatness and its weaknesses.”7 Then, “The revolution, without any doctrines (whether imported or its own) to guide it, was an explosion of reality and a groping search for the universal doctrine that would justify it and gave it a place in the history of America and the world.”8 Finally, “Our movement was distinguished by a lack of any previous ideological system and by a hunger for land.”9
The views of Vasconcelos and those of Paz reflect two major trends of thought at the time of the Revolution. First, there was the articulation of the desire to emulate pre-existent ideologies, i.e., el Mestizaje. Second, there was the desire to do autonomously, to confront, and then to articulate. Both ultimately envisioned something uniquely Mexican in its final outcome, a new synthesis. There was a third trend, the Zapata movement. This movement was a form of Indianism as intellectualized largely by the school teacher Montaño, a pure Indian. According to Vasconcelos, “There was a time when the European dress was not allowed in the Zapata territory; and those Mexicans of white Spanish skin that happened to join the Zapata armies had to adopt the dress and the manner of the Indian, in a certain way had to become Indianized before they could be accepted.”10 As Paz describes it, “The Zapatistas did not conceive of Mexico as a future to be realized but as a return to origins.”11 It seemed almost as if a star had exploded long before, and only now could they see its light.
The Zapatista-Indianist philosophy, the Historical Confrontation, and the philosophy of the Mestizo were the three dominant philosophies of Revolutionary Mexico. Sometimes elements of one trend of thought would blend with another, as did the Indianist with Historical Confrontation. But when this took place it was in a complementary fashion, and not at the expense of the ideological premises that were guiding each chain of thought. In the same manner, any given individual could ally himself with any of the three philosophies in the course of his life, or shift from one to the other depending on surrounding circumstances, just as was the case with the “Whites” who joined the Zapatista Indian forces. In short, the three ideological currents actually gave individuals alternatives from which to choose. These alternatives, in turn, represented relatively new historical manifestations at the turn of the century—cumulative changes that had been taking place in Mexico. They represented, therefore, the historical development of thought and not the rigid, unbending, and unchanging Traditional Culture so commonly and uncritically accepted in current sociological treatises that deal with people of Mexican descent. At the same time, these three alternatives also made it possible for individual people, even families, to be living three histories at once, a fact that escaped Paz when he accepted the notion of the Freudian-esque masks.
In any event, when the time came for people to change locale and move to the United States, this was but another in a long series of changes that had been taking place.
It is this complexity of thought and its many individual manifestations that made so popular the saying, “Each man is an island.” For multiple histories could hardly have done other than breed complex people and equally complex families. It is this complexity, actually pluralism, that was transferred with the “refugees” and the “immigrants” to the North and which appeared in the colonies and barrios. This complexity was condensed in the recent poem by Rodolfo Gonzales of Denver, Colorado, titled “I am Joaquin” [1967]. Just who is this Joaquin? Joaquin is Cuauhtémoc, Cortés, Nezahualcóyotl of the Chichimecas. Joaquin is Spaniard, Indian, Mestizo, the village priest Hidalgo, Morelos, Guerrero, Don Benito Juárez, Zapata, Yaqui, Chamula, Tarahumara, Diaz, Huerta, Francisco I. Madero, Juan Diego, Alfego Baca, the Espinoza brothers, Murrieta. Joaquin is slave. Joaquin is master. Joaquin is exploiter, and he is the exploited. Joaquin is corridos, Latino, Hispano, Chicano. Joaquin is in the fields, suburbs, mines, and prisons. Joaquin’s body lies under the ground in Mexico. His body lies under the ground in the United States, and in the “hills of the Alaskan Isles, on the corpse-strewn beach of Normandy, the foreign land of Korea, and now, Viet Nam.”12 Joaquin is many men. Joaquin is every man.
The ideas that were, and are, present wherever people of Mexican descent live involve the Indianist philosophy, Historical Confrontation, and Cultural Nationalism. Now, to the three currents of thought manifested historically there was added a fourth, the Immigrant Experience.
Indianism has never been a focus or a rallying cry for action among Mexican-Americans as was Indigenism during the War for Independence and the Revolution in Mexico. Yet, symbolically, the Indian penetrates throughout, and permeates major aspects of Mexican-American life, and hardly a barrio exists that does not have someone who is nicknamed “El Indio,” or “Los Indios.” For decades, Mexican-American youth have felt a particularly keen resentment at the depiction of Indians in American movies, while Indian themes consistently have been common subject matter for the neighborhoods’ amateur artists, a fact that may be called an anachronism by some or the dislodging of history by others. On occasion, los matachines13 still make their Indian appearance in churches, and Aztec legends still pictorially tell and retell their stories in barrio living rooms, in kitchens, in bars, restaurants, tortillerías, and Chicano newspapers. The stem face of Don Benito Juárez still peers out of books, still surveys living rooms, and still takes a place of prominence in many Sociedad Mutualista halls and in the minds of men throughout the Southwest. Small wonder, then, that several hundred years after the totally indigenous existence of Mexico reference is still made to these roots and origins in the Mexican-American community. Small wonder, also, that thousands of miles away from the Valley of Mexico, in contemporary Denver, Rodolfo Gonzales utilizes recurrent Indian themes in his poetic work. At the same time, such is found in the wall paintings at the Teatro Campesino center in Del Rey, California, and Indian art and life are common subject matter in such newspapers as Bronze, La Raza, El Gallo, as well as others.
Chichimeca, Azteca, Indio, Don Bento Juárez, Emiliano Zapata y Montaño; in art, prose, poetry, religion, and in Mexican-American study programs initiated by Mexican-Americans themselves in colleges, universities, and high schools, the presence of the Indian is manifested. It hardly need be added that the Indian is also manifested in the faces of so many Mexican-Americans. The Indian is root and origin, past and present, virtually timeless in his barrio manifestations—a timeless symbol of opposition to cultural imperialism.
The philosophy of confrontations has had thousands of manifestations, from the retelling in an isolated corrido to protest demonstrations by thousands of people of Mexican descent in the United States. It, too, has an old history that in the North began with personages such as Joaquín Murrieta, Alfego Baca, the Espinoza brothers, and Pancho Villa. Memories of these manifestations spread widely, as attested to by Enrique Hank Lopez when he wrote about his childhood in the United States: “. . . Pancho Villa’s exploits were a constant topic of conversation in our household. My entire childhood seems to be shadowed by his presence. At our dinner table, almost every night, we would listen to endlessly repeated accounts of this battle, that stratagem, or some great act of Robin Hood kindness by el centauro del norte. I remember how angry my parents were when they saw Wallace Beery in Viva Villa! “Garbage by stupid Gringos,” they called it. They were particularly offended by the sweaty, unshaven sloppiness of Beery’s portrayal.”14
Confrontationist philosophy continued with the labor protest movement among people of Mexican descent in the United States, which at one time became manifest in eight different states and which now has lasted for over eighty-five years. It also has taken other forms, such as the Pachuco [zoot suit man] who extended the notion of confrontation to a perpetual and daily activity with his own uniform and his own language. The Pachuco movement was one of the few truly separatist movements in American history. Even then, it was singularly unique among separatist movements in that it did not seek or even attempt a return to roots and origins. The Pachuco indulged in a self-separation from history, created his own reality as he went along even to the extent of creating his own language. This is the main reason why Octavio Paz, digging as he did into history in search for the “true Mexican,” felt it necessary to “put down” the Pachuco. By digging into history for answers, Paz was forced to exclude people who had separated themselves from history, especially Mexican history. Thus, in denying the Mexican-ness of the Pachuco, Paz denied the Mexican aspect of the processes that went into his creation. That is why Paz ended up by making the Pachuco into a caricature akin to a societal clown, for it was only by doing so that he could enhance the notion of “el puro mexicano” in his own mind. It is unfortunate that Paz chose to ignore the trend of thought represented by the famous, disillusioned, existential poet of Mexico, Antonio Plaza, who wrote in typical fashion: “Es la vida un enjambre de ilusiones / a cuyo extremo están los desengaños.”15 Had Paz chosen to acknowledge Plaza, and the philosophical trend he represented in his Mexican, existential, self-separation from history, then perhaps he would have understood a little about the Pachuco. For the Pachuco, too, separated himself from history, and in doing so became transformed into Existential Man. And, like existential man everywhere, he too was brutally beaten down.
The language of the confrontationist philosophy has been Spanish, English, Pocho, or Pachuco. Almost always, it has addressed itself to an immediate situation spanning the social environment from rural to urban. Normally, it has been regional or local in its manifestations. On different occasions, the confrontationist philosophy has been self-deterministic, protectionist, nationalistic, reacting to surrounding circumstances, and existentialist. The present Chicano movement has incorporated all of these alternatives in its various contemporary manifestations, making it one of the most complex movements in the history of Mexican-Americans.
Having been a recurrent theme in Mexican-American history, like that of Indianism, the confrontationist philosophy also makes up a part of study programs initiated by Mexican-Americans in colleges, universities, and high schools. Like Indianism, it is a history that has yet to be written in its entirety.
“Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo.”16 In Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and other states, symbols of Mexican and Mexican-American culture can be seen. Invariably, in one way or another, these symbols are associated with the Mestizos—present descendants of untold Mexican descendants and reduplicated in an ever-expanding northern arc. Different people have known them as mexicanos, cholos, pochos, México-Norteamericanos, Chicanos, Mexican-Americans. Viewed as a group, they comprise a pluralistic minority within a pluralistically divided nation. They speak Spanish, or English, or both in a great variety of combinations.
The Mestizo-based notion of Cultural Nationalism is prominent among them. But this cultural nationalism is of a very particular kind, un-American in a sense, and considerably unlike the rampant ethnocentrism with its traditional xenophobia (commonly called self-interest) that has been so characteristic of ethnic groups in the United States.
The fiestas patrias, the characteristic foods, the music, the sociedades mutualistas, and all of the other by-products of culture that people write about, are simply appurtenances to more profound conceptualizations regarding the nature and the existence of man. Generally, as a group, Mexican-Americans have been virtually the only ethnic group in the United States that still systematically proclaims its Mestizaje—multiple genetic and cultural origins exhibiting multiplicity rather than seeking purity. Philosophically and historically this has manifested itself in a trend toward Humanistic Universalism, Behavioral Relativism, and a recurrent form of Existentialism, this last of which is often naïvely and erroneously interpreted as fatalism.
The Indianist views, the Confrontationist Philosophy, and Cultural Nationalism with its Mestizaje-based Humanist Universalism, Behavioral Relativism, and Existentialism, when related to the types of people who have immigrated from Mexico, those born in the United States, as well as people of Mexican descent who were residents in conquered Western lands, all give some glimmer of the complexity of this population, especially when one views it internally from the perspectives of multiple philosophies regarding the existence and nature of Mexican-American man. For, in truth, just as “el puro mexicano” does not exist, neither does “the pure Mexican-American,” despite the massive efforts by social scientists to fabricate such a mythical being under the monolithic label of the “Traditional Culture,” rather than the more realistic concept of multiple histories and philosophies.
This multiplicity of historical philosophies, to a considerable degree, represents a continuation of the pluralism that existed in Mexico during the Revolution, undergoing modifications and shifts in emphasis. At the same time, it can be said that the philosophies of Indianism, Historical Confrontation, and Cultural Nationalism to this day represent the most salient views of human existence within the Mexican-American population. To these there has been added the immigrant dimension.
Just as could be expected from a pluralistic population exhibiting multiple histories, people of Mexican descent have adjusted to life in the United States in many different ways, including the Pachuco’s self-separation from history, the organizers of labor unions, the publishing of bi-lingual newspapers, and the increasingly militant student population. By and large, these adjustments mostly fall into four broad categories: Anglo-Saxon Conformity, Stabilized Differences, Realigned Pluralism, and Bi-Culturalism.
Anglo-Saxon Conformity. A number of people of Mexican descent have eschewed virtually all identity with their cultural past, no longer speak Spanish, and possibly they have changed their name and anglicized it. Most can be said, if not all of these people, to have been acculturated, which, generally, is the process by which people exchange one set of problems for another.
Stabilized Differences. Since 1921 there have been well over 1,000,000 immigrants from Mexico. In various communities they have found pockets of people who have sustained the basic Mexican way of life, along with its multiple histories and philosophies. These pockets vary somewhat as one travels from Brownsville, Texas, to El Paso, to Albuquerque, New Mexico to Tucson, Arizona and through California and over to Colorado. Throughout this area one still hears the respect titles of Don and Doña, the formal Usted, as well as a variety of dialects of the Spanish language. This population comprises the heart of the sociedades mutualistas, the fiestas patrias, the music, food, and the other by-products of culture already mentioned.
Realigned Pluralism. It has been the experience of many immigrant groups to take on the general ways of the surrounding society, only to discover that despite their efforts they are still excluded from the main currents for one reason or another. Such has also happened to Mexican-Americans. As a result, those who have participated in such behavior often tend to establish ethnically oriented and parallel activities and institutions, principally organizational, such as ball clubs, gangs, etc. In addition, other organizational activities include scholarship-oriented organizations, those that are charity oriented, community service oriented, as well as political organizations. Within this sphere one also finds the common phenomenon of the “third generation return.” That is, quite often members of the third generation return to identify themselves with their own ethnic group after having undergone the process of “assimilation.”
Bi-Culturalism. Despite the merciless educational pressures to stamp out Bi-Culturalism and bilingualism among Mexican-Americans in schools and colleges, it still persists in many varied and developing forms. It exists; for example, all along the border areas among those entrepreneurs who operate equally well on both sides of the international border. It also exists among the untold number of Mexican-Americans who are interpreters, either on a professional or voluntary basis. There are many others who can deal with a bicultural universe, such as owners of Mexican restaurants, bookstores, gift shops, musicians and the like.
More recently a new phenomenon has begun to appear in increasing numbers. Specifically, more and more Mexican-American students are going to college. Many of them come from impoverished homes where reading resources were unnecessarily limited. Some of these students, attending college, gravitate toward Spanish or Latin American majors. As a consequence, they begin to read Juan Rulfo, Martín Luis Guzmán, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel García Márquez, and they hear the classical music of [Carlos] Chávez, [Heitor] Villa-Lobos, [Fermín] Revueltas; or they see the art of [Rufino] Tamayo, [José Luis] Cuevas, Esteban Vila, Salvador Roberto Torres, and Rene Yañez. As a consequence, such students eschew not their cultural past but rather reintegrate into it at the professional and intellectual level and they are well on their way toward Bi-Culturalism at another dimension.
The recent Mexican-American study programs in colleges and universities are certain to enhance and accelerate this process, especially if they adhere to the bilingual base. Therefore, in the near future it will become more and more possible for Mexican-American students to avoid the assimilative fallacies and pitfalls of the past and join in the truly exciting and challenging universe of Bi-Culturalism. In this way, not only will they participate in significant innovations in higher education, but they will also take a big step toward realizing one of the promises contained in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
Indianist philosophy, Confrontationist, Cultural Nationalism based on Mestizaje with trends toward Humanistic Universalism, Behavioral Relativism, and Existentialism; Assimilation, Mexicanism, Realigned Pluralism, and Bi-Culturalism; Cholos, Pochos, Pachucos, Chicanos, Mexicanos, Hispanos, Spanish-sur-named people, Mexican-Americans. Many labels. Because this is such a complex population, it is difficult to give one label to them all. And probably the first to resist such an effort would be these people themselves, for such a monolithic treatment would violate the very pluralistic foundations upon which their historical philosophies have been based.
There is another dimension to this complexity, one involving the family. Traditionally, in the United States, the Mexican family has been dealt with as if it were monolithic, authoritarian, and one-dimensional. This is a gross oversimplification based on sheer ignorance. The truth of the matter is that virtually every Mexican-American family takes several forms and includes many types of people, from assimilationist to Chicano, to cultural nationalist, and through all varieties including “un español” thrown in every now and then for good measure. Mexican-American families have individuals who no longer speak Spanish, who speak only Spanish, or who speak a combination of both. In short, the same complexity that is found in the general Mexican-American population is also found in the family of virtually every Mexican-American.
If the day should ever come when all of these people are willingly subsumed under one label or banner, when they align themselves only under one philosophy, on that day, finally, they will have become totally and irrevocably Americanized. On that day, their historical alternatives and freedoms in personal choice of lifestyles, and their diversity, will have been permanently entombed in the histories of the past.
1
Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor (Santa Barbara, CA: McNally & Loftin, Charlotte, 1964), 28.
2
José Antonio Villarreal, Pocho (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 29.
3
Classical anarchism as used here refers to the original anarchist movement promoting the decentralization of power, the opposition of dictatorships in any form, cooperative movements, and not the “mad bomb plot and madman” stereotype of later years.
4
José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio, Aspects of Mexican Civilization (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1926), 51–52.
5
Ibid., 90–102.
6
Ibid., 92. Such a conclusion repeats Vasconcelos’s well-known statement in La raza cósmica (1925). [SEE DOCUMENT IV.1.2]—Ed.
7
Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961), 136.
8
Ibid., 140.
9
Ibid., 141.
10
Vasconcelos, (1926), 90.
11
Paz, (1961), 144.
12
Rodolfo Gonzales, “I am Joaquin,” manuscript, Denver, Colorado, 1967.
13
The word “matachín” originally implied “espadachín” (the good swordsman). As time went by, it came to denote a bully, the wrangler, and even the hit man.—Ed.
14
Enrique Hank Lopez, “Back to Bachimba,” Horizon IX, no. 1 (Winter 1967) 81.
15
Antonio Plaza, (book of poetry, published in Mexico, handed down for decades; [publisher information missing]. Courtesy of Mr. Rudy Espinosa, San Francisco, California, whose grandfather used to read from this book after dinner each evening.) Editor’s translation: “Life is a swarm of illusions / in whose tip disappointments are attached.”
16
Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1968), 7. Editor’s translation: “I came to Comala because I was told that my father lived here, that fellow Pedro Páramo.”