What, you think I’m not going to take an opportunity to plug my syndicated column (and book) in some way, shape, or form? But at least this shameless inclusion is relevant to this tome.
One of the big questions I had in doing research for this book was discovering the origins of an image that exists in Mexican restaurants from San Diego to Baltimore to Bangkok and all around the world: the sleeping Mexican in sombrero and serape, sleeping under a saguaro cactus. How did the image become ubiquitous, especially since the saguaro grows only in the Sonoran desert and is hardly the most popular cactus in Mexico? But instead of offering my own explanation, I turn the page over to Maribel Alvarez, a professor at the University of Arizona and one of the founders of Sabores sin Fronteras/Flavors without Borders, which seeks to preserve and celebrate the unique food-ways of the Arizona-Sonora border: the land of wheat tortillas as large as basketball hoops, Sonoran hot dogs, shredded beef cured under the sun, and other traditions I didn’t focus enough on in this book. She’s the world’s leading expert on the history of the sleeping Mexican, and she graciously summarized her forthcoming book on the subject into the following mini-essay:
The short answer is that the sleeping Mexican became popular because, despite a boatload of inglorious uses of the image as stereotype, the image is also ambiguous, functioning in the iconic world of advertisement for many working-class Mexicans and Mexican-American restaurants as an emotional and residual reference to Mexico’s indigenous, rural, hardworking, thrifty, and resourceful populations (“la gente humilde”) and a folk culture that places value on balance, rest, nourishment, and relaxation in order to carry on. Jill Janis of Tucson has collected dozens of Yellow Pages from all over the United States as well as Europe with the image associated to Mexican restaurants and motels (presumably, invitations for the weary traveler); her extensive collection includes more than two thousand pieces, from matchboxes to lamps, clothing, and antique furniture, that depict the image.
The earliest known representations of the image were not visual and did not include the saguaro; the large cactus indigenous to the U.S. Southwest desertlands was most likely added as a redundant reference to vacationing (resting) in the American Southwest in the post–World War II era, when widespread automobile ownership facilitated travel to border towns for middle-class Anglo families. Generally known as the Sleeping Mexican, but also frequently described simply as “Pancho” (some people think as a reference to Pancho Villa being a champion of the working poor against oligarchy) or as the Siesta Motif, the earliest references were written descriptions of travelers to Mexico between 1880 and 1920 who observed the common practice of Mexican Indians wrapping themselves in blankets to catch some rest while leaning against a wall. The image was considered by Anglo visitors to Mexico “picturesque” and started to gain popularity in the United States.
Not everyone at first imputed negative meanings to the supine, huddled, or squatting position of the peasant depicted; Diego Rivera included it in an early drawing circa 1920 as a straightforward representation of the farmhands who enriched the large landowners. In the context of late-nineteenth-century U.S. expanding economic interests in Mexico, however, in railroad, mining, agricultural holdings, and oil industries, the image became associated with the despised (yet necessary) labor force of the Mexican peon, and derogatory associations to laziness, lack of initiative, and the “mañana syndrome” stuck to the image. Anglos were not the sole creators of this prevalent view: Mexican elites working with the regime of dictator Porfirio Díaz advanced these same beliefs about peasants and Indians. For this reason, the image’s interpretation varies considerably across class lines, with working-class mexicanos often identifying with the image as symbol of hard work and endurance and calling any negative association of the image to laziness an absurd, illogical distortion that only a racist would fathom. For Chicanos or Mexican Americans who fight for civil rights issues it is nearly impossible to overlook the negative implications of the image (for example, depicted as a neighbor’s offensive lawn ornament in an episode in the George Lopez show in 2007 titled “George Can’t Let Sleeping Mexicans Lie”). Many Chicano/a artists, however, have taken a different route to the stereotype, refashioning it into parody, calling out its original references to the working masses, and attributing to its huddled position imaginary scenarios of quietly “spying” on the powerful, or pretending to be quiet only to “wake up” and take his/her place, or simply as a Mexican in America dreaming up a more just society.