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Conclusion: One Nation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2023

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Summary

Mexico is a puzzle, a paradox that raises all sorts of important questions. Take, for example, the position of the Indians. Prior to the conquest, the Indians did not think in terms of private property, and even these days they consider themselves as members of communities as much as they see themselves as individuals; yet many of them (indeed much of the country in general), are now desperate to acquire private means and possessions, aping US consumerism. A concomitant factor is increasing faith in the power of linear progress through change, something that is in marked contrast to the traditional Indian worldview, according to which life is cyclic. At present some of the Indians cross cultures, for example by looking first to the services of a curandero (a faith healer) before turning to a doctor, or by wearing no shoes during the week in the country and putting them on to go to town for weekend market. In the longer run, have the Indians of Mexico, living in this globalizing world and faced with such powerful commercial pressures from outside, any choice other than to keep the shoes on and march in time with the prevailing tune?

At several points during this study there has been evidence of the tension between traditionalism and a drive towards modernity, a tension that has not only affected the Indians. Consider the nineteenth-century criollos who, while proud of the newly independent Mexico, continued to cling to Spanish traditions and later sought refuge in things French, prolonging their cultural dependence even while advocating modernization. Or consider the post-revolutionary era, when there developed a somewhat schizophrenic wish to rescue and revitalize native traditions while at the same time celebrating technological advances and moving with the international times.

As we have seen, Mexican governments, particularly those of the post-revolutionary era, have been at pains to project an image of national unity, and ordinary Mexicans have predictably closed ranks when faced with the need to mark off their territory, to identify themselves as different from members of other nations: Mexico is neither Spain nor the United States, nor is it to be confused with the rest of Spanish America. Then what does make it different? Linguistically, one of the most distinctive features of Mexican Spanish is a lexicon that boasts a large number of items that derive from the Indian substratum.

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2006

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