Mexican Duality

Mexico's been interesting for me personally since we arrived. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting, but I suppose it was a strange combination of excitement to see some of the places I had been 8 or 9 years ago and nervousness to show Erin around. I was a bit afraid that she wouldn't see the beauty in the country that I learned to love more intimately than nearly any other. It took me nearly a year of living here to get to my level of understanding, and yet we were only going to pass through in a short 3 weeks. What would come of that? What impressions would she pull from those few nights, when I remember being thoroughly confused 3 weeks in?

The first couple of weeks had been difficult for me, particularly in Mexico City and Cuernavaca. I had spent so much time in that place. Everywhere we walked, I had some memory flood back, faces, laughs, dances, food, people, everything! It in someway reminded me of when I went to Missoula with Erin for the first time. She was trying to spit out all these memories, collected over years, in the span of a couple of days. Not only express the memories, but the connections of certain memories to others, as well as people that I may or may not have met. It's frustrating because I felt in Missoula that it was important for me to understand, but I was having a difficult time pulling the entire cloth together from the various threads. It's frustrating now because I'm trying to not only pull together for Erin the fabric that is my personal memory of the country, but I'm trying to convey as deeply as possible my understanding of mexican history and culture.

For example, in Mexico City we went to the Museum of Anthropology, one of DF's best known museums. (That is where Barack Obama had dinner when he came to Mexico a couple weeks ago.) We started going through the various rooms, which detail the different cultures that inhabited Mexico throughout the years. I started to try and explain that this was Aztec, this was Mayan, what the difference was between Olmec and Toltec, Mixteca, where the Nahuatl were and are, the Tlaxcaltecans' role in the Spanish Conquest, Malinche's historical role with Cortes versus her current role in culture (as in "Hijo de la malinche" or "puta madre", both of which refer to Cortez's translator, Malinche, but are strong vulgarities). I guess I realized that I have studied this for a long time now. 4 years in high school, 1 year in Mexico, 4 years studying it in university. That's a lot of time spent just studying a language and culture. I know it's impossible to relay all this information that I've taken years to learn, but I nonetheless found it frustrating. The frustration has passed since I've come to realize that we are here to enjoy ourselves for what this is, not what my time before was. That will include some history and some language certainly, but it's not school.

We had the opportunity to spend some time with Mildred, one of my old friends from when I was here, as well as some of her friends. We spent quite some time talking with Areli, a friend of Mildred. She posed the question about our history. What was there to see? I said mountains, cities, canyons, things like that. She said nonono, what about history? Peoples? Cultures? Pyramids? Things like that? We had to say that there were very few places to see, and of those, they were very small. The Anazasi people, Mesa Verde, a couple places in Utah, maybe, but that was about it. There never were the civilizations in the US to match the historical civilizations in Mexico. There are huge ruins from 500AD less than an hour drive from Mexico City, huge pyramids at a place called Teotihuacan, or city of Gods (or something like that). Because of our lack of such structures and archeological sites, she felt that we were a country without history, without a profound story to tie us together and identify americans as Americans with a capital A.

The US certainly doesn't have anything compared to that, where kids grow up going to ruins from precolumbian times, learning about their ancestors' lives before the Spanish. The interesting thing to focus on is the effect such history has on the culture. Because of the US's lack of deep history, how does that effect us? Because we're so intricately inside the American culture, it's difficult to get perspective on ourselves. But because we find ourselves so removed from the emotional history of mexico, it gives us a good viewpoint to analyze the deep differences in our cultures. I wasn't even going to attempt to describe them, since I've spent years studying, reading and writing about it without great clarity or success, but Erin has convinced me to try harder.

This deep history, constantly influencing current culture, is one of the reasons I find Mexico so fascinating. In the mexican perspective (speaking very generally) there's a certain glowing reminiscence of the time before Cortes, when things were not really perfect and harmonious, but at least it was pure. It was Mexican. There was no adulterating European contamination. There may have been internal strife and conflict within the various cultures, and external wars between them, but this history gets glossed over in the face of the European onslaught that clearly unified and somewhat defined mexico as it is today.

The battle between advancement by turning European (traditionally white) and remembrance of history started from the moment they arrived, but didn't gain popular support until the early 20th century. Some good examples of areas of conflict include: the architecture of the cities that were founded by the conquistadors; the supersession of Catholicism over traditional religion by physically destroying or building over the top of religious sites; cultural movements which in effect made culture more white through dances and music such as the waltz and the polka. All of these things purposefully distanced the elite from the common folk, whose effect we still see today in the disparate levels of income and power. The elite class today maintains these separations, though their methods have changed to now praise their indigenous roots, as opposed to flaunting whatever white blood may have run through their veins.

An excellent example of this change of emphasis of European roots to traditional Mexican history is Xicotencatl II, a prince of Tlaxcala when Cortes came in. I'll give a very brief history. The Tlaxcalans were the first to militarily attack the Spaniards, and could have killed them all, but decided to use them as a force to conquer the Aztecs, their traditional enemy. The Tlaxcalans were generally for the alliance, except for Xicotencatl II, who felt the Spanish could not be trusted. History has obviously proved him right, but what's interesting is perception of him in popular history. Initially, until the late 19th or early 20th century, he was a traitor opposed to progress and advancement of society. Then, as white rule became less prominent and indigenous rights rose, he became a flagbearer, a symbol of what should have happened, an alternate path that was available at the time and perhaps should have been taken.

How does this affect us currently, both here in Mexico and in the States? The European influence on Mexico is no longer in Europe, it is on their border. There is great temptation in the states because of the money and the freedoms given. So, many Mexicans go. They work hard, send money back to their families who remain, and often, after a few or many years of hard work, return to Mexico. There is a duality in these Mexicans that arrive that is often misunderstood or ignored. This misunderstanding is difficult to strip to its core values because of the depth and complexity that stem from the Mexicans' own internal fight between European and Mexican values as well as the canyon of differences that separate our cultures.

Here in Mexico, there is a blend of cultures that they are familiar with. There is a deep history to validly look back proudly upon, one shared generally amongst Mexicans. There is pride in the steps they have taken forward, but there is also a cultural memory of the precolumbian times. This is echoed in the very geography of the country. North of Mexico City could be described as the portion that echoes the European side of the duality. Guadalajara, Monterrey, Juarez, all these cities and the areas they encompass are the industrial powerhouses of Mexico. The road are divided highways matching the US standards and English is more widely spoken. People own cars, take holidays to the Caribbean and Europe, may have studied French or German in school.

By contrast, the south of Mexico is, with some exceptions, a stronghold of indigenous culture. Between Oaxaca, Veracruz, Chiapas, the Nahuatl, Yucatan (excluding the Cancun area), and other locales there are about 62 living languages, spoken daily. That's only second to India. They hold strongly to their values, necessarily so given the pressure, primarily economic, to switch to a more widely spoken language. Battles for land rights become epic in scale, as it tends to be an oil company versus a local tribe, whose land rights are poorly defined. That was one of the reasons for the 1994 uprising here in San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas. When I was living here in 2001, the Zapatistas made a march, on foot, from here to Mexico City to demonstrate that their needs are still not being met, as agreed in the 1994 peace accord reached. This is not to say that the indigenous organizations are particularly effective (they generally are not) but rather to show that Mexicans hold their history as highly valued, but also feel the pull for economic advancement. This conflict is part of understanding Mexico.

In the states, the Mexican culture is derided for being a leech, siphoning dollars for schools and healthcare, stealing jobs from Americans. We look back proudly on less than 400 years of history and don't generally understand enough to appreciate the thousands of years the Mexicans stand upon. This is completely natural to not understand another's rich history. But the image portrayed internationally by the US is a country of immigrants, who in the eyes of most other countries have very little history to stand upon. America is the country where you can move ahead not solely by connections or bloodties, but also by simply trying harder and smarter than the next person. The American Dream lives in Mexican's minds. It seems to be a waning factor at home, but abroad it flies it's banner proudly. Difficult is the move from Mexican culture, with it's deep history and rich culture where it's known and appreciated, to American culture, where some (generally European) cultures are known and appreciated and some (specifically Mexican in this discussion) are not.

This is what digs spurs into most Mexicans who live or have lived in the states. It brings their duality of being European and indigenous to the forefront and confronts them regularly while in our country. It is something they struggle with, some with success and some without. That is a burden they willingly take on when emigrating, but it is a heavy one at that.