Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Race and Society in Mexico

Race and Society in Mexico

Hello all, and welcome back to this awesome blog, if I do say so myself. Now today we will be tackling a giant problem 500 years in the making.

As always, let’s start with some historical background. Everyone elementary school kid knows the poem “In Fourteen hundred ninety-two/ Columbus sailed the Ocean blue.” The poem is much longer than that and tells the tale of Cristopher Columbus, an Italian sailor that managed to get money from the Spanish crown to try the craziest thing imaginable: sailing west from Spain instead of east to reach India and cut out Portugal from the goods they would get. At this time, Spain recently got rid of the “evil” Moors, the Muslims that had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula over 700 years prior. Because of this Spain, which at the time was not a unified country but rather many separate kingdoms, needed money. Portugal was freed from the Muslim power much earlier than the kingdoms of Spain, so they were able to take over many trade routes and gain money from said trading, but Spain did not have that luxury. The two main kingdoms of Spain at the time were the kingdoms of Aragon, headed by King Ferdinand II, and of Castile, headed by Queen Isabella I. The two rulers married and as a result were able to unify most of Spain.

Now I’m sure some of you have seen the title and are asking yourselves what Spain and Cristopher Columbus has to do with Mexico, and as always I’m getting there. With the power of the Spanish behind him, Columbus set sail west to find a new route to India. Now to clear some misconceptions, Columbus didn’t sail west to prove the Earth was round because people actually knew that was a fact. Columbus went west to find a shorter path to India, but he bumped into some islands in the Caribbean and believed he had found India, a belief he would hold to his deathbed.

Let’s fast-forward about a good 17 or so years to 1519. This is the year of that the Conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico, or at least the Aztec empire and began his conquest. Now to clarify some more misconceptions. The Aztecs, or Nahuatl as their proper name is, did not believe Cortés was Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent deity of the Nahuas. Any records that indicate this is true were written years after the actual conquest occurred and the Spanish destroyed many records from before their arrival. This is important because if people lose their past, anyone could tell them what they want to hear and this causes people to be easy to control. Within a few generations, Spain and Spanish influence was very important in the colonies, so much so that an entire hierarchical system, castas, were created for this. The Spanish colonizers had a type of motto when it came to their work, “Obedezco pero no cumplo” which translated to English means: “I obey but I do not complete.” This refers to the fact that the colonizers were prevented from having interracial relations with the indigenous people, but still had those relations, either by force or with consent. This is important because this breaks the myth that all Spaniards raped and pillaged the indigenous people upon arrival. While there certainly were some Spaniards that did participate in this “activity” there were many examples of indigenous rulers or chiefs “trading” their daughters to Spaniards in order to move up the social ladder. Because of this interracial relations, a new hierarchical system was created, the casta system. This system had people in different ethnic and racial groups depending on their parentage. For example, a Spaniard born in the New World was called a Criollo and lower on the social ladder, while a Spanish born in Spain was simply called Spanish and was at the top of the ladder. Paintings depicting this hierarchy were commissioned and attempted to demonstrate to the people in Spain that there was order and stability in the colonies where none truly existed.

So this racial based hierarchy was pretty strict, with the “whiter” you were the higher up you “deserved” to be. This is another example of “Obedezco pero no cumplo” in action. While typically racially mixed people were not supposed to be in the upper classes and have money, they were and did, with their skin color appearing whiter in the official records. A mestizo, if talented in an art or intelligent enough to make money and save it, could appear as white at the time of his death and would be acknowledged as such. This idea of whiteness being important and essential to moving up the socio-economic ladder would continue for many years, even after the Mexican War for Independence.

Porfirio Diaz, president and dictator of Mexico, wanted to “modernize” Mexico in the late 19th century. His attempts of modernization meant making streets and buildings look European and especially French, by widening streets and planting trees near the streets, as well as hiring French architects to build his buildings in a very French style. He also built “official” buildings, such as national theaters and post offices to name a few. These official buildings all had a few things in common with their interior designs: long winding staircases and many arches, these were all European designs and influences. Diaz’s Europhile tendencies expanded past just the ideas of what a “modern” Mexico should look like, but also how Mexicans should look, act, and what their history should be. Much of this revolved around ignoring the present indigenous population and instead focusing on the long dead indigenous, such as the Olmec or Aztec, in order to give Mexico an “exotic” look by focusing on the stories of those dead indigenous in an attempt to demonstrate how unique Mexico was and that being a Mestizo country was not something to be ashamed of. I should note; however, that not all that Diaz did was just to make Mexico appear modern was wrong. He supplied many cities with running water and electricity, and also improved the poor railroad system. These were all helpful to push Mexico out from the rural, agricultural setting it typically had and helped push it to a new modern country. These improvements were not very well done though, with only major cities receiving running water and electricity, and additionally these works were made off of the backs of the poor Mestizo and indigenous populations, where many times they would be paid less than American or other immigrant workers for the same jobs.

You may have noticed that I wrote that Diaz used long dead indigenous people to improve the image of Mexico for the world and that he ignored the present indigenous population. This is demonstrated in Diaz’s personal life as well, since he was a Mestizo at least, having come from a state with a relatively large indigenous population: Oaxaca, the same state that Mexico’s first indigenous president was from, Benito Juarez. Diaz would often wear white make-up powder to appear whiter and “European” when it was clear that he was not European at all. Diaz would use this and other things, such as holding a birthday party for Kaiser Wilhelm in Mexico City for many rich American and European investors that, you guessed it, were white.

Some of you may be wondering where I’m going with this information of Diaz and his Europhile system. Well, this idea that Diaz had of whites and Europeans being naturally superior to the Mestizo and indigenous populations was not an idea that Diaz or any of his cronies came up with, rather this idea was one that the world in general was beginning to accept through the spread of “scientific facts” from scientists and other intellectuals from that time. The science used to explain why whites were superior to any other “race” of people, physically and intellectually by the shape of the body and size of certain body parts.

Diaz’s Europhile tendencies, especially his repression of Mestizo and indigenous population, were what ultimately caused the Mexican Revolution in 1910 when peasants rose up and took arms to remove Diaz and his cronies from power, and to later fight for campesino rights. Fast forwarding a few 10 years or so, and in the 1920s-1930s was the beginning of the Indigenismo movement. The Indigenismo movement was created by the Mexican government in the 1920s to promote indigenous culture and integrate them into the Mexican society without assimilating them. This may sound like a good idea at first glance, but in reality this was done mostly without much indigenous feedback and was done by, once again old white dudes. One problem with the Indigenismo movement was that it forced the indigenous to be clean and educated, thereby removing some indigenous traditions when it came to those areas. In a nutshell, Indigenismo is another form of racism in Mexican society, pushing ideas of what traditions should be and what a “universal” Mexico should look like, with indigenous people being treated like children under the Mexican government, with the government looking after the indigenous and having the government inspect the indigenous populations to make sure that they are following the laws of proper sanitation and education.

Where am I going with this talk of Indigenismo and Porfirio Diaz and the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519? Well, all of this is connected because the Spanish ideas of the Casta system hierarchy was continued into the 19th century with Diaz’s Europhile regime based on pseudoscientific methods to determine the worth of a person, and the Indigenismo movement of the 1920s attempting to honor the living indigenous while forcing them to conform to a specific lifestyle, are methods by which the Mexican government directly and indirectly pushed a certain image of what Mexico and Mexicans should be like.

The trend of whiteness being important for success is very noticeable in Mexican soap operas, called telenovelas or novelas for short. In novelas, until fairly recently, most of the main characters were white or light skinned, usually with light brown or blonde hair, and the darker skinned actors were background extras or servants/housecleaners if they were female. This is a problem because it shows to people that only white and light skinned people can be successful or attractive.


This link shows how children in Mexico view which is better, being light skinned or dark skinned. This demonstrates how in the approximately 500 years after Spain conquered what would eventually be Mexico nothing much has changed in society. http://www.upworthy.com/heres-what-happens-when-you-put-a-few-little-kids-in-a-room-with-2-dolls-in-2-different-colors-aa2-4d?c=reccon1

As always, I remind you all, dear readers, to be unique and individuals and don’t fear being different or an outsider, because it is those that are  brave enough to be different and fight the norm that are the ones that accomplish change.