Antropologia
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Making the Nation: The Myth of Mestizajes

Linnete Manrique*

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 brought about a newfound sense of nationalism that consolidated the figure of the mestizo, the product of indigenous and Spanish mixture, as Mexico’s national race. Intellectuals as diverse as Andrés Molina Enríquez and Manuel Gamio “denounced the sterile aping of European doctrines” that characterized the Liberal period of the 1850s Brading and endorsed mestizaje, or the fusion of races and cultures, as a crucial process in forging a strong sense of nationhood and nationality. In this paper, I examine the respective early works of Molina Enríquezand Gamio, Los grandes problemas nacionales (The Great National Problems in 1908) and Forjando patria (Forging a Nation in 1916). How do the authors define the Mexican nation? How does the mestizo become the “true Mexican”? What role do the authors allocate to indigenous peoples and women in the making of Mexico?