"The Mexican venerates a bleeding and humiliated Christ, a Christ who has been beaten by the soldiers and condemned by the judges, because he sees in him a transfigured image of his own identity. And this brings to mind Cuauhtemoc, the young Aztec emperor who was dethroned, tortured and murdered by Cortes."
Reading this quote from Octavio Paz was like turning on a light and finally being able to see clearly. I served a LDS mission in northern Mexico. My wife is from Mexico City. I am no expert on Mexican culture but I do know the Mexican culture and have spent significant time within it. My wife and I have had numerous conversations talking about this very subject. The Mexican people are some of the greatest people that you will ever meet. They are caring, giving and hard working among many other qualities. But for some reason the Mexican society as a whole has not progressed very much throughout time. Mexico is one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources, yet the majority of the people are still poor. Even after so many conversations, my wife and I couldn't quite explain why this was. Sometimes we could feel it but not put words to it. In this chapter Paz described perfectly what my wife and I had disputed and felt but never been able to put into words.
Mexico has become a mainly dependent nation. What I mean by that is that a vast majority of the jobs in Mexico are in factories from other countries. The majority of gold, silver and copper mines are owned by foreigners. Mexico has become a "servant" nation like Paz says. The acceptance of this comes from innately from their cultural beliefs. Like Paz stated, they love the idea that they are a broken, punished and bleeding people. They do not celebrate the resurrected Christ because that is not what they see in themselves. This feeling of judgement and humiliation, according to Paz, comes from the beginning of the Mexican race and the fact that they are "hijos de la malinche."
I couldn't help but to think of this while reading the chapter (pg. 81). Talk about Identity Crisis!!!
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