Making a Mexican Identity
In Professor Stark's part of the class, the discussion of Mexico has seemed to have one common motif throughout the whole conversation - the struggle to create a national identity. But, from hearing the state that Mexico was in at the time, it is not surprising that they were struggling so much to create a unified identity. There were two parts of that struggle that really stuck out to me - the sheer size and spread of the land that they were trying to unite, and trying to incorporate the indigenous into their society.
The amount of territory that Mexico used to possess blows my mind. It was such a huge expanse of land, so much so that the climate and geography differed drastically from one area to the next. In all of present-day California, there were a total of 3,000 people. I put that into perspective for myself by thinking about the fact that there were 1,200 students in my high school alone, being the smallest of 4 high schools in my district. Thinking that there were only 3,000 people in all of California during that time while their were roughly 6,000 people who were sophomores, juniors, or seniors within a 10 mile radius of me is absolutely shocking. Reasonably, how could the Mexican government have united people who were so different from each other, but also so different from each other?
The Mexican government was also trying to incorporate the indigenous into their society while creating a national identity. This was a problem because the indigenous communities had their own identity already. But, when creating a national identity, is it impossible to let other people identify with other identities as well? I think of my daily life and how identify with different communities and labels. Could it not be the same with the indigenous people? Why was letting them keep their identity of being indigenous such a problem in making a Mexican identity, when the Mexican identity should include indigenous because they were such a big part of society and history?
This also makes me think a lot about the identity of the United States. Do people in the United States have a "national identity"? I know there are stereotypes and views of the United States identity that people hold from other countries and many of those views are justified, but are any of those a true identity? Is there an identity that the United States holds onto?
The amount of territory that Mexico used to possess blows my mind. It was such a huge expanse of land, so much so that the climate and geography differed drastically from one area to the next. In all of present-day California, there were a total of 3,000 people. I put that into perspective for myself by thinking about the fact that there were 1,200 students in my high school alone, being the smallest of 4 high schools in my district. Thinking that there were only 3,000 people in all of California during that time while their were roughly 6,000 people who were sophomores, juniors, or seniors within a 10 mile radius of me is absolutely shocking. Reasonably, how could the Mexican government have united people who were so different from each other, but also so different from each other?
The Mexican government was also trying to incorporate the indigenous into their society while creating a national identity. This was a problem because the indigenous communities had their own identity already. But, when creating a national identity, is it impossible to let other people identify with other identities as well? I think of my daily life and how identify with different communities and labels. Could it not be the same with the indigenous people? Why was letting them keep their identity of being indigenous such a problem in making a Mexican identity, when the Mexican identity should include indigenous because they were such a big part of society and history?
This also makes me think a lot about the identity of the United States. Do people in the United States have a "national identity"? I know there are stereotypes and views of the United States identity that people hold from other countries and many of those views are justified, but are any of those a true identity? Is there an identity that the United States holds onto?
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ReplyDeleteI like your insight about those two struggles Mexico faced: land size and inclusion of indigenous. It was very beneficial to have put the number of inhabitants in California in perspective to your personal life. Until you said that I didn't realize just how few people that truly is compared to now. The high school where I am from has about 2,500 students enrolled. That's almost the same population of what California was!! This would also make it harder to form the desired national identity because there were people so far away from each other; this does the opposite of promoting a close-knit united nation. This makes it easier to understand why the government was having such a hard time controlling its country when the people were so dispersed and divided.
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