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Racial Ideology of Mestizaje and Its Whitening Discourse in Memín Pinguín

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Racial Ideology of Mestizaje and Its Whitening Discourse in Memín Pinguín REVISTA DE LENGUAS MODERNAS, N° 23, 2015 / 45-59 / ISSN: 1659-1933 Racial Ideology of Mestizaje and its Whitening Discourse in Memín Pinguín PALOMA FERNÁNDEZ SÁNCHEZ Columbia College South Carolina, United States Abstract In this essay I will analyze how the comic strip Memín Pinguín, applying Vasconcelos’ The Cosmic Race framework of mestizaje, presents an apparent harmonious yet deceitful image of racial democracy which ultimately reveals a whitening discourse. Though different races are given a space in this comic strip, their representation is far from even and the white character(s) are clearly privileged. The black characters—exclusively represented by Memín and his mother Eufrosina—are portrayed as physically and intellectually inferior and with no agency. Their actions are measured and directed by authority figures—which are racially white. Those authority figures judge Memín and his mother´s actions as mostly illogical or incorrect. All in all, these opinions reduce blackness to a minimal presence which has no reper- cussion on the others’ lives, in addition to presenting blackness as a recessive trait that will eventually disappear. The (mis)representation of the black presence and contribution to the Mexican society in the comic strip follows the same standards which are applied on a daily basis in Mexico. While the visual elements of the comic strip provide the reader with an apparent in- clusive image parallel to the one proclaimed by mestizaje, the discourse and character interactions incorporate other less all-encompassing dynamics. Key words: mestizaje, whitening discourse, ideology, México, racial identity Resumen En este artículo se analizará cómo la tira cómica Memín Pinguín, según la teoría del mestizaje de La razón cósmica de Vasconcelos, presenta una ima- gen de la democracia racial aparentemente armoniosa y engañosa que, en última instancia, revela un discurso sobre el blanqueamiento. A pesar de que diferentes razas tienen un espacio en la tira cómica, su representación es es- casa y los personajes blancos son los más representados. Los personajes ne- gros –representados exclusivamente por Memín y su madre Eufrosina- son retratados como física e intelectualmente inferiores e instrumentales. Sus ac- ciones son juzgadas y dirigidas por figuras de autoridad racialmente blancas. Recepción: 9-2-15 Aceptación: 1-6-15 46 REVISTA DE LENGUAS MODERNAS, N° 23, 2015 / 45-59 / ISSN: 1659-1933 Estas figuras consideran las acciones de Memín y de su madre como ilógi- cas o incorrectas generalmente. De todas maneras, estas mismas figuras reducen la negritud a una presencia mínima, sin repercusión en las vidas ajenas, además de presentarla como un rasgo recesivo que iría a desapare- cer. La no-representación de la presencia negra ni de su contribución a la sociedad mexicana sigue los mismos estándares aplicados diariamente en México. Mientras los elementos visuales de la tira cómica ofrecen al lector una aparente imagen inclusiva semejante a la que proclama el mestizaje, el discurso y las interacciones de los personajes introducen otras dinámicas menos inclusivas. Palabras claves: mestizaje, discurso de blanqueamiento racial, ideología ra- cial, México t is the first day of class in an would feel in communion with the rest. elementary school in Mexico Therefore, the indigenous, black and Iand students crowd the class- white races are supposed to mingle room. Among the group of students, and coexist in that imagined imme- Guillermo—a very light skinned1, well- morial community. However, as the dressed boy with blond hair sits at the adventures of Memín and his friends back of the classroom. Ernesto—a slim unfold in the comic strip, conflicts boy with straight black hair and no arise and the apparent racial harmony shoes, and Carlos—a boy with brown fractures showing the inconsistencies curly hair, slightly thicker lips and of that horizontal equality claimed by a snub nose—share the second row. the discourse and the imagined com- In the middle of the classroom is munity of mestizaje. This situation is Memín—a bald black tiny boy. This once again an illustration of Mexico’s image is the introduction to the first long history of misrepresentation of episode of the popular Mexican comic blacks since colonial times. strip Memín Pinguín,--first published This difference between the discur- in the 1940s and still in print—which sive imagined community of the nation presents the classroom as a microcosm and the actual dynamics among its of Mexico´s mestizo society. Guillermo, members is a rather truthful represen- Ernesto, Carlos and Memín represent tation of Mexico’s dealings with race the current Mexican national imag- for at least the last century. Once the ined community in which its different Revolution was over, a new national members feel represented in one of unifying identity was created and im- the main protagonists. For Benedict posed on the population. At that his- Anderson, the nation is “an imagined torical moment Mexico started to con- community, because, regardless of ceive itself as a mestizo society, giving the actual inequality and exploitation an apparent but misleading image of that may prevail in each, the nation harmonious multiplicity and equal- is always conceived as a deep, hori- ity among or between the races in the zontal comradeship” (7). Thus, each country. Though in the 1920s mestizaje individual—in spite of his/her race was new as national consciousness, it FERNÁNDEZ. RACIAL IDEOLOGY OF MESTIZAJE ... 47 was presented as ahistorical looking comic strip—, and its accessibility may “out of an immemorial past, and, still have been the reasons why, several more important, glide[ing] into a limit- years after its initial weekly publica- less future.” (Anderson 11-12). By pre- tion, the comic strip had achieved a senting mestizaje as an ever-presence very high popularity and a circulation in Mexico, the intellectual elite along of more than two hundred thousand with the new Mexican states success- copies a week (Aurreconechea). It be- fully overpower other racial expres- came a milestone of comics in Mexico sions. Mestizaje and its process of ra- during the 1940s. Juan Manuel Aur- cial and cultural fusion fostered the reconechea and Armando Bartra, two image of a conglomeration of races— comic strip book historians, declared the mestizo—that indeed lead to an at- Memín Pinguín as one of the biggest mosphere of delusion. Therefore, mes- best sellers of Mexican comic strip. In tizaje has made Mexico discursively the1960s, Memín was exported to oth- colorblind, not by erasing race, but by er Latin American countries: Colom- ignoring and therefore denying races bia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, any possible political and social rep- Guatemala, Honduras, Panamá, Puer- resentation. When this discourse—ar- to Rico, and the Dominican Republic ticulated by the intellectual elite and where the comic strip attained various promulgated by mass media and gov- publication successes (Hernandez 53). ernment officials—is contrasted with In fact, even though its author, Vargas everyday reality, one begins to see the Dulche and the illustrator Sixto Val- contradictions and the empty spaces era stopped producing new stories in that attest to the many racial frictions the 1990s, there have been—and still and suppressions that are overlooked or are—several reprints. Today, anyone ignored by most of those educated and can walk to a kiosk to buy Memín in living within the ideological discourse. Mexico. I argue that it is due to this The comic strip Memín Pinguín2 popularity and success that Memín is an excellent example of this double Pinguín has been and is a powerful edged reality where one side creates popular element that perpetuates a the illusion of an imagined homoge- whitening tradition. In other words, neous fraternity based on equality and this popular representation of Mexican the other one hides the practices of a imagined multiethnic reality claimed racial ideology. The comic strip was cre- and celebrated3 by Mexico officials ated during the 1940s, the high point and intellectuals rather than open- of mestizo aesthetics. This was a time ing a space for equal racial interaction period when people were being bom- perpetuates mestizaje whitening dis- barded through different popular cul- course as presented by Vasconcelos in tural representations that the mestizo The Cosmic Race. is more beautiful, stronger, virtuous, The (mis)representation of black- and all other manner of superlatives. ness in Memín is far from an isolated Memín Pinguín, through the depiction example; it follows a long tradition of an inclusive and mixed classroom starting with the first black popula- actively participated on the spread of tions in Mexico right after the arrival this mestizo aesthetic. Its format —a of Hernán Cortés in 1519. Taking this 48 REVISTA DE LENGUAS MODERNAS, N° 23, 2015 / 45-59 / ISSN: 1659-1933 into consideration, I will first briefly miscalculated. Alejandro de Humboldt, present the history of misrepresenta- in his census stated that the total num- tion that black populations have un- ber of Africans in 1570 was 6100. Based dergone in this country since colonial on these numbers, he concluded that times. Then, I will revisit the concept “habiéndose introducido en la Nueva of mestizaje and the different ways in España poquísimos negros, los mesti- which it also undermines blackness in zos componen probablemente los 7/8 de favor of other races—mainly white. Fi- la totalidad de las castas”6 (Humboldt nally, I will analyze the role assigned 23). Humboldt´s records are extremely to blackness in the mestizo society relevant for two reasons: first, they staged in the comic. The study of racial reveal a long tradition of distortions dynamics in Mexican popular cultural when accounting for the black pres- productions during the heyday of mes- ence in Mexico; second, they show that tizo nationalism allows individuals to the concept of mestizaje was already in see how the image of the Mexican na- circulation early in the colonial period.
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