The Idea of Diversity in Mexico And the United States José A. Aguilar Rivera* e n i H . W s i w e L Waiting at Ellis Island. n August 19, 2000, the statu e warehouse. After a few consultations, Lincoln returned to the corner of Julio of Abraham Lincoln located the authorities decided that Lincoln’s Verne and Emilio Castelar completely Oin Mexico City’s Abraham Lin - head and body could not be reunited restored, to represent the American peo - coln Park was knocked off its pe des - be cause no one knew who the statue ple who donated him to the Mexicans tal. 1 Across the street, Martin Luther belonged to since it had been a gift from in 1982.” 3 King witnessed the strange disappear - the U.S. government. The assistant ward The entire episode is an almost per - ance. The almost four-meter-high bronz e director for legal affairs stated to the fect metaphor for the national condi - statue was found lying not far away. The press, “It has not been put back be - tion of our two countries: a past that top part had been separated from the res t cause we don’t know who should ask wavers between the upsets of contin - of the body. Uneasy policemen took for the head, the federal or the local gency, a determination to remember the head to a district attorney’s office government.” 2 According to witness - —if not to commemorate— a patriotic and it was kept there. Later, munici - es, a group of young revelers knocked story under fire, the appropriation of pal employees took Lincoln’s body to a down the statue in the heat of a pre- memory fractured by strangers and its dawn spree. More than a month later, often unpredictable migration across * Professor and researcher at the Center for Lincoln was finally returned to his pe - national borders. Our past is not our Economic Research and Teaching ( CIDE ). destal. One reporter wrote, “Abraham own. It also reveals the fights to adju - 44 Mexico-U.S. Relations dicate symbolic property; some solicit The other and the others —the mino - countries large groups of foreign mi - the head, others the body of history. rities inside, as well as the marginal grants intermingled. Everyone asks whom the nation and countries and nations outside— do The integration of American and its history belongs to. Lincoln’s predi c - exist.” 6 Paz was repeating a common - European ethnic groups took place with - ament also reminds us that there is a place: our countries were separated b y in the French model of the republic, will to reintegrate, to restore what has “very profound social, economic and adapting it more or less to Latin Amer - been broken. Our national identities psychic differences.” Mexico and the ican historical processes.” 8 According anxiously look for their lost head. And United States were two different ver - to García Canclini, in Latin American that search for integrity, like Lincoln’s sions of Western civilization. The his - countries there was sudden reversal of fortunes in Mexico, tory of our relations was that of a mu - is crisscrossed by chance in the extreme. tual, persistent and usually —although greater social willingness and more of Perhaps, at the end of the day, we will not always— involuntary deception. a variety of political-cultural strategies be able to reunite our scattered parts. Perhaps Paz was right, although these to make it possible for heterogeneity to However, in contrast with Lincoln’s kinds of civilizing explanations are less be resolved with mestization. While in effigy, the face of the past has been and less persuasive. However, here, I am the United States, blacks were first kept lost forever. There is no solder or sheen interested in pointing to the common - as slaves and later segregated in neigh - that can restore its original condition. alities —not the differences— be - borhoods, schools and other public tween the Mexican and American na - spaces, and the indigenous were mar - tional experiences. Both countries are ginalized on reservations, in the Latin * * * in a simultaneous process of introspec - American countries, the extermination The idea of writing about Mexico and tion and redefining their identities. In and marginalization of blacks and in - the U.S. national experiences came both Mexico and the United States, digenous co-existed with policies for about in the United States in the mid - multiculturalism has become a central mestization from the nineteenth cen - 1990s during the climax of that coun - issue for public debate. Does the term tury on and with an (unequal) recogni - try’s cultural wars. 4 These conflicts mean the same thing in both coun - tion of their citizenship, which went as coin cided with the 1994 Zapatista re - tries? In principle, there would seem far as the symbolic exaltation of their bellion, which evidenced the break- to be semantic differences. The word patrimony in Mexican indigenismo . Ra c - down of the national imaginary in Mex - “multiculturalism” is more used in Bri - ism was everywhere, but the alter na ti - ico. It seemed to me that both countries tain, Canada and the United States, ves to racism must be differentiated.... went through like symbolic upsets and although in Mexico it is beginning to While in the United States mestization that their predicament had many sim - replace the term “cultural pluralism” and hybridization have predo minantly ilarities that were by no means re cent . that was used for a good part of the been seen as scandalous, in Latin Amer - The comparison of these experiences twentieth century. However, the word ican and Caribbean countries, together could help Mexicans and Americans “continues to have different applica - with discriminatory policies and day- understand their circumstances bet - tions. Americans use it to designate the to-day attitudes, broad sectors of soci - ter. This is not, of course, a new road. separate co-existence of ethnic groups. ety put a positive value on mixing as Other observers have noted that the Despite having preached the cultural something which fosters moderniza - debates about multiculturalism in the mix and consecrating it with the ex - tion and cultural creativity. 9 United States have broader implica - pression ‘melting pot,’ identities tend [And] although the “American black” tions. 5 In a speech given in Washing - to be essentialist and belonging to a and the “Mexican Indian” were the other ton nearly a quarter of a century ago, community has become the main gua - in the civic normativity in their respec - Octavio Paz surprised his American rantee of individual rights.” 7 In accor - tive countries, the Indian in Mexico audience saying, “To conquer its ene - dance with this idea, in Latin America, was situated as the very subject of the mies, the United States must first “Modern nations were not formed nationality, a subject who was to be con quer itself: return to its origins, no t with the model of belonging to ethnic - transformed through education and to repeat them but to rectify them. ities or communities because in many racial mixing. 10 45 Voices of Mexico • 65 Canclini, for example, states that the While in Latin America solving multicultural dissemination of the U.S. and Ca - nadian debates in France and other conflicts through affirmative action policies is not very popular, European countries has led to reflect indigenous rights, based on an essentialist conception “about the insufficiency of the princi - of identity, are increasingly accepted. ple of equal rights and the inability of institutions to really supply equal ac - cess to goods and services and avert This history, which summarizes the phenomenon is beneficial since it pre - racism.” 14 In addition, multiculturalism dominant view, must be reviewed be - sumes that there are no unbreachable seeks to persuade about the explicit cause it is unsatisfactory. The compar - ethnic or religious barriers to people need of symbolic recognition for mi - ison between Mexico and the United uniting, is pernicious as a national ide - norities. The specific forms of this re - States illuminates its insufficiencies. ology. In other respects, the emphasis cognition are the subject of lively de - For a start, it is inconsistent: if the par - on “the cosmic race” has blacked out bate in both countries. The debate turns adigm of integration in Mexico was the important phenomena such as the con - around several crosscutting themes. For secular idea of the republic, how can tinued existence of minorities who do example, writing and re-writing na - we explain the racial ideology of mes - not mix in: indigenous, Mennonites, tional history, education, the inclusion tization at the center of the discourse Jews, etc. This has influenced how we or the right to difference for minori - about national identity? Far from being think about and analyze processes of ties and the search for cultural com - a matter of informal understandings, integration. mon denominators. How the debates mestization was an out-and-out racial - Perhaps the underlying similarities, on these issues have evolved in the ist theory, with theoreticians to syste - neither explicit nor recognized, be - United States and Mexico is explored matize it. This is not a minor variation tween both societies are what explain in a comparative fashion and divided of the French model. The identity axis the success of the multicultural dis - into three parts. was the mestizo, not the citizen. Although course in broad intellectual and polit - 1) First, there is the debate about many of the differences noted are very ical circles in Mexico. 11 And while in national history and its teachings in real, others are a matter of degree. After Latin America solving multicultural both countries during the 1990s.