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The Indigenista Novel and the Mexican Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Donald L. Schmidt
Donald L. Schmidt*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado at Denver
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Extract

Of all the issues raised by the Mexican Revolution, none has stimulated artistic creativity more than that of the Indian, his past, his culture and his exclusion from the mainstream of national life. At the same time, no artistic form provides so thorough a treatment of these issues as the indigenista novel.

While the Revolution was not launched by Indians, nor were their interests initially central to it, as it developed their problems became a natural and important issue in the reorganization of Mexican society. As one writer observes: “in attempting to organize Mexican society, the mestizo revolutionary has had no other choice but to take into consideration the indigenous factor, so that although the Revolution was not the work of the Indian, in certain ways it has been for his benefit.”2

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , April 1977 , pp. 652 - 660
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1977

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References

1 The term indigenista is used in this text to designate novels in which there is at least some attempt to portray realistically indigenous characters living for the most part according to atavistic traditions. In this sense it is to be distinguished from the term indianista used to designate Romantic novels of the nineteenth century that idealized the Indian, and paid scant attention to the reality of his life style.

2 “… al pretender organizar el conglomerado social mexicano, el mestizo revolucionario no ha podido menos que tomar en cuenta el factor indigena, de modo que aun cuando la revolución no fue del indio, ha sido en cierta manera para el indio.” Saenz, Moisés, México íntegro (Lima, Perú, 1939), p. 146.Google Scholar

3 Parkes, Henry Bamford, A History of Mexico (3rd ed.; Boston, 1966), p. 305.Google Scholar

4 Brenner, Anita, The Wind that Swept Mexico (New York and London, 1943), p. 6.Google Scholar

5 Meinhardt, Warren L., The Mexican lndianist Novel: 1910–1960 (unpublished dissertation, Berkeley, 1965), p. 31, n. 14.Google Scholar

6 For example, under Cárdenas the Departamento de Educación Indígena was established in 1937, and the Consejo de Lenguas Indígenas, in 1939 (now called the Instituto de Alfabetización para Indígenas Monolingües).

7 Anita Brenner, The Wind that Swept Mexico, p. 6.

8 “Su levadura mestiza venció por fin al color de su piel, color de madrugada a punto de aclarar el día. Pudo más la luz de lo español que la sombra de lo indio.” Menéndez, Miguel Ángel, Nayar (4th ed.; Mexico, 1965), p. 222.Google Scholar

9 “… amalgamarlo todo, para plasmar un hombre nuevo, y con él, crear un mundo, y tras él y para él, un destino.” González, Francisco Rojas, Lola Casanova (Mexico, 1947), p. 269.Google Scholar

10 Joseph Sommers, “El ciclo de Chiapas: nueva corriente literaria,” Cuadernos americanos CXXXIII 2(1964), pp. 246–261.

11 Henry Bamford Parkes, A History of Mexico, p. 433.