The Inner Life of Mestizo Nationalism

2008
Author:

Estelle Tarica

A timely examination of narratives of interethnic intimacy in twentieth-century Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru

Estelle Tarica’s work shows how modern Mexican and Andean discourses about the relationship between Indians and non-Indians create a unique literary aesthetic that is instrumental in defining the experience of mestizo nationalism. Engaging with narratives by Jesús Lara, José María Arguedas, and Rosario Castellanos, among others, Tarica explores the rhetorical and ideological aspects of interethnic affinity and connection.

Consistently fresh and innovative, The Inner Life of Mestizo Nationalism is a major contribution to the study of Spanish American indigenismo.

Juan de Castro, author of Mestizo Nation

The only recent English-language work on Spanish-American indigenismo from a literary perspective, Estelle Tarica’s work shows how modern Mexican and Andean discourses about the relationship between Indians and non-Indians create a unique literary aesthetic that is instrumental in defining the experience of mestizo nationalism.

Engaging with narratives by Jesús Lara, José María Arguedas, and Rosario Castellanos, among other thinkers, Tarica explores the rhetorical and ideological aspects of interethnic affinity and connection. In her examination, she demonstrates that these connections posed a challenge to existing racial hierarchies in Spanish America by celebrating a new kind of national self at the same time that they contributed to new forms of subjection and discrimination.

Going beyond debates about the relative merits of indigenismo and mestizaje, Tarica puts forward a new perspective on indigenista literature and modern mestizo identities by revealing how these ideologies are symptomatic of the dilemmas of national subject formation. The Inner Life of Mestizo Nationalism offers insight into the contemporary resurgence and importance of indigenista discourses in Latin America.

Estelle Tarica is associate professor of Latin American literature and culture at the University of California, Berkeley.

Consistently fresh and innovative, The Inner Life of Mestizo Nationalism is a major contribution to the study of Spanish American indigenismo.

Juan de Castro, author of Mestizo Nation