Appropriation and Representation (Joshua Salyers)

The Mexican Herald was a daily English language newspaper in Mexico City from 1895 10 1915. It was an extremely influential periodical and a staunch supporter of the Porfirian positivistic notions of order and progress. Not to overstate the newspaper’s influence but it often informed U. S. politicians as to the political and social climate in Mexico. Publishing during Porfirio Díaz’s ardent attempts to attract foreign investment, the Herald’s editors and writers could make or break business in Mexico City. Paul Hudson and Frederick Guernsey owned and edited the newspaper, respectively. These men, who exercised considerable control over the final product, became powerful permanent figures in the American expatriate colony in Mexico City.

Aside from serving as a political mediator between Mexico City and Washington, the paper commented on all facets of life in Mexico. The editors announced at the outset of the periodical’s run that one aim of the paper was to understand the cultural dynamics of Mexico. “Understanding” was often filtered through white, positivistic views of popular culture. Jon Cruz’s discussion of appropriation brought to mind the interesting dynamic between white American expatriates and indigenous cultures in Mexico. The Mexican Herald was hardly short on praise for the indigenous populations of Mexico’s past. The editors of the Herald had a talent for appropriation and sent their journalists, often acting as experts, to preform semi-anthropological studies of the “descendants of the Maya” or the Aztecs. Crafts, songs, and various practices were objectified and represented in the paper and used to construct the editors’ view of an authentic Mexico. The Mexican Herald assigned idealized values to the cultural productions of indigenous groups and largely neglected the political and social meanings that certain songs or practices often contained. From the elite gaze of the Herald’s editors, the paper depoliticized indigenous culture on Mexico’s racial margins. For the editors of the Herald, attempting to make sense of the world around them, they appropriated aspects of indigenous culture that they could use to fashion a modern but historically legitimate, or authentic, national identity.