Abstract

NEWMAN, Rachel Grace. Etnia, nación y jerarquía en libros infantiles estadounidenses sobre México, 1909-1939. Intersticios sociales [online]. 2013, n.5, pp.1-33. ISSN 2007-4964.

This article analyzes 11 children's books about Mexico written in the United States, emphasizing how these books deal with the categories of national, racial, and cultural identities in their narratives. First, I discuss children's literature as a historical document. Next, I analyze how these books describe the differences between indigenous, mestizo, and Spanish-descended Mexicans, as well as the differences between U.S. Americans and Mexicans. My discussion centers on four books that reflect three basic perspectives on hierarchies of nation, culture, and race: a conservative perspective that reaffirms the legitimacy of a stratified society, another, more progressive perspective that sees the possibility for social ascent for people who take on Western traits and behaviors, and a third that conceives of education as the path to freedom and modernity for poor Mexicans. Despite the differences among these perspectives, I argue that the U.S. American authors studied here ultimately reaffirmed the superiority of the United States in their stories. Through their plots and illustrations, these authors showed a generation of young readers how to identify "different" people -different because of their old-fashioned traditions and their brown skin- and reminded these readers that these different individuals were not their equals. I conclude the article with a few comments about possible analytical directions to take this project.

Keywords : children's books; Mexico; United States; ethnicity; difference.

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