What does it mean to be Mexican?: Colonial Hegemony, Identity, and Resistance


Yeslie Lizarraga Leyva, University of British Columbia

In the territory known as Mexico, national identity has been based on both the Indigenous and colonial histories. Most accounts of contemporary Mexican national identity suggest it is largely rooted in and reaffirmed through the narrative of mestizaje, a concept that embodies a shared history, experiences, and attributes of the Mexican people based on a common and unifying origin through cultural and racial mixing between European and Indigenous ancestors. While mestizaje presents itself as a promise towards inclusion and equality, social and institutional privilege awarded to whiteness and European systems continue to impact the daily lives of all Mexicans, despite not operating as explicitly as it did during the colonial period. Scholars have pointed at the hierarchies of power, resources, and privilege that mestizaje ‘as a project and ideology’ has cemented on Mexican society (Moreno Figueroa 2022). Moreover, there is academic research and civil discourse regarding the persistence of inequalities in Mexico, along the lines of race and class. Thus, the legacies of the colonial project in Mexico seem to remain through times of revolution, social change, and liberal democracy. Existing sociological literature has identified logics of whiteness and assimilation as part of the mestizaje project, drawing its connection to logics of colonialism (Moreno Figueroa 2011; 2022). However, the conceptual tool of colonial hegemony is not commonly applied to frame and understand the dynamics that sustain colonial logics and the permanency of inequality throughout changing times. Among the few studies that do, the bulk of research emphasizes macro-level or government factors, rather than the on-the-ground experiences of everyday Mexicans. Thus, through the situation and exploration of colonial hegemony in the evolution of contemporary Mexican identity, I offer a critical revision of the narratives surrounding the Mexican identity. I engage with questions of how colonial hegemony shapes understandings of contemporary Mexican identity in urban Mexico and how are symbols, histories, and experiences coopted and transformed into tools of hegemony. Using qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with Mexican adults, I examine people’s engagement with popular narratives of Mexican identity, such as mestizaje, and how they make sense of the complexities and contradictions that are embodied in meanings of ‘being Mexican’. Preliminary findings show that ideas of ‘racial mixing’ and duality still hold significant validity in people’s understandings of what being ‘Mexican’ is, while simultaneously questioning its consequences for oppression in Mexico and reconciliation with Indigenous communities in the Mexican territory. Following others’ examination of their own lived realities in a neocolonial world, findings from this research can both disrupt and enrich the assumptions we embrace in our identity in the collective imaginary, in line with calls for justice in Mexico and within a global context of decolonization. I interpret these findings in light of critical race theory and the sociology of nationalism and identities. The findings have implications for a diverse set of audiences, including sociologists interested in identity, colonialism, and nationalism. Additionally, this research is in service of solidarity with movements for justice in Mexico and abroad, where solidarity requires taking responsibility to question, unlearn, and challenge the systems that uphold inequality and make struggle necessary.

This paper will be presented at the following session: