William H. Beezley’s Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo, and Popular Culture is an enlightening read. Beezley writes lively prose and describes historical events with the greatest of ease, making readers feel they are witnessing, first hand, the historical events that came to define Mexico’s national identity during the nineteenth century. Beezley has a knack for making history come alive. His is a history written and told from the perspective of the average Mexican “whose propensities and aesthetic sensibilities for popular entertainments and diversions would eventually define and transform Mexican national identity.” Beezley’s purpose is to show how this process of identity formation took place and under what opposing historical circumstances. To do so, the author has selected specific popular sources such as itinerant puppet theatre, Independence Day celebrations, and allegorical representations of the nation, as well as various publications of almanacs and lotería cards, to demonstrate how these seemingly unrelated topics played a major role in developing a uniquely Mexican national identity. He explains how these forms of popular entertainment stand in complete contrast to and in direct defiance of the elitist agenda advocated by the government of the time—a dictatorship eager to erase any traces of Mexico’s indigenous heritage so that it could present to the rest of the world an image of a modern nation ready to compete, both economically and technologically, at a global level.

This blatant negation of Mexico’s indigenous populations was not only absurd and harmful, the author argues, but also made the Mexican intelligentsia look foolish and out of touch with the social and economic reality of the average citizen. While the upper echelon (i.e., captains of industry, politicos, military leaders, and their rich wives) attended lavish balls dressed in the latest European fashions, dined on French haute cuisine, and listened to Italian operas late into the evening, the rest of the country struggled to survive. For these folks, the positivist ideals of the Porfirian era (with its quasi-religious emphasis on science, capitalism, and free-market economies) meant very little. The average person had neither the leisure time nor the economic resources to partake in the Francophilia that was sweeping the nation. Most had to work in slave-like conditions to support their families. A constant worry in those days (as it is in ours), Beezley tells us, was trying to find the most effective way to hold on to a job. In the case of puppeteers and other itinerant theater performers, that meant changing and adding variety to their performances to keep audiences happy. Those who did not adjust to the demands of their paying audiences soon found themselves unemployed.

It is precisely in these changes and innovations designed to enhance puppet performances and other forms of popular entertainment, the author points out, that the process of shaping and creating a national identity occurred. These puppeteers and creators of loterías and almanacs introduced their target audiences to the diverse topographical, cultural, linguistic, and racial character of Mexico. Mexicans soon began to regard and select aspects of these elements as uniquely Mexican. The idea of developing a national identity was beginning to coalesce. Beezley explains how this phenomenon took shape over the course of only a few decades, mostly during the long rule of Porfirio Díaz, known as the Porfiriato (1870–1911), when Mexico underwent enormous changes, both ideologically and in its infrastructure, and had high hopes of becoming a major player in world affairs.

Beezley’s approach to analyzing this particular period of Mexican history by focusing primarily on the lives of ordinary citizens “engaged in seemingly unrelated and commonplace occurrences” (e.g., attending a puppet show performance, partaking in Independence Day celebrations, or playing a round of lotería), instead of on the usual heads of state that generally dot the pages of conventional history books, allows him to formulate a convincing argument, one that illustrates how the aforementioned activities left an indelible mark in the national psyche of Mexicans and eventually became part of their collective memory and shared national consciousness.

Interestingly, this new Mexican national identity, first developed in the latter part of the nineteenth century and that continuing into the present, is actually an amalgam of foreign influences, a collection of traditions spanning the globe and encompassing many different peoples and cultures (Italian, Afro-Cuban, Spanish, etc.). From Italy, for instance, Mexican puppeteers learned about Commedia dell’arte and often modeled their itinerant puppet theater performances and stock characters on those of Arlecchino and Pulcinella. From the coastal state of Veracruz (site of one of the largest carnivals in Latin America) came El Negrito, a nineteenth-century marionette that Mexicans came to associate with Jarocho culture, a culture heavily influenced by Afro-Cuban traditions due to close proximity to the island of Cuba. El Negrito not only defended the Mexican people against foreign occupation and intervention from the French—and other self-appointed Mexican emperors—but also stood as a symbol of Afro-Mexican culture and Mexico’s resistance to imperialism in general. And from the courts of Venice came la lotería, a lotto-style board game that, according to the author, was brought to Mexico via Spain. Lotería remains a popular game both in Mexico and the American Southwest.

Beezley’s analysis of these popular forms of entertainment and his selection of archival materials are the greatest strengths of this book. His synthesis of primary sources is impressive, especially when considering how difficult it can be trying to get access to Mexico’s most coveted archives. Beezley’s reputation as a “pioneer cultural historian of Mexico,” however, has granted him access to some of Mexico’s best archival collections, both at the local and national level. The reader will marvel at some of the material obtained from municipal archives and other obscure but important archival houses in the nation.

There are no major weaknesses in the content or structure of this book; it would make an excellent reading choice for any course on Mexican history and/or folklore. Furthermore, the author’s argument on what constitutes Mexican national identity and how it developed over the past century-and-a-half is very convincing. This is historical research at its very best.

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[Review length: 1008 words • Review posted on February 26, 2010]