336 UNIT 3 MODERN MESOAMERICA
bastardness. This has happened because the mestizo cultural identity historically de-
rived from a residue of inferiority complexes, a certain “servant mentality” carried
over by a mestizo class that had to claw its way to power without the benefit of a proud
historical tradition or systematically worked-out culture.
Paz particularly calls attention to the collective shout made by the Mexicans each
September 15: “Viva México, hijos de la chingada” (“long live Mexico, you sons of the
violated mother”). This preoccupation with the violated mother, and hence bas-
tardhood, is part of the burden carried by the mestizos, a burden not born by the
Mesoamerican Indians nor by the Spanish creoles. But the deeply felt ideas that ex-
press the Mexicans’ hidden conscience also have roots in the Spanish and Mesoamer-
ican cultures. Chief among the emerging national symbols was the Cuauhtemoc
persona, remembered as the Aztec emperor who had succeeded the martyred Mote-
cuhzoma and then led the resistance against the Spanish conquistadors (see Chapter
4). In the Mexican secular pantheon, the Cuauhtemoc persona became the long-
suffering Mesoamerican son, bloody but not bowed: the stout warrior. The dialecti-
cally opposed symbolic persona to Cuauhtemoc was Cortés, the prototype of the
Spanish conquistador. The Cortés persona stood for the Spanish “macho,” symbol of
power and violation of women (his name was banned from public discussion but re-
mained ever present in the Mexican psyche). The hidden message in this symbolism
was that the typical Mexican man had lineage from both Cuauhtemoc and Cortés,
and thus was heir to both the Indian and the Spanish heritages.
In the context of traditional Mesoamerican sexual dualism, the emerging Mex-
ican ethos necessarily provided female symbolic equivalents to Cuauhtemoc and
Cortés. Foremost among these was the Virgin of Guadalupe persona, the saint
adopted by the Indians who represented Aztec female goddesses. The Guadalupe
persona in Mexican national culture came to stand for the mother of the poor and
weak, the orphans. Her persona became the female counterpart of Cuauhtemoc.
The dialectically opposed persona to Guadalupe was Malinche, the Mayan princess
who served as translator and mistress to Cortés and his men. The Malinche persona
became the “chingada,” the violated woman, symbol of all those traitors who pre-
ferred foreign to Mexican ways. The hidden message behind the Guadalupe and
Malinche symbolic personae suggested that Mexican mothers, and hence their mes-
tizo offspring, were neither Indian nor Spanish, for they could not have sprung from
either the patroness of orphans or the violated woman (on Guadalupe and Malinche,
see Chapter 5 in this text).
It is noteworthy that the Mexicans granted hero status only to the Cuauhtemoc
and Guadalupe personae, both of whom had roots in the Mesoamerican cultures.
Since one of them (Cuauhtemoc) was incorruptible, and the other (Guadalupe) vir-
ginous, it follows, says Paz, that “[t]he Mexican does not want to be either an Indian
or a Spaniard. Nor does he want to be descended from them. He denies them.”
Paz’s critics point out that Mexico’s hegemonic national culture and identity
have been undergoing rapid changes as the country increasingly industrializes, and
in the process the underlying national culture has become more oriented to con-
sumerism and middle-class capitalist values. Even before these changes, it is argued,
Paz’s “hidden” culture was too simplistic to fit the many regional, ethnic, class, and