CHAPTER 13 THE INDIAN VOICE IN RECENT MESOAMERICAN LITERATURE 481Other Central American Nations
It is perhaps a reflection of the mestizo demographic composition of El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, together with the still-evolving ethnic com-
position of Belize, that none of these countries has produced what might be called
a distinctively Mesoamerican voice in the arts in the twentieth century (as pointed out
in the Introduction). Literary creators of such international fame as Rubén Darío and
Ernesto Cardenal, both of Nicaragua, have both, for radically different artistic rea-
sons, spoken to issues larger than the nation. Darío self-consciously and very suc-
cessfully imitated early-twentieth-century European literary fashions in his modernist
poetry; the Nicaraguan imagery, though often present, was nevertheless not central
to his poetic vision or to his international fame.
Ernesto Cardenal’s great poetic corpus has been tied closely to the theme of Lib-
eration Theology as a cause that pertains to all of Latin America’s urban and peas-
ant poor. The Nicaraguan setting in which he lived and worked (eventually as
President Daniel Ortega’s Minister of Culture) was not really significant as Nicaraguan
or Mesoamerican reality per se, but was, rather, emblematic of social and political
problems that might be situated anywhere in Latin America. In this sense, both Darío
and Cardenal are major literary voices from the region that speak of issues and causes
and themes that are beyond, but also pertinent to, Mesoamerica. (for a description
of Indians in Nicaragua, see Chapter 8).THE NATIVE VOICE IN NATIONAL WRITTEN
LITERATURES OF MESOAMERICA
In attempting to generalize about the Indian voice in the national literary tradi-
tions of Mesoamerica in the twentieth century, it is important to keep in mind
that Mexico and Guatemala—fundamentally unlike the United States and also,
for reasons just discussed, unlike the rest of Central America—are nations whose
cultural, social, and biological identities are profoundly linked to their Indian
past and present. It therefore became imperative, as writers sought in the twenti-
eth century to represent national reality and aspirations through literary creations,
that the Indian body and soul of these nations be addressed. As noted before,
both Mexico and Guatemala have undergone violent civil upheavals in this cen-
tury, focusing on the issue of pan y libertad,“bread and liberty,” which, roughly in-
terpreted, means economic and political justice for all, including marginalized
Indians and mestizos. If the nineteenth century was a period of suppression, both
political and symbolic, of the Indian cultural component of these nations in the
effort to create modern states in the image of France and the United States, the
twentieth century has radically reversed this trend, and many of the emblematic
literary creations of the modern era clearly reflect this change.
What now follows is a small sampler of such works, with brief introductions. It is
hoped that the texts will speak clearly for themselves.