Women and Race in postrevolutionary Mexico

• In Event: Gender, Suicide, and Politics in Post-Revolutionary Mexico

Abstract

This paper explores gender and race in Mexico between 1930 and 1960 from the perspective of cookbooks and etiquette books by analyzing both content and images. Although imitating Western cultural practices initiated in the colonial era and continued in the XIX century, after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) this acculturation was transformed and institutionalized. Amid eugenicists’ discussions on how to improve the race, Mexican intellectualsled by José Vasconcelos came up with the solution of mestizaje. For them, Mexico would be a nation in which mestizos will prevail by recognizing their indigenous heritage but highlighting their European ancestry. Embracing western culture would modernize the country. This entailed modifying cooking and eating practices, particularly among the peasantry and working class. Cookbooks and etiquette books reveal that both the state and the industry embraced the discourse of European and Anglo-Saxon superiority. These books show that women were the motor of change in the household, and were very mindful about leading women in what they saw as the right direction. Women had to learn how to cook different meals, use new ingredients and techniques, as well as modern appliances. They had to feed their family emulating the practices of nations that were seen as more advanced. In doing so, racial hierarchies and gender norms were strengthened and reproduced. Traditional knowledge and practices continued to be deemed as inferior to European and U.S. practices, now under the discourse of modernization and mestizaje while women remained responsible of childrearing and the household.

Author

• Sandra Aguilar Rodríguez, Moravian College