Perspective and Context

A Response to E.H. Blichfeldt’s A Mexican Journey (1912)
by Mario Vega

In the quest to better grasp the aspects of Mexican history that have at once defined it as broadly Latin American and distinctly Mexican, contemporary scholarship benefits greatly from the large number of travelogues written during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By carefully analyzing one such travelogue—namely, that of Emil Harry (E.H.) Blichfeldt, an American—this analysis hopes to shed light both on the manifold nature of Mexican-American relations and on the broader themes that come to the surface in Blichfeldt’s astute observation. Attention will be focused largely on descriptions of the Mexican populace—their temperaments, customs, and attitudes towards the complexities of race. Blichfeldt’s travelogue, “A Mexican Journey,” was first published in 1912, only two years after former Mexican President Porfirio Díaz had been deposed following a farcical election in which “the opposition forces had been shattered by… the breaking up of their meetings, the imprisonment of their leaders, and the intimidation by soldiers of voters.” (Blichfeldt 159) Given his references to Díaz’s overthrow and the subsequent regime of Francisco Madero, we can assume that our author completed his travels sometime around late November or early December of 1911. With this in mind, the reader would naturally expect to find descriptions of a tumultuous Mexico with little class structure and rampant hostilities. However, the Mexico that Blichfeldt eventually unveils to the reader is, paradoxically, one of relative calm.

Blichfeldt, an ardent defender of the Mexican people, loses no time in attributing this to his notion of Mexico as a peaceful culture. When describing the strange passivity of rattlesnakes around Lake Chapala, he writes that the rattlesnakes’ reluctance to bite “must be the ‘Mexican habit,’ which, contrary to the usual idea, is non-aggressive” (Blichfeldt 205). The author goes so far as to trace this benign nature to the native Mexicans who resisted the Spanish conquistadores. By his account, the natives “sent food to the Spaniards because they disdained to fight a starving foe” (Blichfeldt 21), and though the veracity of this claim may be disputed, the mere fact that it existed in popular history and that Blichfeldt took note to include it demonstrates that such notions of Mexican chivalry were well established during his time. Indeed, in closing his account of his travels through Mexico, one of the points the author dwells upon at length involves the unvarying honor the Mexicans pay to all with whom they deal. He claims, “If you have business dealing with a Mexican, he may not always have your interest foremost in his mind; but to treat you with a manner lacking in consideration would be to violate his own breeding.” (Blichfeldt 260)

Another major aspect of Blichfeldt’s agenda in writing “A Mexican Journey” involves examining the different notions that influenced the way Mexicans and Americans regarded one another during his time. One of the first issues that the author addresses involves the perception of Mexicans by Americans as developmentally backwards. According to Blichfeldt, “the ‘palm shack’ and the ‘mud hut’ are favorite objects of contempt,” (Blichfeldt 249) referring to the popular misconception that all Mexicans live in squalor and poverty, without any of the trappings and civility of modernity. Here it is important to note that the author does not openly deny these claims of primitivism as exaggerated; in fact, he does not hesitate to report with deadpan humor the condition of the silver miners of Zacatecas. He notes that many of the workers lack proper conditions for safety and observes that some workers, for want of ladders, used notched trees to climb out of mines. However, the author opts not for blatant chauvinism, but rather seeks to rationalize and find the value in the practices of the Mexican people. His defense of the mud huts and palm shacks of the Mexicans is ultimately one of functionality: why not use a mud hut, he argues, if it is the house most suited to a family’s budget and climate? Blichfeldt makes a particularly cogent point in comparing the dwellings of the Mexicans with those of the Japanese: “The bamboo and paper house of the Japanese is appreciated, but the Mexican palm shack… is still treated with derision and disgust” (Blichfeldt 249). Why is this so? What, in the eyes of Americans, does the Mexican tradition lack that is found amongst the Japanese? One argument that can be made is that the cultural tradition of the Japanese, long and stable as it is, was (and is to this day) seen by Americans as somehow more legitimate than the comparatively new Mexican culture. Regardless of motive, the mere fact that such differences in opinion existed during Blichfeldt’s time points to the emergence of cultural stereotypes during the nineteenth century that continue to prevail into the present day.

However, one of Blichfeldt’s more striking observations attests to the endless amount of variation that can be found throughout the whole of Mexico, both topographically and culturally. Just as one is able to go from desert to alpine terrain over the course of a single day (Blichfeldt 6), one is also able to encounter a vast number of different cultures existing harmoniously within the same geographic area. Of particular interest is the complete absence of a dominating racial clash between European and native Mexicans. Blitchfeldt states with an air of astonishment, “race can be hardly said to figure” (Blichfeldt 10) in the social hierarchy of Mexico. Blichfeldt is an American for whom racial inequality is a fact of life. The harmony between peoples, as well as the civility of the Mexican people towards other individuals, is perhaps the most poignant lesson that Blichfeldt hopes to convey to his readers.

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About the Author:

Regrettably, Emil Henry Blichfeldt left little trace of his background to give his readers a context for his perspective on then-current events. Furthermore, he originally wrote the piece with the intention of having it be used as part of a traveling lecture series. The reader immediately senses a concerted effort towards maintaining a neutrality that serves to obscure whatever biases he might have had towards the situation. However, certain passages make clear some of E.H. Blichfeldt’s opinions concerning the revolution occurring in Mexico and the perceptions of his fellow Americans towards the country as a whole. For example, when describing the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, he notes, “Few chapters in the history of man surpass the record of daring, energy, cruelty, greed, perfidy, and religious hypocrisy on the one hand, and of patriotism, heroic self-devotion, and unavailing courage on the other…” (Blichfeldt 20). He demonstrates a cultural awareness of the often unilateral action that characterized European-Latin American relations during the colonial period, and his dismay at the actions of the conquistadores is forward thinking for his time, if slightly polemic. It is important to note here that identification among citizens of the United States with the plight of their Latin American brethren was by no means ubiquitous. One can credit liberals such as Blichfeldt for raising the social awareness that would help to force policy reform on an institutional level and bring relations with other countries to a level that is acceptable by humanitarian standards.

References:

Blichfeldt, E.H. A Mexican Journey. Chautauqua: The Chautauqua Press, 1912. Print. <http://www.archive.org/stream/mexicanjourney00blic

Canning, Charlotte. “What was Chautauqua?.” University of Iowa Library. University of Iowa, Dec 2000. Web. 17 Feb 2012. <http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/traveling-culture/essay.htm>.