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1	Educating Mexico in Emilio Fernández's Río Escondido and Rosario Castellanos's Balún Canán Dalton, David Scott 09 December 2011 (has links) (PDF) Following the bloody Revolution of 1910-1917, Mexican leaders took a great interest in rebuilding their devastated, war-torn country. In an attempt to further national unity, the post-Revolutionary regime sought to construct a unified, national identity. Many officials, such as José Vasconcelos, Mexico's first Secretario de Educación, viewed education as one of the keys to redeeming the nation. These government officials, empowered by their ideals and their sense of civic duty, worked to extend educational benefits to even the most overlooked segments of Mexican society. This thesis will examine two fictional texts that consider these efforts to transform and unify the nation through education in the post-Revolutionary years. Emilio "El Indio" Fernández's film, Río Escondido (1947), and Rosario Castellanos's novel, Balún Canán (1957), document the results of this federal intervention on behalf of its citizens in frontier towns far from the nation's capital. Nonetheless, Fernández and Castellanos provide very different appraisals of Mexico's post-Revolutionary education agenda. I view Río Escondido as official discourse because it lauds the national government initiatives to extend learning to all Mexicans and suggests that education will redeem the Mexican people. In Balún Canán, on the other hand, those in power utilize the education system to maintain control in society. Thus the novel criticizes failures within federal policies to provide education to less privileged sections of society. Despite their differences, both texts speak to a reality that Mexico dealt with during the mid-twentieth century when it attempted to solve its problems through education. Balún Canán education Emilio Fernández maestro rural official discourse redemption Río Escondido Rosario Castellanos rural school
2	Through the Eyes of Shamans: Childhood and the Construction of Identity in Rosario Castellanos' "Balun-Canan" and Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima" Nava, Tomas Hidalgo 09 July 2004 (has links) (PDF) This study offers a comparative analysis of Rosario Castellanos' Balún-Canán and Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, novels that provide examples on how children construct their identity in hybrid communities in southeastern Mexico and the U.S. southwest. The protagonists grow and develop in a context where they need to build bridges between their European and Amerindian roots in the middle of external influences that complicate the construction of a new mestizo consciousness. In order to attain that consciousness and free themselves from their divided selves, these children receive the aid of an indigenous mentor who teaches them how to establish a dialogue with their past, nature, and their social reality. The protagonists undertake that negotiation by transgressing the rituals of a society immersed in colonial dual thinking. They also create mechanisms to re-interpret their past and tradition in order to create an image of themselves that is not imposed by the status quo. In both novels, the protagonists have to undergo similar processes to overcome their identity crises, including transculturation, the creation of sites of memory, and a transition from orality to writing. Each of them resorts to creative writing and becomes a sort of shaman who pulls together the "spirits" from the past, selects them, and organizes them in a narration of childhood that is undertaken from adulthood. The results of this enterprise are completely different in the cases of both protagonists because the historical and social contexts vary. The boy in Bless Me, Ultima can harmoniously gather the elements to construct his identity, while the girl in Balún-Canán fails because of the pressures of a male-centered and highly racist society. Rosario Castellanos Rudolfo Anaya Balún-Canán Bless Me Ultima Shamans Tomás Hidalgo Nava construction of identity Chiapas Mexico New Mexico Ladino mestizo Chicano Mexican American childhood Octavio Paz José Vasconcelos Gloria Anzaldúa René Girard Edouard Glissant Pierre Nora lieux de mémoire milieux de mémoire hybrid hybridity transculturation Fernando Ortiz Angel Rama syncretism written narration shamanism of letters Homi K. Bhabha colonial discourse mestizo consciousness sexism colonialism Tzeltal indigenista orality mestizaje transgression of rituals Paulo Freire Mexican literature Chicano literature Mexican-American literature transculturation and nature Virgin of Guadalupe curandera Amerindian roots racism Spanish conquest acculturation assimilation project of modernization imposed views Antonio Ladino girl Comitán racist society colonial dual thinking identity crisis creative writing sites of memory U.S. southwest Classics Comparative Literature

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Educating Mexico in Emilio Fernández's Río Escondido and Rosario Castellanos's Balún Canán

Through the Eyes of Shamans: Childhood and the Construction of Identity in Rosario Castellanos' "Balun-Canan" and Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima"