This study is concerned with the Self/Other dichotomy, originally formulated by scholars of South Asian history in the context of European imperialistic treatments of the peoples whom they colonized for centuries, as applied to Mexican history. I have chosen some visual, cinematic, and literary representations of indigenous and other dispossessed peoples from both colonial and post-colonial Mexico in order to gain some insights into the vision of the powerless, (the 'Other'), held by the powerful (the colonizers, whether internal or external), especially, but not exclusively, in the context of race. Some public and private works of Mexican art from the 18th , 19th. and the 20th centuries are used to understand the perceptions of the Other in Colonial Mexico City, at the time of Independence, in state-sponsored pre and post-Revolutionary spectacles representing indigenous peoples, cinematic representations of the marginalized and the dispossessed from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, and in the representation of the marginalized in the literary and photographic works of Juan Rulfo. I conclude that an ambivalent mixture co-existed in Mexican culture through the centuries, on the one hand, honoring the blending that is expressed in the word 'mestizaje', and on the other, adhering to a thoroughly Eurocentric world view. This ambivalence persisted from the 18th century through Independence and the Revolution and its aftermath, albeit in transformed ' / M. A. / Mexico presents an interesting contrast to the United States with respect to the history of race since colonization. The 16th century Spanish conquerors, and the colonizers who followed them, acknowledged the offspring of their unions with indigenous women, setting a tradition that resulted, by the 20th century, in mixed race peoples becoming the major component of the Mexican population. Despite this, there remained a sense in the culture that Europe and those of European descent were still the ideal towards which Mexico aspired, while from time to time, there were paradoxical displays, honoring the ethnic diversity that was New Spanish/Mexican reality. In light of this ambivalence, I have examined some literary and artistic examples of the perception of the colonizers, internal or external, of those whom they marginalized.

Mitl Valdez's film Los confines (1987) is an adaptation of several works of fiction by the Mexican author Juan Rulfo. The director chose to adapt two short stories ("Talpa" and "¡Diles que no me maten!") and an episode from the author's first novel, Pedro Páramo. Valdez's intent was to "capturar el sentido" of the Jaliscan author or, in other words, to remain faithful to certain elements of his writing while adjusting them to the filmic medium. The musical score of Los confines is the method of appropriation that this study endeavors to investigate, since it shares common themes, metaphors, and imagery with the source texts. The musical language of Los confines not only communicates meaning within the film, but echoes elements of Rulfo's writing as well. Musical motifs in the score evoke concepts and symbols that form part of the writer's fictive universe and illustrate how Valdez finds "un equivalente en la expresión cinematográfica" for Rulfian material (qtd. in Pelayo).

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