Labyrinth Of Solitude Summary

This section of the Labyrinth of Solitude was really interesting and made me aware of a different lens in order to view Mexicans. For instance, in the first chapter Paz talks about how the Pachucos don’t identify with either Mexicans or people born in the United States. They have their own identity and they make it obvious through their clothing. From what I have learned before, I always had this perspective of Pachucos being violent rebels of society. Paz makes an assumption that the Pachucos are antisocial because they are facing an identity crisis. They don’t want to partake in any culture and that’s why they have such hostile attitudes because they want to be different. Additionally, this demonstrates the idea of how different the Mexican culture is from the U.S. culture. Each culture has different aspects associated with itself that are so different that it is extremely difficult to live in communion. Also, the Mexican is similar to the Pachuco because he doesn’t want to be an Indian, Spaniard or just a mixture of both instead they want their own identity. I found that this was highly evident back in Mexico because none of my relatives would talk about Mexicans having
Spanish decent or Indian decent. It always came out as a new race with a new identity. Another thing that I found interesting is how Paz incorporated infancy and adolescence in order to explain the emergence of culture identity.
When we are infancy we tend to accept the world how it is and is not until we reach adolescence is when we begin to questions the things that we have always been told. I agree with Paz that a lot of our history that is pass down is lost because of this “mask” people tend to hide in. Consequently, a lot of our history is loss due to the fact that people tend to hide their shame and emotions in order to not be judge publicly. So when we are learning about the past we should always see it through an open mind knowing the fact that the stories that are being told are not always what they appear to be because of all the tragedy going on during
colonization. Lastly, something that I could really late to that Paz mention is the norms Mexican tend to have on gender roles. Growing up in a traditional Mexican home this is really prevalent throughout my family. The man is always the head of the household and portrayed as a “macho”. He rarely shows any emotions and his job is to protect the family. As Paz stated the macho is the “gran chignon”. In my house my father was always the person that was working, on the other hand, my mother was in charge of taking care of the children and cleaning the house. I never had a close relationship with my father and I never shared any of my emotions with him. The only times we interacted was when he was teaching me how to do something. I still remember that even as a little kid when I would cry in front of him my father would get mad because according to the “macho” norms men shouldn’t cry because it is seen as a sign of weakness. Similarly, with what Paz mention about the role of females in a home is to be submissive to the man was really prevalent throughout my household because my mother always had to follow the rules that my father had established for her. If she didn’t follow the rules she would be seen as a “mala mujer” because she is going against our culture’s norms. I had always blame my father because of his “machismo” but it is something that his father taught him it was the right thing to do and back in my small town in Mexico everyone would follow those norms.