Mexico's National Identity After NAFTA

Abstract

Mexico's 20th-century national identity has been defined and bounded by the images, colors, heroes, narratives, institutions, and symbols of the so-called Mexican Revolution. The social construction around the Mexican Revolution was perceived by most Mexicans as a continuum, the history and destiny of which was permanently ordered by the government's official discourse. Dissident views of the Revolution have existed since the very moment the revolutionary upheaval took place. This has not created a new identity nor a new social construct for Mexicans, but it is certainly making clearer the close relationship between power and social representation in Mexico.