Books not borders: Reading trans-nationalism and anti-nationalism

Mexico Unconquered, Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, City Lights, 2009
Mexico is a region rooted in histories.

Whether we put our lens on the massacre of millions of indigenous peoples on their sovereign land, or focus squarely on the imperial powers both Spain and the United States have exercised, we can find that the wounds of Mexico’s past 500 years remain unresolved.

John Gibler, a reporter since 2006 in Mexico, has been staring directly at these wounds, and traces their relevance in Mexico Unconquered, for both the United States of America, y los Estados Unidos Méxicanos. Mexico Unconquered can be divided into three sections: the first focusing on Mexican histories and the development of Mexican forms of capitalism and oppression; the second discussing modern government corruption and the embedded notion of “revolt” that Mexicans exercise in popular resistance; and the third addressing major moments of resistance in late twentieth and early twenty-first century Mexico.

While much of this information is accessible elsewhere (Gibler points out that a bibliography of writing on Zapatistas constitutes over 300 pages), he draws much of the analysis and historical parallels that create a compelling image of Mexico on the national stage. For example, it is difficult to discuss occupations and liberations in Oaxaca City without an understanding of indigenous autonomy, government corruption, and union politics in Mexico. Gibler threads these narratives together well, and his emphasis lies in their interrelations.

Immigration is a central issue of the work, but from a radical Mexican perspective. How can the U.S. ever consider itself “immigrant friendly” when NAFTA is driving about 400,000 workers from their homes and families in Mexico across the borders?

Economic imperialism, cultural imperialism, and exploitation are persistent facts of U.S. relations with the world – but they take on a hyper- dominant tone with Mexico, spanning past America’s “manifest destiny” of land grabs, rape and racism, to our economic present in which Mexico is experiencing a near total economic disparity within its imposed walls. Gibler points time and again to Carlos Slim as one of the richest people in the world, living in the same country in which millions live on less than $1 a day. To adapt the anti-Olympics slogan of our Vancouver friends—Gibler is calling for “No Billionaires On Stolen Native Land”, and broadcasting to the US.

It is fitting that Gibler, a journalist, argues for media’s role in pushing these transnational dialogues into the spheres of imperial powers. Mexico goes sight unseen in the American press, save for a NAFTA-born swine flu, or a feature on its “inevitable” destitution. This limited coverage perpetuates these harmful stereotypes, even as Mexico/US is experiencing an astonishing transfer of human labor, language and culture.

Crafting a new understanding of Mexican peoples can transform US peoples; to see the roots of imperialism in Mexico is to trace them into our own histories and across those socially constructed borders. This requires new media perspectives, like journalism that discusses drug cartels, and their internationality, in relation to their government/business (US and Mexican) assistance, and drug legality issues within the United States; or media and history that points to 2006 Oaxaca as the broad-based, popular movement it was, rather than mothballing this major piece of contemporary continental history.

US–Mexico relations are more nuanced than a labor relationship established in colonial capitalist exploitation. The cultural and linguistic dynamics that Chicano and “Mexican-American” identities produce are relevant and varied, but stay untouched in Mexico Unconquered.

This work creates an important voice of our transnational dialogue, but we need more space from Mexicans and Chicanos, rather than continuing to remain in a situation in which some of the most readily available information and analysis (such as the book in question, along with this review) are by US-born gringos. As indigenous peoples across the continent continue to fight and resist occupation of their land and history, US discourse must continue to fight its own displacements of silence.