Neocolonialism through the gaze of an exile: the representation of the mexican native in three short stories by Herrera Petere

Abstract

Physically and ideologically displaced from postwar Spain, the committed voice of the 1939 exiles was heard in their host countries, the main sphere of action of these intellectuals. One of the countries that received and welcomed the most Spaniards was Mexico, a nation that encouraged a hopeful future for the new arrivals, but also grappled with economic dependence on the United States and the racial hierarchisation of its society. The inequalities arising from both situations can be seen as traces of older colonial relations, more refined and discreet, but still pernicious. This subalternity of the indigenous people was a feeling shared by the exiles, who also suffered the displacement and silencing imposed by Franco’s dictatorship. This identification would help writers such as Herrera Petere, in his stories “El indio enigmático y solo”, “A través del espejo” and “Juana de Dios”, to give power, words and protagonism to native Mexicans and to combat these practices of neocolonialism from their particular circumstance and their foreign gaze.