Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

are we there yet? testimonial literature 319
times and developed a friendship with Celsa that eventually led him to accumulate
her life story.
Tirado begins by introducing himself and his role in the story. He explains
his methodology and describes the village and Celsa. He offers an excellent
example of the claims of testimonial literature as true and unmediated
narration because he portrays himself as nothing more than a conduit
for Celsa’s words. But unlike other testimonials in which the narrator is
often invisible, Tirado admits to organizing and shaping the narrative into a
form he believes his readers can grasp. For example, he provides defi nitions
of indigenous names and food throughout the text. Like Celsa, he is pivotal
in creating the published result.
An essentialist reading of Celsa’s World would debate the extent to
which Celsa’s voice refl ects the true Mexican nation. By the end of the
twentieth century, after decades in which the literary cutting edge had
been defi ned by the incorporation of increasingly diverse voices, most
essentialists would agree that a Celsa-like testimonial dramatically advances
this constant search. They might not identify her as the sole metaphor
for national identity, but as a representative of the most downtrodden
and most ignored, Celsa represents a sort of profundity that discussions
of identity have tragically left out. This can be seen in a recent anthropological
study from Mexico entitled Mexico profundo, which argues that
the long-ignored and much-disparaged Indian heritage actually constitutes
a major, or “profound” element of Mexican national culture. 2 Essentialists
disagree about testimonials. Some still conceive the nation through the
lens of a Sarmiento-inspired white supremacy, even if they present it in
a form that appears to be more acceptable and contemporary. Others might
still celebrate the mestizo as the essence of Latin America. Regardless
of these disagreements, essentialists do accept the existence of a true,
essential Mexico.
A semiotic reading obviously rejects the notion of a national essence,
even though it celebrates the attempt to incorporate marginalized voices
into the construction of the national identity. Because the subjects of testimonies
have been excluded from the center for such a long time, their
voices are in some ways outside discourse and have a special positioning
to reveal discourse to us. This position leaps out of Celsa’s testimony.
She offers an interpretation of the world that is notable for its lack of
reliance on the traditional essentialisms of race, class, gender, and nation.
However, as a “dead” author, Celsa also advances some stereotypes and
generalizations. She claims, for example, that the people of the nearby
village of Santa Catarina are uncivilized, revealing that she too participates
in the prevailing discourse of a struggle between civilization and