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

320 reframing latin america
barbarism. If pushed, examples such as this might expose an essentialist
foundation.
A semiotic reading also focuses on Tirado’s role. Tirado frames Celsa’s
narrative, and his target audience is lettered society, not the uneducated
indigenous people that the testimonial claims to represent. Although their
voices may be heard, they cannot contest their representation and, in that
way, continue to be excluded. In this regard, testimonial literature is highly
reminiscent of magical realism, which exhibits a similar exclusion through
an apparent inclusion.
Thomas Tirado, CELSA’S WORLD: CONVERSATIONS
WITH A MEXICAN PEASANT WOMAN 3
A Preface
The Setting [. . .] A personal narrative of an individual, Celsa’s
World is a fi rsthand account of life in an Indian-peasant community of 2500
people. The reader will see Celsa’s world through her eyes, observe cultural
change as it relates to her, and come to understand what change has meant
for herself, her family, and her community [. . .].
As in countless other Mexican communities, the modernizing process
sweeping through the country with its irreversible and irrepressible changes
is forcing the peasant culture and residual Indian traditions of San Antonio
to merge with the much more potent culture of modern Mexico. The mid-
1970s was a time of great expectation and the beginning of rapid change,
and there was the promise of a bright future due to newly discovered petroleum
reserves [. . .].
Regrettably, the modernizing process has been a destructive force which
threatened the very existence of the village. Though villagers had managed
previously to resist those changes which would have altered drastically the
peasant characteristics of life in the countryside, there is no guarantee that
this will be the case now that the community has been linked to modern
Mexico by a paved road. What has happened is that the rate of change has
accelerated dramatically, and it is irreversible. Though most people with
whom I spoke did not want to go back to the past, they did reveal ambivalence
in their responses. On the one hand, they recognize the value of the
improvements which have been introduced into the village, e.g., potable
water, paved road, latrines, electricity, etc, but on the other hand, the villagers
lament the loss of traditional institutions, the security of their families,
and such intangibles as tranquility of life, isolation, and, even, innocence
they believe they had before all of the recent changes [. . .].