Jarocha's costume and the search for a Mexican identity between the Porfiriato and the post-revolution

Abstract

The study examined the construction of Mexican identity from the 19th to the 20th century, highlighting its evolution in the context of the Porfiriato and the post-revolution. In its first decades as an independent nation, Mexico faced political and economic instability, but simultaneously began the search for a national identity. During the Porfiriato, the idea of a Mexican art based on pre-Hispanic and viceregal roots was promoted, while the contemporary indigenous community was marginalized under racist theories such as social Darwinism. Intellectuals such as Francisco Bulnes and Justo Sierra justified the exclusion of indigenous people, promoting modernization through cultural assimilation and whitening.
In the post-revolutionary period, Mexican identity was reconstructed around the figure of the mestizo, recognizing the indigenous as part of the nation, but with a paternalistic vision. Nationalist folklore was strengthened, adopting cultural symbols that homogenized regional diversity. An example of this was the transformation of the traje de jarocha, a traditional dress, whose evolution reflected the reinterpretation of indigenous culture to adapt it to Western standards. During the 20th century, the institutionalization of nationalism consolidated an idealized version of Mexican culture, ignoring the diversity of indigenous expressions.
The article concluded that Mexican identity was a process of cultural appropriation and redefinition driven by intellectual elites, where nationalism idealized the pre-Hispanic past while marginalizing contemporary indigenous people. The creation of national symbols, such as the traje de jarocha (a traditional dress), showed the influence of political discourse in the consolidation of a homogeneous identity.