Working Title: Perceptions to the World: Building a National Image in Post-Revolutionary Mexico

Victor Aguilar, University of Arizona

After the major fighting phases (1910-1920) of the Mexican Revolution had ended, Mexico entered an era of national rebuilding. In the post-revolutionary era, the Mexican government “began to consider tourism as a viable industry for economic growth,” which was vital as the country attempted to enter modernity after years of instability and conflict. In order to do this, Mexican society needed to create a new image, one that would showcase the countries recovery after years of conflict and reshape the perception that people in the neighboring United States and around the world had of the country. I seek to argue that the imagery presented by Mexico to the world shaped how Mexico became a popular tourist destination, one where leisure, consumerism, and drinking (and maybe other vices) were an everyday thing for visitors. Highlighting images of vice, gendered tourism, and stereotypical cultural consumption on postcards, post-revolution Mexican, as in entered “modernity,” used modern and its history to create a new image This paper intends to highlight postcards and their production of stereotypical images of leisure, tourism, and culture of Mexico. By looking at the era between 1920-1970, the evolution of imagery on postcards was essential for creating an exaggerated image of Mexico as it reconstructed itself. Images of bars, alcohol, and cultural tourism were essential for people outside of Mexico to imagine what life was like in the modernizing nation.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 48. Collective Identity, Memory, and Nostalgia