You’ve probably seen the image known as “the Sleeping Mexican”, a man dressed in a Sombrero, sitting with his knees to his chest, asleep. It was used over the years to portray a negative stereotype that Mexicans were lazy.

But it was not always this way, and it is not always perceived this way today. Maribel Alvarez, a professor at the University of Arizona School of Anthropology and the Southwest Center, joined The Show to talk more about it all, starting with where this image actually came from.

Complete conversation

MARK BRODIE: And Maribel, let’s start with where this image actually comes from.

MARIBEL ALVAREZ: The origins are three different points in time if you will. The first really depends on travel diaries. Americans travel to Mexico at the end of the 19th century, they go to the squares and they begin to see indigenous men and women who, at the time of day when the heat begins, rest and lean against a adobe wall, install a serape and rest. This became a curious observation of travelers and was recorded in publications returning to the United States. This is the first reference.

Then we start to see Mexican independence come into full swing and the indigenista movement, the movement of painters and artists to uplift and uplift the indigenous communities of Mexico. You see Diego Rivera capturing an image of a man wrapped in a blanket crouching in a field. This is an idea of ​​exaltation and not a stereotype, quite the contrary, associating the image with hard work.

And then a momentous event occurs when a sculptor who was part of this movement of the great murals of Mexico, of the great revolutionary period, a Colombian sculptor who currently resides in Mexico under the name of Romulo Rozo, creates a sculpture which is exactly the image as we know it today of Sleeping Mexico puts it in an exhibition in the National Library, and a reporter makes fun of the image.

And then the next day, immediately after, the image that was this renowned artist’s sculpture is plagiarized and transformed into the infamous stereotype that we know today.

BRODIE: So does it seem like there’s any rhyme or reason to evolution, to the way this is viewed, or what do you know what people look at this image and think about?

ALVAREZ: Mark, context here is everything. We must take into consideration the fact that the image is born from an impulse of exaltation of the peons of those who have been rejected, of the indigenous work force of Mexico, without the intention of reading in it anything other than dedication, dignity and hard work. But the context is one in which the United States is grappling with its quote-unquote Mexican “problem.”

Then you start to see the image become a subject of ridicule. It is on the other side of the border, in Mexico itself, that we must foresee the context of the class struggle. The fact that some people were intent on uplifting the indigenous populations of Mexico meant that there was an entire class that mocked this effort and thought it was a foolish attempt to redeem an indigenous history of Mexico, its history.

So it was immediately fodder for both sides looking for a way to portray the Mexican in a way that was less than dignified.

BRODIE: It’s very interesting because, as you mentioned, the first performances were based on what people actually saw with their own eyes. And then it became a kind of stereotypical and not particularly pleasant representation, like something that wasn’t necessarily seen as a favorable image to people.

ALVAREZ: It’s one of the things that has pushed me to study images for 20 years. Some people, even on social media, say: why would you have the image of a lazy Mexican when Mexicans are the exact opposite, a workforce in every aspect of society? Thus, this enigma of our representation, our ideologies are stuck on something which factually contradicts it. This is of course what pushed me to continue studying it.

BRODIE: Yeah. So where are we now in terms of what this image represents, perhaps in the United States and Mexico?

ALVAREZ: There has always been a class divide. There has always been a Mexican elite and a Chicano intellectual elite who have always felt deeply offended by the image imputed and used in racist depictions of corporate America. And this of course follows the rebellion of the 60s, 70s and 80s against the Frito Bandito and the senorita’s fiery hot peppers, all these imputed stereotypes.

At the same time, working class people have always had, in my experience doing ethnographic work and in many other sources, even on social media, the feeling that people are like why are you offended when this is obviously not us. So you see the working class, a humor, rasquachism, if you like, which says it’s hilarious, but it’s absurd.

And in this absurdity we do not recognize ourselves and go to offense as much as absolute perplexity with what one person told me, it is the gringo mentality that we see something there where this is actually contradicted by our own presence, our work, the food they eat every day.

It is therefore less appropriate to bring up this class divide when it comes to how the image circulates between the Mexican American elite and the central Mexican elite versus the working class or rural Mexican communities. .

BRODIE: Is that what allows, for example, a Mexican restaurant to include this image on their sign or on their menu or, you know, for a gift shop offering, you know, products from Mexico to include , you know, little sculptures of that.

ALVAREZ: Absolutely. And that context is also what drives many of the reactions you saw during the protests. A restaurant, there are restaurants right here in Tucson, very popular restaurants owned by Mexican American families that absolutely have that image on their door, on their logo. And the association there in their minds, there is no contradiction. It is a place of rest. It is a place of care.

You also saw it as a trademark here in the decking industry in the United States when you had pavers bearing that image produced in the Southwest starting in the 1950s. And the idea was again in the patio, you relax in the restaurant, you relax.

Where it becomes out of context is when cities, for the sake of lame tourism promotion, self-promotion, can invite a performance and an artist with no idea of ​​that history and no understanding of the divisions that exist within a community can use the image seemingly innocently. but not realizing that whoever advances the image, who speaks for his humor or his derision, has a lot to do with whether or not you will stir up controversy.

BRODIE: And Maribel, I’m so fascinated by the idea that people can look at something that other people use as a stereotype for them and be able to separate themselves from it, whether it’s that image or any other that someone one can try to put someone else down and each person can say, yeah, that’s not me. I don’t really know what you’re talking about.

ALVAREZ: Absolutely. This is one of the ways in which stereotypes are both intriguing, dangerous, and potentially fruitful in the sense that they reveal what’s underneath. They reveal the lack of context or relationality. When you look at how stereotypes are used within groups, versus out groups, there is always a thread that connects the meaning to a life story that already feels worthy in the telling and therefore can laugh at it because it does not come from a lack or a lack. deficit.

From the outside, it’s very difficult to bridge that and live in the space of authenticity of experience and that’s where we get into trouble all the time. That said, Mark, the levels of outrage that sometimes arise around these controversies on social media, on Instagram for example, takes things to another level.

It is simply a profound offense which is of our time and a phenomenon of indignation of our time. And I’ve found that these conversations tend to be as flat, even when protesting the stereotype, as flat and uninteresting as most actual offensive racist remarks.

BRODIE: And I guess we should be clear here, I guess, and correct me if I’m wrong that there are actually people who are offended by this image. It’s not, not everyone laughs about it and says, oh, that, that’s clever that they’re trying to say it’s about us, but it’s not really about us. We know better. Is it safe to say that there are still people who are still currently offended by this?

ALVAREZ: Oh, absolutely. There are reactions to image, but I think the last 25 years have brought greater depth to image and visual literacy. And you have artists like Judy Baca, the incredible Chicana artist based in Los Angeles, who have taken the offensive in a different direction. They took the body of the sculpture as a canvas telling the story of Mexican labor, for example, and they use it and reproduce the form. You see the sleeping Mexican with his head down, sombrero and stepping back. And using that as a form to tell a narrative of empowerment of dignity beyond offense.

BRODIE: Do you find that that’s the kind of image that people have tried to reclaim and make their own instead of allowing it to be a negative stereotype about them like it has been, but which is ‘really sort of appropriate and maybe take away from it, take away the power from it.

ALVAREZ: Yes, we saw it in a new generation. I encountered this here in Arizona when in 2010 the bill SB 1070 opposed ethnic studies in Mexican American studies. And the Tucson High School Unidos Club designed a T-shirt that had a sleeping Mexican sitting on it and had the phrase “think again.” And when looking at the second shot of the artwork, a somewhat crude depiction included this sleeping Mexican raising his head and reading one of the banned books from the ethnic studies controversy.

BRODIE: What do you see as the relationship, if any, around this image and all the conversations around it and the current rhetoric about immigration and immigrants in this country.

ALVAREZ: This is one of those moments where you wonder how did we become so culturally literate? And at the same time, these re-signifying messages escape us. How is it possible that anyone can still talk about Mexican immigrants, this country’s labor force, and the trade relations of labor products crossing the border with only one dimension of illegality and criminality?

Where that connection happens between more information, more literacy, more access and less knowledge and less wisdom in analyzing these things. And how could this be possible? By asking this question, I’m asking a question that many people ask: how did we get here? We should know it better, and we know it better, and young people know it better.

Many companies are now turning away from these types of controversial images. So, on the one hand, at the corporate level, lessons have been learned, battles won on the rhetorical level of this political moment. It’s confusing, confusing and completely frustrating.