Masculinity and Nation in Lorenzo de Zavala’s Viaje a los Estados Unidos del Norte de América (Journey to the United States of North America) (1834)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores how Mexican politician, Lorenzo de Zavala, engaged with issues of masculinity and nation in his 1834 travelogue, Viaje a los Estados Unidos del Norte de América (Journey to the United States of North America). The first published Mexican travelogue of the United States, this understudied text illuminates the post-independence period in which Latin American intellectuals imagined a hemispheric republican future originating in the Americas. This travelogue engaged with debates about nation-building and the role of male citizens. By conceptualising androcentrism as a symbolic marker, Zavala’s interpretation of the U.S. man informed his notion of an idealised citizenry. This notion was racialized and excluded subaltern populations. Additionally, this text can be interpreted as a precursor to twentieth-century valorisations of multi-ethnic identity discourses. Zavala imagined the emergence of a borderlands population that combined the characteristics of both countries’ citizenries. This travelogue provides greater meaning by contributing to the ongoing, ambivalent textual relationship between Mexico and the United States.