on the limits of historical imagination

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Canadian International Council

On the Limits of Historical Imagination: North America as a Historical EssayAuthor(s): Mauricio Tenorio TrilloSource: International Journal, Vol. 61, No. 3, North American Security and Prosperity:Annual John W. Holmes Issue on Canadian Foreign Policy (Summer, 2006), pp. 567-587Published by: Canadian International CouncilStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40204191

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Mauricio T e n o r i o T r i l l o

O n t h e l im its o fhistoricalimaginatioNorthAmericaas a historicalessayOverthe last decades of the 20th century,the writing of history underwentserious political and epistemological criticism, especially in US academiccircles. Yet it remained attached,by its origins, its academic structure,andits goals, to the nation and the state, as well as to unchallenged racial, eth-nic, and civilizational dentities. Overthe same decades, however,a renewedidea of Europe despite its flows and uncertainties saw an interestingexperiment in the conscious rewritingof histories and cultures, re-examin-ing the 19th-century focus on the nation as the central plot of history.1

MauricioTenorioTrillo sprofessor f historyat the University f Chicago,and at CIDE,MexicoCity,He acknowledgeshe inputof his conversationswith Nuria Font,Ana SofiaCardenal,FernandoEscalante, ames Sidbury,Neil Kamil,WilliamForbath,Alan Tully,and OliviaMunoz-Rojas.1 Regarding this reconstruction of European history, see, for example, Mikael af Malmborg andBo Strath, eds., The Meaning of Europe: Variety and Contention within and among Nations(Oxford: Berg, 2002); Josep Fontana, The Distorted Past: A Reinterpretation of Europe (Oxford:Blackwell Publishers, 1995); Steinar Stjerno, Solidarity in Europe: The History of an Idea(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Craig Parsons, A Certain Idea of Europe(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003); Anthony Pagden, ed., The Idea of Europe: FromAntiquity to the European Union (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002); ZygmuntBauman, Europe: An Unfinished Adventure (Cambridge: Polity, 2004); and Edgar Morin, PenserI'Europe (Paris: Callimard, 1987).

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I Mauricio Tenorio Trillo |

Almost four decades of documenting a common historicaland cultural con-sciousness for Europemight, in the long run, turn out to be a politicalandsocial failure. The constitutional challenge, rapid expansion, and the Turkeyfactormight in the end make the storyof "Europe" n obsolete tale. Yet themere effort, and, so far,its consequences in terms of peace, political stabil-ity, and economic progress make the effort to create an idea of Europe amore appealing intellectual temptation than keeping untouched the craftofthe national historian.

Why has the idea of a European-like process of integration not beeneven remotely considered for and in North America? Can North Americabecome a symbol of a different kind of relationship between Mexico,Canada,and the US, a relationshipin which culturalparticularitiesexist butwhich responsibly assumes a common past and a common future? Whatis certain is that maintaining "civilizational"differences though in theshort run intellectuallycomfortable and academically profitable is partic-ularly risky and undoable in the long term. The consequences of main-taining and nurturing assumed civilizational differences will affect thepeace, stability,and good standards of living in the region. This is not onlybecause of Mexico'sgrowing inequalityand uncertain economic and politi-cal future, but also because of the world's violent challenges and the viciouscycles in the US that blend inexorably if irresponsibly economic growth,immigration, all sorts of nativisms, notions of national security,and dan-gerous racio-culturalconceptions of the "American dentity."NORTH AMERICA: BASIC THESIS ON THE FAILURE OF A SYMBOLNorth America does not have a symbolic, cultural, political, or legal exis-tence. Yet it is the gigantic economic and human fact within which Mexico,Canada, Central America, and the US live without ever discussing it. Itresembles a gigantic statue of a medusa-like ladywhose name has been lostby history but whose gaze we avoid, knowing that upon looking at thoseeyes we would see our own.North America has been a timid geographical mark that has paled incomparison to the dearly unconcealed map not cartographicalbut moraland racial known as "LatinAmerica."North America has been a geogra-phy that is conventionally used in reference to the indigenous people ofCanada, the US, and northern Mexico. North America is real when it isabout native Americans, a pre-national reality.The cultural-racialdichoto-my ("Anglo"s. "Latin"), owever, is conceptuallymightier than the map of

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I On the limits of historical imagination |

eitherAmericaas a whole or that of NorthAmericaas a complexbutinte-gratedgeographical nit. As in a 19th-century istoryof civilization,hecontinent s divided nto the nonsense of an Angloand a Latinpart,as ifsuch"Anglo"nd "Latin"aces, erritories, nd civilizationswerefirst,real,and second,locatablen clearlydefined culturaland geographical paces.Threedecadesof post-"neweft,"post-thisandpost-thathistorical nd cul-turalcriticismhaveonlyre-emphasizedhese essentialswithendless excur-sions into cultural-racial-ethnicalertainties.TodayNorthAmericas an undeniable ommercial nd economicreal-ity,thoughits benefitsare still a matterof controversy ftermorethan 10yearsof NAFTA.2 conomicntegration, owever,s a fact hatNAFTAnlyacceleratednd nstitutionalized.nthosedayswhenNaftologywasfeedingthe pocketsof Mexican,US, and Canadian cholarsand lobbyists,NorthAmericawas also proclaimedas a culturaland historicalentelechy.Oh,those days!Massivepollingaboutthe valuesystemin each countrywasundertaken, istoriansattendednnumerable onferences, ndmoneywas

put ntocultural rojectshat ncludedUS, Mexican, nd Canadiancholars.3At thattime,NorthAmericawas a cultural,historical, nd intellectualagenda,whichsupposedlywouldeducatepublicopinion,openuniversities'curricula, ndgo beyond raditional ationalistdentitypolitics.TenyearsafterNAFTA,we can saycategoricallyhatNorthAmericaas this kindofintellectual gendawas a totalfailure. In the world'snew circumstances,andin today'sUSacademic nvironment,hethoughtof NorthAmericaasa symbolof historicalmport,of humanpacificcoexistence,s nowhere obe found.

2 See the position of the US State Department, "NAFTA: Ten years after," 20 April 2004,www.state.gov. See also the perspectives of the NCO Public Citizen, www.citizen.org, and of theIMF in M. Ayhan Khose, Guy M. Meredith, and Christopher M. Towe, "How has NAFTA affect-ed the Mexican economy? Review and evidence," IMF working paper WP/04/59, April 2004,www.imf.org.3 By far the least NAFTA-oriented and most serious treatment of the subject is by Lester Langley,MexAmerica: Two Countries, One Future (New York:Crown Publishers, 1988). See also MiguelBasafiez, Human Values and Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook: Political, Religious, Sexual,and Economic Norms in 43 Societies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998); andDouglas Lawrence Taylor, El nuevo norteamericano: integracidn continental, cultura e identidadnacional (Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 2001).



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North America, however, is more than ever a fact; it is a human andgeographical realitywhose cultural echoes will, possibly, be recognized byscholars in some light-years to come. Realistically,I believe that only theawareness of the risk of political and social instability in the region willbring about different horizons of historical and culturalthinking.In conflictive and tragicways, Europe departedfrom an accepted com-mon culture and history and thus moved towardeconomic, civic, and polit-ical integration. In sharp contrast, in the 1990s, the idea of North Americahad a low profile and a pusillanimous agenda of integration. This lastaimed at moving from de facto economic integration toward a symboliccommon history and culture that could serve as institutional symbols ofcoexistence and constitutional pride. It was pusillanimous because itsought total market integration and only wanted a culturalfacade.The ideanever actually included either freedom of human circulation or seriousinvestment in symbolic construction neither a North American citizen-ship nor a North American university,nor a serious investment in educa-tional programs, nor in legal architectureto achieve a common civic life.

Today,Europe'sfuture is uncertain, and yet, at least for such countriesas Portugal, Spain, and Greece, that jump from an assumed common his-tory and culture toward economic integration has been successful overall.It has produced a civic, political, cultural, and economic reliance unparal-leled in their modern histories. They are more than ever in their historywhat they alwayswere: Europe. On the other hand, one could not say thatGermanyor Franceare less German,less French,and less secure and worseoff economically than before their gradual unification with southernEurope.The symbolic structure is there as much as the undeniable institu-tional and economic transformation.

Of course, the issue of "civilizational"differences is currently beingconstantly pointed out by different European constituencies, especially inrelation to Turkey. Curiously,the great advocatorof Turkey's ncorporationinto the EuropeanUnion is the US, which calls ecumenically for the unionof civilizations. US officials and academics seem to be insensitive to theeconomic, political,and, above all, culturalchallenge thatTurkeymeans forEurope. This is particularlyodd if one considers US policies towards andviews of its own "civilizationaFchallenge, its own privateTurkey:Mexico.North America as an intellectual, cultural, and historical integration isa total failure in which racial, civilizational, religious, linguistic, and evenplanetary(Mexicois everythingthe US is not) differences are not only kept,

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but proudly fed. Between the US and Canadathis sort of "civilizational"integrationexists, and is here to stay.Their national divergences are kept asimportant idiosyncraticand institutional marks. But between that Americaand the other, the "Latin,"ntegration is an economic and human fact. Yetit is still seen not as a matter of political decision-making but as an onto-logical and civilizational step that is impossible to take.North America in the 1990s did not become a good catchy culturaltune because of the paradoxof easternness: Mexico somehow has been his-toricallydefined as non-western and non-US; as something radicallydiffer-ent in racial,religious, and all sorts of other ways, to what is believed to bethe western world. Since the 19th century,for generations of foreign trav-elers and scholars, Mexico has been a "brown Atlantis" n which whateveris western, urban, and cosmopolitan is not Mexican. The real Mexico hasbeen often seen as having pristine and unchanged traditions and a uniquerace, closer to the racial and cultural uniqueness of Palestine, China, orEgypt than to the US.4 The influential Swiss-American scientist, LouisAgassiz, upon learning of the Confederatebombing of FortSumter (1861),said: "Theywill Mexicanize the country." Mexicanizing meant not onlypolitical instability and violence the civil war made the US one with theAmericas1modern violent struggle to create unified nation-states but italso meant a Mexico-likeracial chaos and promiscuity,which was supposedto emerge from the end of slaveryand massive migration of free blacks tothe north.5

As late as 1981, Joel Garreau,talked of "theway North America reallyworks. It is Nine Nations. Eachwith its capitaland distinctive web of powerand influence.... These nations look different, feel different, and sound dif-ferent from each other,and few of their boundariesmatch the politicallinesdrawnon current maps."6 "Mex-America" as, for Garreau,one of the dis-tinguishable nations within the US, the only one of the nine that wasunmistakablydefined by its ontologicaldifference,being markedby another

4 Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, The Brown Atlantis (forthcoming 2007); and Mauricio Tenorio Trillo,Mexico's Odalisque Mania, 1840-1880 (forthcoming 2007).5 Anecdote told in Nathaniel S. Shaler, The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909), as quoted in Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (NewYork: Farrar,Straus, and Giroux, 2001), 102.6 Joel Garreau, The Nine Nations of North America (New York:Avon, 1981), 1-2.



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civilization (another race, another culture). The myth of Mexico as a fixedspace, a space of a different racialprofile, of eternal and unchanging time,is so deep that it is believed that it is somewhere south, not in the US, notamong "us," especially not in "us." Just as significant are SamuelHuntingtorfs comments on the "Hispanic challenge"to the "Anglo-protes-tant creed."7

Many such examples can be given. Some would argue that these com-ments have no contemporaryscholarlyor politicalworth. Yet n today'saca-demic life, paper after paper,book after book is produced in English aboutMexico demonstrating modern, even postmodern, versions of the sameeasternizing of Mexico Mexico as Latin American, that is, as not reallymodern, not reallywestern. Mexico as a "hybrid"ulture (as if everyculturewere not hybrid), ancient history, a country of profound roots and valuestotally alien to the western, democratic, modern world, a country endemi-callyviolent, unlike- one ought to conclude today'sAmerican segregatedcities. And in Mexico, every new generation re-invents its own"Mexicanness"through a twofold irony recreatingMexico'sspiritualmes-tizo superiorityas a non-gringo entity, and sending remesas (remittances)from the US.

Civilizationaldifferences are supported in lasting, though empiricallyweak, historical and culturalarguments through which Spain, the Spanishlanguage, and Catholicismwere made into a non-European,backward,anti-modern civilizational milieu. When, in the 18th century, English, French,and German thinkers made absolutes reason, beauty,ethics- succumb tothe idea of history (change in time and space), all things Spanish becamefrozen in time, either anachronistic or reactionary.8This civilizational dif-ference was accentuated during the 19th and 20th centuries through aracial obsession with the indigenous component of the nations that

7 Samuel Huntington, Who are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (New York:Simon & Schuster, 2004); Fernando Escalante, ed., Otro suefto americano: en torno a quie'nessomos de Samuel P. Huntington (Mexico City: Paid6s, 2004). For similar arguments but fromthe other side of the identity debate, see Gilbert Gonzalez, Culture of Empire (Austin: AustinUniversity Press, 2004); also David A. Hollinger, Postethnic America (New York: PantheonBooks, 1995).8 Peter Szondi, Poetik und Ceschichtsphilosophie I (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1974); andHarald Weinrich, Lethe: The Art and Critique of Forgetting, translated by Steven Rendall (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 2004).



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emergedout of thecollapseof the Spanishempire. Thiswas donedespitethe massivedemographic ollapse hattookplacein the Americasduringthe firstcenturyof contactbetweenEuropeand the new world,and as ifthreecenturiesofmiscegenation nd Christianizationad neverhappened.Mexicowas the eternalplaceof timeless traditions. Therefore he conclu-sion is almosta dogma:Mexico s mestizo,a mixtureof thatnot-fullymod-erningredient Spain)plusthelegacyandpresenceof indigenouspeoples,as if the US and Canada ad notundergone imilarprocesses.9WhiletheSpanishpartof the equation s easternized, he indigenous partis over-racialized,discriminated gainst,or idealized. Whatresults are two con-cepts:Mexicoand LatinAmerica,bothconnoting he totalracial,civiliza-tional,and, I wouldsay,evenontological pposition o what the west,theUS andEurope,mean. France,Spain,andGermany an still use the oldestnastystereotypes bouteachother.Yet heir differencesarenot as institu-tionalized sthose betweenMexico ndtheUS,forexactlyhe samereason,it is assumed, hat one wouldnot mix oil andwater.These civilizational ifferencesare a thin layerof long-lastingpreju-dicesthat obscure he vastcomplexcommonhistoryof the regionwhere,for over ourcenturies,Amerindians,Europeans,Asians,andAfricans aveinteracted and become inhabitants of the modern western world.Moreover,he so-calledalien civilization Mexico)ives and has lived foralmosttwo centurieswithin the US. The US, in turn,has been a partofMexico'sultural,political,and economicdaily ife for so longand to sucha degree hatit is a realwonder hat we are so sure about he civilizationaldifferences.Differentheyare,as muchas,ormaybe ess than, ArgentinaandBolivia, r the US andEngland, r Portugal nd Greece.

Race, o be sure,is at theverycoreof this paradox.It is neitherhisto-ry,norculture,nor wealth hathas made of Mexicoanother adically iffer-ent civilization. t is race.To this epochaltruth,whichmakesus, we themultikulti egion, contemporarieso two hundredyearsof nationalistic,Manichean,acial hinking,very ittle canbe added.Yet o admit hisracialconclusionas a valid ntellectual xercisewouldbe the end of anyintellec-tual, cultural,political,or economicreasoning.Even f race s the key,his-toriansof the futureoughtto keep thinkingand planningahead as if atsome pointthiswill not be the case. Wishful hinking,but aboutracethat

9 This I develop in Mexico's Odalisque Mania.

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is the only task at hand. Fightingrace with racialarguments even as nobleas the idea of an ethnic multiculturalism or mestizaje- only reinforces ourepochal obsession.10 Then again, historians and cultural brokers can keepworking to document the civilizational superiorityof the white, protestant,democratic ethos (whatever that may be), or the contrary: keep writingabout the superior spiritual, moral, human strength of mestizaje, Mayas,Mexicans or Chicanos or Latinos.

Developmental differences are more visible and discussable thanrace. That is, not much can be done in terms of North America, or anyother form of responsible human and political integration, as long assuch a huge development gap exists between Mexico and its two northernpartners. From the 1930s on, development seemed to be the paradigmwe- Mexicans, Canadians, or Americans- inhabited, either when deal-ing with the Tennessee Valleyor with LaLagunain Mexico, or with invest-ment plans, education, and technology everywhere in the region." Eightyyears of thinking development has led to various experiments of relativesuccess and failure. The gap between Mexico and the rest of NorthAmerica is enormous if measured in income distribution, technologicaldevelopment, economic size, or standards of living. These developmen-tal differences all too often become one with the paradoxof easternness,further reason to see Mexico as "other": the "Latins"are just not part ofthe protestant, individualistic, entrepreneurial, innovative, and modernethos. We can keep fighting shadows for or against "neoliberalism" what-ever that is), but we in North America have reached a point of no human,ecological, and political return. Development will remain the key factorfor the economics of the region. With a stagnated Mexico the region willnot be better off and it will be immensely more insecure. And yet devel-opment ought to be discussed within a radicallydifferent dimension. It isnot their development vs. ours, our help vs. their problems, their workers

10 Peter Fry,A persistencia da raca: Ensayos antropoldgicos sobre o Brasil e a Africa austral(Sao Paulo: Civilizaca*o Brasileira, 2005).11 For the history of US, Mexico, and Latin America in terms of development, see Mark T.Gilderhus, "Anemerging synthesis? US-Latin American relations since the Second World War,"Diplomatic History 16, no. 3 (1992): 429-452; Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: TheMaking and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); LarsSchoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of US Policy toward Latin America (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).



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vs. our jobs, their history vs. ours, with us or against us. It is that their dis-aster is ours, their wellbeing is ours.OPTIONS?After 10 years of NAFTA,after 20 years of multicultural and supposedlypost-nationalistic discussion in US and Mexican university lives, afterMexico'sdemocratic turn, after September 11,the following possible linesof argument exist for rooting a new, responsible sense of common histori-cal and cultural civic life:From the US perspective:i) Business as usual:Mexico has been a total failure of development, thanks to its intrinsicallycorruptnature and civilizational handicaps. The best approachis to keeptrying to control immigration and drug trafficking as much as possiblewhile Mexico remains a reliable source of needed labour. As long as a min-imal institutional framework is alive in that nation, keep investing and tak-ing advantage of low wages. Nothing radicallydifferent can be done, soMexicoought to be left in the limbo of both a second-class US foreign pol-icy issue, and a standardized bureaucraticdomestic agenda. Continue withmore of the same policies and wait to see what happens.ii) Business as usual option II:Mexicohas been an extraordinarydevelopmental success, and has becomea large and importanteconomy; it is full of problems, institutional and oth-erwise, but it is a relativelystable and reliable partnerthat needs constantmonitoring, will remain a reliable source of cheap labour,and is a relative-ly secure place for investment. Mexicois, as F. D. Rooseveltbelieved, a sortof a child, a good child. The US ought to recognize its nature childish,irresponsible, and naive and keep working with it.iii) The "we are truly in the same boat"option:The United Stateswould no longer think of Mexico as a successful or unsuc-cessful nationalexampleof developmentbut as an essential and intrinsicpartof the past, present, and future of the region whose core is the US. A regionthatis, and has been for a long time, economically,historically, ulturally,anddemographically ntegrated. So there is need for a plan of gradual steps,reachablegoals, and massive investment in order to reach standards of living



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anddevelopmenthat couldeventuallyead to an accepted"NorthAmerica"accompaniedythesymbolic ndcivic nfrastructureunitedregion equires.In terms of historiographicalnd culturalnfrastructure,wo extremesaretherefore isible: hereproductionf the same civilizationalndontologicaldifferences withas much sophistication r humansympathy s one maywish),or the consciousbeginningof a radical hangein culturalperspec-tive the overcomingof deep-rooted ivilizational nd racialdifferences,which wouldeventuallydrasticallyransform ivic culturewithinthe US,Canada, ndMexico, nd also betweenMexico ndthe restof the continent.Nota newhistory,but an a-la-recherche-du-temps-perduind of responsi-ble argument n view of currentand future undesirablecircumstances.This,of course,reaches he limits of our historicalmagination.From he Mexican idethe optionsare:i) Thesame oldstory:Nothingcan be done but to keepworking o createa modernmarket con-omy,patchinghere and therewhenevernecessary, oingvery ittle n termsof income distribution throughfiscal policiesor investment n educa-tion as very ittle can be done with a poorandweak,albeitdemocratic,state. The governmentwould continue to use immense amounts ofresources o fight drug trafficking ather han to consolidate ecuritynsti-tutions in the cities, towns,and on the roadsof Mexico.If a catastrophicsocial or economic scenariowere to occurin Mexico,as in 1994, the USwould bail out irresponsibleUS and Mexican investors and corruptMexican nd US officialsandinstitutions at a higheconomiccostfor USandMexicanaxpayers ndlow-incomepopulations. n the meantime, heremesaswouldbe solidifiedas themain sourceof nationalrevenue.ii)Thenationalist pproach:Mexicooughtto follow a nationalistwelfareagendabased on a huge statedebtandpopulist,short-sighted,conomicplans.Officialswouldre-enacttraditionalMexicananti-Americanism nd engage in a Venezuela-orCuban-style ationalist oalition,hopingthatoil and remesaswouldkeephealthyminimumrevenues, vivaMexico, abronesj.iii)Thefuture s one for the entireregion:Mexicoshould conceiveof bothdevelopmentand the futureaccordingo

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accumulatedexperience,but in a drasticallydifferent scenario (demograph-ically,economically, ecologically)and in a radicalnew dimension (morethannational, more than as a good neighbour, more than the doggedly arguedterm "globalization").Mexicoought to seek to open at least the intellectualpossibilityof the goal of a gradual,difficult,but solid development plan basedon the creationof "NorthAmerica," n which the rich take responsibilityforthe developmentof the poor for the rich countries' own long lasting benefitbeyondcultural,civilizational,and politicaldifferences.The agenda for cultural producers in Mexico, thus, could be a radicalchange from business as usual. National intellectuals1 ives would not beaffected by the slow but serious goal of changing centuries of "civilization-af differences in the search for a common history and pride in shared civicintuitions. Forif "national"ntelligentsias are to surviveit will be not as gatekeepers of identity,not as cosmopolitan neutral minds, but as local brokersof multiple possibilities of cultural and political identification.ONE IS A DREAMER...Fromthe US side of the equation, there seems to be no incentive to thinkof Mexico any differently than according to the criteriathat it has used forthe last 80 years. The machinery of the US state has not learned to livewithout its two greatengines- the cold war and the PRI. Business as usualis what the US seems to need in the short run a reliable source of cheaplabour for current and future growth, and a reliable political and economicpartner, together with the old stereotyping (Mexico, that great, communi-tarian and ancient country;Mexico, that "Latin"place that does not get itsact together;Mexico,that violent place that needs monitoring and approvalfrom the US).On the Mexican side, democracy has brought levels of uncertaintyunknown since the 1920s. In a contentious politicalenvironment,with theUS as the main economic partner,the incentive exists to act irresponsibly,because, in the long run, "nopasa nada." Inequalityin the region, on theotherhand,has reached unthinkablelevels in Mexico,but no longer is it onlya Mexican ssue. US growth,security,and cultural ife are linked to the cyclesof poverty n Mexico. Fordecades,in both countries,governmentshave actedwith extremeirresponsibilitywith regardto the long-termconsequences of arelationshipbased on the assumption that when it works it is good for "us"and when something is wrong it is the other's fault. All in all, there are no



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visible possibilities of Mexico'sbeing seen in a radicallydifferent fashion inthe current US political arena.Mexico is Americanizing not because of McDonald's or neoliberal-ism, but because of the individualistic behaviour of so many who, everyday,make the decision to migrate and find a better life for themselves andtheir families. The US too is Mexicanizing, not because of miscegenationand immigration, but because it is graduallyenlarging the inequality gap,mimicking Mexico's class structure. A US social and cultural rethinkingof Mexico would, therefore, become a rethinking of the social responsi-bility of the federal and local states in the US. As with monopolies andgrowing poverty in the gilded age, or unemployment and poverty duringthe great depression, Mexico could be today's catalyst to reinvent thesocial role of the state both between Mexico and the US and within theUS.

Would a Marshall plan, based on the eventual formation of amore-than-economic coalition of nations, workfor Mexico? It is difficulttoknow. What is beyonddoubtis that business as usual will not work: n termsof national security for the US and Canada;in terms of long-lasting eco-nomic stability; n terms of the wellbeing of large sectors of populationboth in Mexico and especially in the US; or in terms of the materializationof long-lasting principles of equality,tolerance, and democracy.The European Union was created with two fears in mind: the SovietUnion and the US. A North American union cannot even be a remotethought within our current fears: Mexicanization and Americanizationbased on Mexican immigration to the US, the overwhelming weight ofAmerica in the Mexicaneconomy, and long-lasting civilizationaland racialdifferences. And yet, intellectuals and scholars ought to advance the agen-da of a common civic life, if only for theoretical consideration, for two rea-sons: the undeniable fact that it is time to accept that the region shares acommon historyand future,and the economic and social risksof continuingbusiness as usual.

Although the US lacks the political will to conceive of new scenarios,American history suggests that some forms of internationalism could beused to finally accept a common past, present, and future with Mexico. In1922, Harold E. Stearns published a collection of essays titled Civilizationin the United States, the preface of which states, "Desirous of avoidingmerely irrelevant criticism and of keeping attention upon our actual treat-ment of our subject rather than pure personalities, we provided that all



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contributorsto the volume must be American citizens."12Somehow thingshavechanged. Sincethe 1990s, a less nationallycentredhistoriographyof theUS has been consciouslyin the making.13Certainlywe need this internation-al historynot solelyfor the US, but for an era for the Americancentury.Weneed a renewed examination n which the pastregainsits strangeness. A pastin which, once again, all of us historians are alien, and yet residents, for weare unavoidably nhabitantsof all modern concerns and problems. That is,the historianeverywhereas metoikos, the Greekword for residentalien,withwhich T.S.Eliot,thatprofoundlyAmericananti-American, igned his letters.As earlyas 1932, the president of the American HistoricalAssociation,Herbert E. Bolton, saidOur nationalhistorians,especially n the United States,are proneto write of these broadphases of Americanhistoryas though theywere applicable o one countryalone. It is my purpose, by a fewbold strokes,to suggest thattheyare but phases common to mostportionsof the entire WesternHemisphere;that each local storywill haveclearermeaning when studiedin the light of the others;and thatmuch of what has been written of each nationalhistory sbut a threadout of a largerstrand.14

12 Harold E. Stearns, Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans (NewYork: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1922), iv.13 In transnationalizing the history of the US, David Thelen and Thomas Bender's effort in par-ticular should be recognized. See Denis Lacorne, La crise de I' dentity am4ricaine: Du melting-pot au multiculturalisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), and the classic text by Randolph S. Bourne,"Trans-national America," Atlantic Monthly 118, no. 1 (1916): 86-97; J. L Granatstein, Yankee CoHome?: Canadians and Anti-Americanism (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1996); Frank Underhill, ed.,In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960); Alan Knight, US-Mexico Relations, 1910-1940. An Interpretation (San Diego: Center for US-Mexican Studies,University of California, 1987); David Thelen, "Of audiences, borderlands, and comparisons:Toward the internationalization of American history," journal of American History 79 (1992):432-62; David Thelen and Roy Rosenzweig, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of Historyin American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Ian Tyrell, "American exception-alism in an age of international history," American Historical Review 26, no. 4 (October 1991):1031-55;Thomas Bender, ed., Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 2002).14 Herbert E. Bolton, "The epic of the greater America," annual address of the president of theAmerican Historical Association, delivered at Toronto, December 28, 1932, American HistoricalReview 38, no. 3 (April 1933): 449-74-



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Wemust welcomethe currentreturn o Boltoniandoubts, o postna-tionalquestioning n the US, and startthinkingaboutthe overcomingofcivilizational ifferenceswith Mexico.Canada,orits part,offersa long-lasting ebate,alasconflictive, n theideas of pluralnationalisms. The reconsiderationf Canadian istorybyUS and Mexicanhistorians s an overdue ask. Canada onstitutes he lib-eralnation that has undergonethe experiments, n a relativelypeacefulfashion,that havetempted he US and Mexico.Formany years, t seemedthat,to use a Canadian istorian's haracterization,anadawas an "actoffaith," nd hence the US was the faith tself,and Mexicowas the marrano,the converted hat oftentimeshad been unfaithful o the creedof modernliberalanddemocracy.ThepeoplefromColony o Nation,andthe peoplegoneastraywithin the Laberinto e la Soledad,hadin commontheir con-stantreferenceo the Peopleof Plenty.15 anadawas "the adyof snow,"hetrue north,the naturalbeauty, he only real multicultural nd bilingualnation of the continent. Canadian patriotic historians argued thatCanadians'ealnorthern haracter ad made them workharder;heyweremore civilized han theirrevolutionary S peers. ike peninsularesn NewSpainwho wrote histories and laws in order to differentiatehemselvesfrom their criolloequals,Canadianiberalhistoriansfound an essentialcomponentof the nationalism f theirauthenticnorthernersn provinghedifferencevis-a-vis he US. Different hey were, but on a more-and-lessscale,notin abeing-and-not-beingindof argument.Therewereno doubtsthattheybelonged o the samecivilization.Bythe 1970s,Canada ould add multiculturalismo their "differential"mark. The US soon followeduit.Today,heyfacethe samedilemma, um-marizedbyWilliamKaterbergs "[o]neommunity's atriot theQuebecoisseparatistsorexample)s another's ativist." ndbothnativisms aveas dear"other"he "browrf rontier.Canadandeed s a lesson for a potential ealNorthAmericanegionbothbecauseof its ownparticularistory ndbecauseof its own maintenance f long-lastingivilizationalifferencesn peace.16

15 Arthur Lower, Colony to Nation, 3rd edition (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1957); OctavioPaz, El laberinto de la soledad (Mexico City: El Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1952); DavidPotter, People of Plenty (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1956). These three books consti-tute the founding documents of "civilizational" identities for their respective countries.16 William Katerberg, "The irony of identity: An essay on nativism, liberal democracy, andparochial identities in Canada and the United States," American Quarterly 47, no. 2 (September1995): 493-524; Cranatstein, Yankee Co home?; Ram6n Mafz Sua"rez, ed., Democracy,



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Mexico'sown nationalisthistoriography eeds to undergoa serioustransformation.t is stillcomposedas a poorlydigested"culturef defeat,"blendedwithan aggressive ense of the moralsuperiority f a "mestizo,"diverse,and victim nation.17 o wonder his storytelling as often fed theconvictionaboutcivilizational ifferencesbetweenMexicoandthe "Anglo-Saxons."A solid institutionalizationf thehistoryof the US and the restofthe continent n Mexicowouldundoubtedlyminimizethe nationalist er-taintiesso prevalentn Mexico'shistoriography.Also, a different,more-than-Mexicanpproacho Mexicanopicsand eventswouldproduce ertilehistoriographicaloil in order o ruminateanewaboutbothMexico's ndothercountries'historiesCurrent istorians ndeducators ught o workhard oopenthe mindsof young people. Perhaps,and only perhaps, Mexico'sfuture CarlosFuentes,without osing cosmopolitanism nderudition,wouldgo againstthe flow to leaveopenthenicheof the culturalnternationalmarketknownas "Mexico." ouldMexicans e more to the world hantheirracial, ultur-al, and stereotypical enes? Could an intellectualwho happens to beMexican nterthe flow of world deas withoutsellingfiestas,siestas,som-breros,and Fridas?Andwillthe nextgeneration f, say,New York ntellec-tuals consider he commandof Spanish o be an indispensablepartof thecraftingof their own eruditepersonas?Todaywe ought to educate,inMexicoandthe US, anotherdimensionof literati.HISTORIANS AND THEIR LIMITSModern imes havecultures,dentities,andcivic ivesrootedn history.Buthistory s not fixed,waitingto be used and discovered, lwaysessentially

Nationalism and Multiculturalism (London: New York, Frank Cass, 2005); Stephanie R. Golob,"North America beyond NAFTA: Sovereignty, identity, and security in Canada-US relations,"Canadian-American Center, University of Maine, 2003; Gilles Bourque, Jules Duchastel, VictorArmony, eds., L'identite fragments : nation et citoyennete' dans les d6bats constitutionnelscanadiens, 1941-1992 (Quebec: Fides, 1996); Kenneth McRoberts, "Competing nationalisms:Quebec-Canada relations," (Barcelona: Institut de Ciencies Polftiques i Socials, 1995).17 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, andRecovery, translated by Jefferson Chase (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003); JosefinaVazquez, Nacionalismo y educacidn en Mexico (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 1970);Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, De cdmo ignorar (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, CIDE,2000); Roger Bartra, Lajaula de la melancolfa (Mexico City: Crijalbo, 1987).



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meaning the same thing. Past,present, and future are an unstable balance,always changing, forever moving in the consciousness of the present.State, nation, and history are as consubstantial as the father,the son, andthe Holy Spirit. New imaginings of past events depend less on the pastthan on differentpresents thatnecessarilyare alreadybiased byviews of thefuture. Past and present are dividedby an obvious barrier,but in fact this isa conceptual frontier that until very recently has been determined by onesingular historical phenomenon: the nation-state. History, in FrederichNietzsche's well-known argument, creates "second natures,"as conclusiveand unchangeable as rivers and mountains. That is why history used toserve to liberate peoples from traditions and atavisms.

Today'ssecond nature (history),however,is an insurmountable presenttense of nations, civilizations, and cultures. While the US seems to havefound an eternal favourableflow of freedom from past, present, to future inhistory, today's second nature also dictates that there are places, such asMexico, endlessly caught in tradition, resignedly searching to overcometheir atavistic circumstances. We inhabit these second natures, which seemto further justify our conviction of cultural differences and totallyopposedidentities. Within our second natures, imagination is a scarce resourcebecause the historical imagination is a cutting against the grain of the pres-ent, cutting done with imagined- at times desired, at times fearedfutures in mind.18To struggle historiographicallyis vital for the historicalimagination, for when imagination is weak, history does not liberate differ-ent versions of the past and the future, but binds us to a seemingly insur-mountable present.I cannot, nobody can, demarcate the contours of future historicalimag-inations. I can, however, point out simple thoughts with which futureimagining could be fed. In order for North America to serve as a fertile cul-tural and historical soil where new political, legal, economic, and social sce-narios could grow,there are at least two visible tasks for the historian to con-sider, first, the common consideration of our collective myth and experi-ment, l'Amerique;and second, the change of the moral role of history in awaythat can be briefly expressed in Spanish:"dehistoriapara ser a historia

18 Constantin Fasolt, The Limits of History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004), 3-47;Paul Valery, "Mirada al mundo actual," translated by Lucfa Segovia, Istor 1 (2000): 98-113;Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, Argucias de la historia (Mexico City: Paid6s, 1999).



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para estar." That is, from history as the natural language of identities,national or otherwise, to history as the language to read, realize, plan, andunplan where we are and where we want to be in the future.The US is our world myth of non-relinquishable epochal principles:opportunity,equality,growth, tolerance, democracy,freedom. This is espe-ciallytrue for the countries of the American continent, and particularly orMexico and Canada. US history should not be the patrimonyof a national-ist historiography. US history ought to work as a catalystof local, regional,national, and North American histories. DeprovincializingUS historyis anindispensable intellectual task for historians both of the world and the US.How can this be achieved?

US history could be a common collective critique of both US excep-tionalism and all sorts of local nationalisms. When scholars talk about newhistorical dimensions and the denationalization of history, they mean thehistoryof modern times. Modernity originatedand merged nationalist his-toriographies and modern consensus: science, rationalism, humanism,secularization . This is the era whose historywe see in urgent need of dena-tionalizing in order to deactivate a present consciousness that defends, aslife and death axioms, civilizational differences. And there is no way ofrethinking this history without a two-fold reconsideration of US history:first, to look at US historywith a renewed alienness; second, to appropriatethis renewed US history for a North American and global understanding ofmodern times. The history of the US must be seen as the history of ourtrulyAmerican, epochal experiment. North America as historical focus is anecessary step in order to write the history of modern times, and this can-not be fully understood without the appropriationof US history.In addition, a less nation-centred approachwithin the US ought to beundertakenas criticism of our respectivenational histories, which have alsoused the US as a key personage of their respective plots. This would bringabout a dialogue not necessarily a harmonious one- of historians in andoutside the US, on and beyond the US. Trulyan expedition into an as-yet-unexplored common history.On the other hand, we need to revise conventional Mexican, Spanish,French,or general Europeananti-Americanism. The truth is that we needsuch a thing. What would the world's dercs do without the idea of the USin defining their own regional and national idiosyncrasies?What would USintellectuals and political advisers do without their Emersonian mavericksense of revolt against the old, aristocratic,useless Europeanworld?What

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wouldthe "Anglo-protestantreed"be without the "Hispanic hallenge?"Whatwouldbecomeof the romanticgoodnessand of theveryontologyofLatinness n "LatinAmerica"without he recourse o the oldhabitof anti-Americanism in whichromanticUS orientalism s an essentialcompo-nent?L'Ameriques the centralghost,the vitalhope,whichon adailybasismakesanew ourimaginedculturalrontiers.Mexican ntellectuals nd educators rein a uniquesituation o devel-opa new kindofcritique, self-critiquehat s bothAmerican ndMexican.But of course US academics irstoughtto see Mexicanntellectualsandscholarsas other thanthe talkingheads of Mexican hings.Imperialnos-talgia (e.g., France), rientalism of European nd US viewsof Mexicoor"LatinAmerica"),ndpatrioticntellectualismof,for nstance,US scholarsand ntellectuals) inder heemergenceof a new kindof anti-Americanism.There s a stowaway atriotismn contemporaryhinkingaboutMexico ndthe US. Anti-Americanism ughtto be convertednto the dismantlingofthispatriotism, othin the US andin Mexico.This kind of anti-Americanismmade into Latinoamericanisms theromanticmpulseof the US's search orauthenticity,ndit has no end. Itis important nduseful,butit is notthekindof anti-Americanismhatcanproducea profoundcriticismof any of the Americancountries' nternaldilemmasor of the US as an imperialpower.Anti-Americanism,believe,ought obeaunique ormof anti-national-ism andof anti-fundamentalism:contemporaryayof fashioning n inter-national uleof law,assumingnotonlyUShegemony, utitsglobalpolitical,cultural, ndmoral mportance.t wouldbe anti-Americanecause t wouldmean a criticismof lasting magesof whatthe US means.It wouldalso beanti-Americanecause t wouldhave to be rooted n localcriticism,goingbeyondourrespective ationalistic nti-Americanraditions.t couldbecomea carefully ndconsciously reatedntellectualrendaccordingo particulartime-spaceircumstances.It wouldmean,on the onehand, he end of con-ventional nti-Americanism,s there s nothingmorebarbarichan nhabit-ing stereotypes,ssuming ultural tavism s historical nowledge.Theanti-Americanismhatwecurrentlyeedwouldeliminatehefacade f Americannationalism, s the right,natural, ood,andharmless orm of nationalism,andwoulduse Americanism s itought obe:a universal rinciple f coexis-tence, olerance, ndpolitical egotiation asedon ageneral espect fmore-or-lessdear rulesof thegame. This anti-nationalismanonlybeachieved ydisbelievingurownnational oundationmyths.

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On the other hand, the change of the moral role of history,"de historiapara ser a historia para estar," could start from different fronts. Allmetoikos, we are all alien to the past. In the 19th centuryor in the good old1960s as well, the philosophy of historywas often reduced to a useful past,a past effective for a national or class identity. Historyand memory becamethe ultimate tribunals, the original source of stable, true identities. Germanromantics often used Schiller's hemistich, "die Weltgeschichgte ist dasWeltgerichf (world history is world tribunal), and liberals such as JustoSierra believed that the US paid for its historical faults vis-a-vis Mexico(1848) with a bloody civil war. ManyAmericans, such as President Grant,believed the same. Historians want to make justice, to resurrect, re-enact,give voice, empower all common cultural terms used in the recipe "histo-ry."Thus we have searched for the culture and the history of the real peo-ple, the real American, the real Mexican, even when we try to document"multf or diverse senses of identities. No new historiographicaldimensionwould be opened while we departfrom the idea of an identity as the basisof a real memory, culture, or history.It is a common sophism: for whom history?For the true history,whichis our history,the we is the optimal, unique, and natural result of history.Itis much betterto write historyof metoikos within the present, the past, andthe future, departingfrom a less ambitious question than "whoare we?"inorderto ask "where arewe, and where do we want to be as human beings?"Thus, history would depend on where we are. That is, it would depend onthe moment the question is asked, and on the level of risk one is willing totake in making a balance of history and oblivion in order to imagine thefuture one wants to be in. To breakdeep-rootedcivilizational differences inview of present facts economic integration, profound inequality, migra-tion, violence, etc. is a way to look back to history and culture with alieneyes and imagine different futures for a region whose history seems to havebeen written to document ontological differences.There is a historical and cultural exercise that can start to provide aneeded common ground: is there any topic or issue in US, Canadian,Mexican, or American history that can be read solely as a national histo-ry? The key columns of our respective "civilizationar basis- race, reli-gion, migration, political ideas, economic thought, nation, state are defacto more than national. A simple change of historical perspective wouldallow us to see how much any topic is indeed part of a larger history. Thisintellectual exercise would eventually furnish us with a common ground



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in which, for instance, US exceptionalism pales in comparison to its com-mon history of continental civil wars, and the global definition of racialdifferences.Afterall, what are cultural differences? Cultureis so much our epochal

dogma as it emerged to substitute race and science as the basic criterionof moral, political, and historical thinking- that it seems impossible tochallenge its prevalence as a categoryof analysis and as a central belief ofour respective intellectual environments.19 We believe blindly in the exis-tence of a US culture, and within it a Latino, Chicano,African-American, oreven gay culture. And of course, no one doubts the existence of such athing as Mexican culture. These are problematiccategories to be sure. Evenmore problematicis the idea of differences and compatibility. I do not havean answer,but I just do not see that many differences in all these moderninhabitantsof North America. Too much relativizingthe "value" f cultureshas led us so far;it is time to relativize the very differences in a region asNorth America, which is nothing but a chaotic, unstable blend of all thesecultures we see as clearlydefined entelechies.In sum, North America could become the modest emblem of an excit-ing, alas strenuous, historical imagination, one that could leave traces forthe imagining of better futures beyond currentdangerous civilizationaldif-ferences. It could also be a collective agenda to at least intellectually dealwith and redefine US imperial power in a pragmatic,yet civic and ethicalfashion. If an intellectual environment emerges in which different notionsof citizenship and sovereignty are imagined for the US, Mexico, andCanada,then the role of the empire would have to be exposed to hithertounthinkable cultural and ethical dilemmas. North America could at least beconsidered the name of a significant revision moral, empirical, and histo-riographical of the notion of empire in order for the US to not resign itsworldhegemony, but to give needed economic, moral, and social directionsto a powerthat otherwise seems lost in the midst of, on the one hand, quasi-religious and inconsequential wishful thinking, and, on the other, the pri-mordial thirst for more power that has characterized the history of humanempires. If nothing else comes out of North America as an intellectualagenda other than a different view and criticism of the current empire

19 Gustavo Bueno, El mito de la cultural Ensayo de una filosofta materialista de la cultura(Barcelona: Editorial Prensa lbe>ica, 1996).

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present historians would at least have left a message in the bottle for futureimaginations to rescue. The likely failure of North America as a culturalagenda would hopefully absolve our attempt before future imaginations.The historical imagination after all is always an essay, a try.Imagination inhistory writing, nevertheless, is a scarce resource; it can never go beyondthe confines of the present. What we call imagination in history writing isindeed an unstoppable attempt to flee the power of the present. The his-torical is akin to the imagination that allows the castawayto visualize, onone hand, that she is that, a castawayon the island of the present; and onthe other,a way out, even if she fails.

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on the limits of historical imagination

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