Reader Response: "Mexico Profundo" (2010-01) by Prof.

Appreciation of Mexico Profundo firsthand

2025-08-20 05:35:54 UTC

In the last 3-4 sentences of the Introduction, Mr. Guillermo Bonfil Batalla states how he always wanted to learn and understand their lives and what they make of it. This is that quote, " The second sense, even richer and more solid, resides in the millions of Mexicans who experience the Mexico profundo in their daily lives. In their thought and their hopes, they constantly renew the fundamentals that make possible the convictions that they are the bearers of a civilizational project that might also be ours. I have wanted to learn from them. This stammering attempt to translate what I have learned can only be dedicated to them, the indigenous people of Mexico".

Mexico Profundo

2025-08-21 18:19:53 UTC

A text that stood out to me was "What is clearly profiled is a division into cultural forms belonging to two different civilizations that have never fused, although they interpenetrate. The ties between these two cultural universes are of colonial domination in which the imaginary Mexico tries to subordinate the rest of the population to its plans." This to me points out the kind of relationship between indigenous Mexico with the Westernized culture. It was complex and shows how the Westernized only wanted their recognition.

Group 5

2025-08-21 18:28:00 UTC

The passage we choose was “there is a challenge to the imagination, which we can confront only by beginning with an authentic recognition of our reality. And we will learn, after unmasking our prejudices, after liberating our colonial thinking, after deciding that is it we ourselves who must understand who we are, that the central protagonist of our history and the indispensable component of our future is the Mexico profundo.” This is important still till this day because even now is happening, people getting stereotyped for things that never happened. This making them to assimilate to the American ways for they can feel accepted. This making the American ways expand even more and making people from different ethnic groups forget about their roots. To add a different perspective many Mexican-Americans tend to forget their roots causing them to have prejudice to their own people and i think an example of this would be Latinos for trump. Just like some Latinos forget their roots, others feel ashamed of them, because of the discrimination the discrimination that exist in the country. There are people who are of the same nationality and they discriminate against they own people just because how they look like. That’s one of the reason that why some Latinos wanna be more “Americans” that Latinos.

Mexico Profundo :)

2025-08-21 18:33:52 UTC

A part that stood out to me was "I made a number of attempts to adequately translate Bronfil Batalla's concept of the Mexico profundo into English, but none of them did justice to the powerful idea compressed in his simple phrase". Basically to understand this part is that Mexico profundo is a book but its in Spanish and they tried to making some in English.

Mexico Profundo

2025-08-21 19:43:23 UTC

A part that stood out to me was ""It is not a passive, static world, but, rather, one that lives in permanent tension". This describes how the reality is characterized by constant power, having two entities, and constant interactions of competing elements. I feel like this being in Mexico Profundo it refers to indigenous culture and people who face these challenges or obstacles in their country, they adapt, create and recreate their culture even though with everything they go through.

2025-08-21 22:05:18 UTC

Quote : The peoples of Mexico profundo continually create and recreate their culture , adjust it to changing pressures , and reinforce their own , private sphere of control. They take foreign cultural elements and put them at their service ; they cyclically perform the collective acts that are a way of expressing and renewing their own identity. They remain silent or they rebel, according to strategies refined by centuries of resistance.

Explanation : Choose this quote because I feel like it explains us Mexicans very well. When moving to a new area we as people feel the need to change our identity and the way we do this to adjust and fit in with the rest. As stated it says we perform differently and express our identity differently changing our pressures much more to get something better with this new area. Just adapting overall.

work

2025-08-21 22:51:56 UTC

the story was amazing because how people work hard to play their dreams come true and working hard to get there familys a better life so yeah it really great

2025-08-22 03:06:11 UTC

“They are people who participate but who do not belong. They participate in the miseries and difficulties of the city, they work there when they can and in whatever they can, and they inhabit a narrow space, which they endeavor to make their own and to make a difference.”

This quote reflects how individuals of a community aren't welcomed in their own community which mirrors today's world. The recent protest that took place in Mexico city demonstrates a resemblance to this quote I picked. A big problem that is happening is gentrification. Many of the locals are experiencing a replacement of their culture/heritage. A lot of foreigners are arriving into Mexico city and are destroying the community. Many of the locals are facing displacement, rising rents & housing costs, local businesses are being shut down, and the local economy is taking a financial hit.

Jose Villegas

Mexico Profundo

2025-08-22 19:44:14 UTC

Quote: What happened to our own language? What has happened to us? We are lost.

Explanation: They had their own culture their own languages only they understood since it was their tribe, years go by they start to separate and start to forget the language and the way they use to live as well. They no longer know where they are or what they are becoming.

Mexico profundo

2025-08-23 19:59:57 UTC

"The earliest groups lived by hunting and gathering wild products. Some groups seem to have specialized in hunting large mammal species such as mammoths and mastodons, camels, and horses, which later disappeared. Others, depending on local conditions, hunted smaller species of game and depended more on gathering plant foods."

This is telling us everything that the tribes did befroe they were colonized. This also summarize how much colinazation has changed people and the way they lived.

Mexico Profundo

2025-08-24 20:05:24 UTC

"absence of cultural traits of such different significance as 'cultivation of corn...use of rabbit fur...specialized markets...hieroglyphic writing...is clearly insufficient to characterize a civilization." I found this excerpt to be significant from the reading because the author emphasizes that despite a civilization adopting mezoamerica's culture and practices to their own, it would still not be enough to shape their own civilization as it is not their own; perhaps hinting at colonization.

-Erick Zebadua

“Mexico Profundo”

2025-08-25 04:02:35 UTC

The lines I selected from the introduction of “Mexico Profundo” is “The peoples of the México profundo continually create and re-create their culture, adjust it to changing pressures, and reinforce their own, private sphere of control. They take foreign cultural elements and put them at their service; they cyclically perform the collective acts that are a way of expressing and renewing their own identity.”

Explanation: These lines stood out to me because although imaginary Mexico pushes to put an end to Mexico Profundos indigenous culture through these lines you can identify how powerful and secure Mexico Profundo presents themselves by taking control of all suppressions being thrown at them while growing, creating, and readjusting their identity as a community.

-Diana Mayo Arriola.

Mexico Profundo Group 6

2025-08-25 05:15:27 UTC

Quote: "When we discuss the dilemma of civilization in Mexico, we are really considering the necessity of formulating a new vison or plan for the country in which all the patrimony that we Mexicans have inherited can be incorporated as active capital."

Explanation: We believe this is a really good passage because it's asking a question and challenging the mind to think of the way all Mexican heritage is able to be used in a way that respects us all when building a future.

Group 6

Mexico Profundo

2025-08-25 06:42:52 UTC

“ what are we, what happen to our Language, culture?”

Well moving somewhere to a better place can be challenging and difficult to understand because even out immigrant parents, family members move to a better place and given they children or they lives on e a better opportunities it is good but we are forgetting our culture and sometimes people have identify being mexican-American Latinas or anything that is related to the Hispanic community does not know how to speak Spanish or what is our culture between the Spainish countries. This here also reflects of how of our culture is changing for the better or for the worst.

Daisy Caldera

Mexico Profundo group 7

2025-08-25 18:47:16 UTC

Quote- In page 10 “From their differences and particularities. In addition, when we speak of “civilization,””we are making references to a certain level of cultural development, in the broadest and most inclusive sense of the term.”

We believe this suggests that civilization isn't a single culture of living; rather, there are many different cultures around the world, each with its own unique characteristics and values. When we say the word "civilization," especially in an open way, we are not just talking about cities or technology; we are talking about how people live, relate to each other, and express their beliefs and oral history. This also explains that the word 'civilization' is not just like all other concepts, but a mixture of diverse ways in which people organize their lives, relationships, and beliefs. It recognizes that culture, values, and storytelling are just as important in defining what it means to be civilized.

"Mexico Profundo"

2025-08-25 23:14:24 UTC

"A theme that will occur in throughout this book: Indian cultures have adapted to the physical conditions in which they are found a fact that explains their diversity. At the same time, the unity that they manifest is explained by their belonging to the same level or horizon of civilization" This quote stood out to me because unity was seen a lot back then when Indian tribes were so involved with one another setting apart all their indifference in their social and culture life including the language, spiritual beliefs, and how they governed themselves.

-Jazmin Bautista

"Mexico Profundo"

2025-08-26 05:20:09 UTC

The idea of the maize "fighting beside" the farmer makes it feel like a partner in his survival.a family member, experiencing the common trials and triumphs. And it felt to me very vibrant, because it was a worldview in which nature and people are interlocked in one fight for life, as opposed to separate things. It got me really thinking, In the modern world, we tend to think of crops as products, while for the Maya, maize was both sacred and alive. - Ian Pascual

Mexico Profundo Group 5

2025-08-26 05:54:47 UTC

Quote:"Our own culture and foreign culture, cultural appropriation and processes of resistance, innovation, suppression such as ethnic group and freedom of identity ".

Explanation: This caught my attention since our entire Mexican culture is being stolen and replaced by brands and they are forgetting what truly are the crafts or artesanal work made by people who grew up with those traditions, things and monuments that our ancestors made. Mexico Profundo touches on these points since by taking the repressions that are launched they create an identity as a community that is created together

Mexico Profundo Group 8

2025-08-26 06:04:36 UTC

Quote:"Our own culture and foreign culture, cultural appropriation and processes of resistance, innovation, suppression such as ethnic group and freedom of identity ".

Mexico Profundo

2025-08-26 06:42:00 UTC

"The multiple ways in which we Mexicans turn to elements from Mesoamerican civilization to establish a harmonious and beneficial relationship with the natural world that surrounds us reveal something much richer and more complex then appears at first sight."

I think this shows just how incredible the Mesoamerican civilization was if Mexicans now are still using the ways from before to enrich their lives now. This is an example of how full circle life can be and how people learn and adapt what used to work into making it something better but it all comes from what the Mesoamerican civilization created.