The Aztec Children: Prehistoric "Mexican" Stereotypes

"Mexicans" in the American imagination* is the province of these blog postings; one of the shortcomings of Tex[t]-Mex is that I failed to really provide the 19nth century backstory for Mexican figuration in the 20th and 21st century. I had meant to do a sustained piece on this phenomena above (microcephalic individuals clothed as "Aztecs" for itinerant shows in the U.S. from coast to coast), but never really got around to it save for a flash late in the footnotes. In any event, Eyegiene will probably devote a few pages to this phenomena, an entry in the history of entertainment in the Americas and the history of "Mexican" figuration as well.




*nota bene, I did not write "imaginary"--while I can be justly chided for my Jacques Derrida fetish, no one will ever confuse me with acolyte of (the other Jacques) Jacques Lacan.

Aztec Children

Another one of the unwritten chapters of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the "Mexican" in America concerns the phenomena of "Aztecs" or "Aztec Children" in itinerant carnivals and circus "freak-shows" from the late 1800s to the 1950s. It is as if the pre-historic figuration of the "Mexican" in American mass culture (pre-bandit), was already pejorative--if crime, here, was not the focus of the trope, "retardation" or "deformity" was. More on this to follow.

The frame above is from Tod Browning's amazing Freaks.