The following two chapters are stories about the history of Nuevo León. The reality is descriptive and even somewhat entertaining. Yet the conditions of “the telling” are as important as the stories themselves. The stories are, as de Certeau writes, a “product of a certain milieu.” It is in these “representation[s] of historical realities” that the “conditions” of history’s own production are camouflaged. They are shown in order to hide.

These narratives tell of the formation of “origins.” They are stories that form the description of what it means to be anuevolenese. Three originary narratives emanating from Nuevo León’s...

The foundation for later research is sometimes made many years before the fieldwork begins. As George Marcus writes, “The extended exploration of existing affinities between the ethnographer and the subject of study is indeed one of the most powerful and interesting ways to motivate a research design” (1998: 15). The student begins with some affiliation to the site and/or subject. Yet after a certain time she is to some extent able to retreat in order to create a distancing and to contextualize the project within “the delineation of more generic social-cultural problems and issues” (ibid.). I begin with a description...

In the Scriptural Economy of Nuevo León, the stories of the Chichimeca and of Carvajal take precedence in the descriptive origins of Nuevo León. While later they are diminished and banished, the descriptions of disgust, disapproval, and catastrophe have intensified over time. Seventeenth-century historian Alonso de León’s accounts of the incorrigibleindiosare stated and re-stated in scores of history books. The Chichimeca, who had no gods, were branded the worst of barbarians. Simultaneously, the demise of the first governor of Nuevo León is narrated as the tragedy that it was in order to make Carvajal’s death a symbol for...

Encountering the fieldwork site can at moments stir passions and excitement that are not often paralleled in other phases of one’s life. Feelings of idealism and expectation can cloud one’s depth of field. When I embarked on my fieldwork, I was not the typical young student in my twenties encountering a native tribe that was her polar opposite. I was returning to a place that was part of my past experience. My memories of having been “there” were refracted through the eyes of a child. I was twelve years old the first time I saw the Sierra Madre and visited...

It was November 1997. I returned to Monterrey after an absence of two months. The work with Alvarado was continuing. However, it seemed necessary to study how the history and narratives were told by people outside the realm of the media. Alvarado had been a most excellent guide. I learned the topography of northern Nuevo León. He taught me well. I learned of the social intricacies among colleagues and business and political acquaintances. I learned of what Alvarado wanted the people in Nuevo León to see. The pastoral history that continued to live in many ways in the rural areas...

As Foucault aptly states, if one continuously searches for the origins of something, the quest will never end. The search can continue to go further back into the preceding phases of the concept or event, with “causes” becoming increasingly minute and difficult to capture.¹ It is because of this that I will not search for an authentic discovery of Nuevo León’s origins. The location of San Isidro del Potrero as a place of origins is not meant literally. There is nothing “first” about Potrero, not as an indigenous or colonial settlement. It does, however, have other distinctions. It is hard...

Sitting in the cafeteria of the Museo de Historia in Monterrey, I asked blue-eyed Felipe Montes about the legend that French soldiers had settled in Nuevo León. I had heard stories from local people about the French being in Villa de Santiago, Allende, and General Bravo. Felipe told me previously that he was trying to learn everything he could about the history of Nuevo León. Thus he had enrolled in thediplomadoon the state’s history.¹ That is where we met.

He said that the story of the French was told all over Mexico. Because I had not considered the...

The first time I spoke with Aquiles Sepúlveda, in July 1998, he told me that a statue of Alberto del Canto, the Portuguese founder of Saltillo, was lying among old and wrecked automobiles somewhere in the city. In 1995, when Monterrey was celebrating its 400th year, the newspaperEl Nortepublished a photograph of the forgotten statue. The newspaper was looking for stories that would tell of Monterrey’s history. Once the condition of the statue was made public, there was no movement to salvage del Canto from the wreckage of autos. I asked Aquiles if he did not want to...

Historian Rolando Guerra contends in his essay “¿Cual cultura e identidad norestense?” (“Which Northeast Culture and Identity?”) that whether any stories of origin from northern Mexico are true is not the issue. He believes they are, more importantly, part of an ideology that forms what people see as the personality of Nuevo León (1995).

These various forms that Guerra mentions are those that have been addressed throughout this text—the Jewish, the indigenous, the barbaric. Based upon Foucault’s notion of the archaeological field site, what can be found in the history of twentieth-century Nuevo León are constant verbal narratives regarding...

This chapter is about the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, known as La Sultana del Norte, the most successful industrial city in the north of Mexico. It is about how a very modern city is facing its past, which in a sense has been placed underground, beneath the facade of a “Macro Plaza” that encompasses 242,000 square meters and is constructed over the ruins of Monterrey’s oldest neighborhood (Nuncio 1982).

As I have proceeded through the project, I have come to realize that this “macro-cover” is actually a metonym for the hidden and deflected histories that I have inadvertently encountered...

Bachelard proposes that houses contain the space of daydreams, childhood memories, and the universe remembered (1964). An imaginary world could be described in the house on Arreola. Yet the house, its occupants, and its contents actually existed. Aquiles Sepúlveda once told me that he had never been able to go to Europe, but Europe had come to him. What he and his sister Ofelia placed inside of the structure in which they lived was a narrative in itself. This house embodied the history of the Occident as it was contained and hidden. For numerous reasons, decades passed before its existence...

Meaning, I believe, is the foundation of ethnography. As we search the stories, practices, and histories of the people we “study,” we explore the meaning of what we see and hear. The poetics of ethnographic writing blend with the poetics of the culture being represented. In the routine normalization of ethnographic description we expect uniformity in practices and “reporting.” As I approach the end of this ethnography, I struggle to find a sense of coherence that will appeal to the reader of traditional ethnographic texts. The words of Chekhov assist me here. After all, there is a link between this...