Craig Dennison
Westminster College, USA
Volume 2, Number 3, 2010 I Download PDF Version
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v2n3.04
Abstract
This essay examines the ideology of México de afuera in the novel La patria perdida by Teodoro Torres. Torres, who fled Mexico after the onset of the Mexican Revolution, found a job as lead editor of La Prensa, the successful Spanish-language newspaper owned by Ignacio Lozano. Living in San Antonio during the 1910s, Torres became familiar with the ideology of México de afuera before returning to Mexico. His novel, which begins in northern Missouri, follows the return of Luis Alfaro to his homeland only to discover that he feels more at home, more in Mexico, on his farm north of Kansas City. When studying the work and the life of Torres, the plot of this novel become problematic. A man who lived in the United States for nine years before returning to Mexico, Torres certainly had the insight to provide psychological and emotional analyses of the immigrants and the understanding to write about the thoughts and feelings that many had experienced upon their return to the homeland. Yet, why does Torres, who had returned to Mexico and done well for himself for over a decade before he penned this novel, invent an immigrant utopia on a farm in Missouri? It is not a question that is easily answered, but after examining Torres’s life, the basic tenets of México de afuera and the novel itself, a conclusion can be reached. Torres idolized Porfiriato society and Luis Alfaro’s farm is an idealized version of fin-de-siècle Mexico. Keep Reading
