Ana Martínez’s Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico’s Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present names the Zócalo, a large, open plaza located in the historical center of Mexico City, as a site of contestation of national identity within Mexico. Using the work of Diana Taylor, Leo Cabranes-Grant, and Henri Lefebvre (among others), Martínez argues that the performance of the Zócalo space, as well as performances that take place within it, are central for understanding how the state and its citizens interact. In her book, Martínez approaches the formation of a Mexican national imaginary from a critical perspective and recognizes that this nationalism erases, homogenizes, and assimilates Indigenous peoples across Mexico. In the introduction, Martínez clearly elucidates the paradoxical relation that the Mexican national imaginary, and by extension the state, has to Indigenous peoples.
In the first chapter, Martínez explores the four-day festival...
