Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/254

Since 1521 Mexicans have been instilled to feel contempt and pity for the cultural heritage of the old grandparents. Each mexican to "progress economically" or "improve socially” has to stay away as much as possible from his roots and deny their —mother culture—. The way is to speak, dress, eat, work, eat, consume; in short, be as the conquerors. Take on the face of the colonizer and put make up on the millennial face of our own culture, until it is apparently erased. Dye the hair, whiten skin, straighten the hair, assign english names to their children. Negate one self and feel ashamed of the own phenotype.

The alleged problem is that mexicans, to be "modern", must cease being "traditional". To be "modern" implies, being as the foreign colonizer; being "traditional" means to be as the colonized indigenous. The foreign exaltation and the contempt for the national, was not only for products and fashion, but even more harmful; assuming the heart and feelings, imposing on our own face, the face of the conqueror—colonizer.

Mexicans can be extremely traditional and maintain a deep and lively pride of our culture, our past and our Cultural Heritage; and at the same time, be chillingly modern. As the Japanese people do nowadays, who are proud advocates of traditions and at the same time, spearhead global technology. Mexicans need to develop "an own face and a real heart" in the 21st century, which at the same time is modern, but based in our millenary tradition. We must stop being "uneducated foreigners in our own land"; and we must strive to be first class Mexicans and not, westerners of the third world. The Mexico of the twenty-first century would necessarily have to be built with our mother culture, not against it.

The Toltec Heritage in the Matria.

What today conforms the national territory was the cradle of the Anahuac civilization. The mexican nation has a history of