To Build a Wall: Imaginaries of Identity in Yucatan, Mexico

Gabriela Vargas-Cetina and Steffan Igor Ayora-Díaz Autonomous University of YucatanMexico To Build a Wall: Imaginaries of Identity in Yucatan, Mexico Abstract: Here we consider ideas related to walls, roads, bridges, doors and tunnels and the materialities they name as a general frame of reference, to reflect on the manifold relations between imagined insides and outsides generally implied when discussing the wall already splitting Mexico and the US, but also regarding Yucatecan identity. We explain the ways in which Yucatecans have often seen themselves as different from “Mexicans” and why. Yucatecans have sometimes expressed the wish to build a wall around the Yucatan peninsula. We propose that such a wish is based on an erroneous perception of Yucatecans as intrinsically better people than non-Yucatecans, upholding ideals of “peacefulness” and “goodness,” and on the rhetorical inclusion of all inhabitants of the Yucatan peninsula within an imagined single “Yucatan.”  Yet the wished-for Yucatecan unity is impeded by the current political and identity divisions within the Yucatan peninsula, which comprises three different states, each with its own economy, specific regional identities, and its own internal problems. We believe that to make Yucatan more inclusive, Yucatecans ought to start imagining more and better roads and bridges.  Keywords: Yucatan-Mexico relations, history, space, Yucatan, the border