Cultural Aspects of the Mexican Immigrant, Based on The Buried Mirror by Carlos Fuentes.

Abstract

This article presents a sociocultural analysis of the Mexican immigrant in California through an interpretive reading of Carlos Fuentes’s The Buried Mirror, using a qualitative methodology based on documentary review, textual analysis, and sociological observation of cultural practices. Its primary objective is to identify the processes through which Hispanic immigrants reconstruct their identity within a multicultural environment where Anglo-American culture operates both as a dominant reference and a source of exclusion. The study highlights the scope of Hispanic identity by examining religious, linguistic, artistic, and communal expressions—such as festivals, muralism, music, literature, and the preservation of Spanish—that function as mechanisms of resistance and belonging. It also describes the tension between cultural assimilation and heritage preservation, illustrated by phenomena such as Spanglish, the reinvention of traditions, and the emergence of a hybrid subculture that is neither fully Mexican nor fully American. The article argues that culture acts as the primary agent shaping the subject and that the coexistence of opposing cultural systems gives rise to a new collective identity characterized by otherness yet strengthened by creative adaptation. Ultimately, the text asserts that intercultural integration, rather than exclusion, is essential for preventing social fragmentation and for promoting educational and community development among Mexican immigrants.