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4. Neoliberals Also Cry: El Libro Semanal and the U.S. Cultural Model
- University Press of Mississippi
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70 4 NEOLIBERALS ALSO CRY El Libro Semanal and the U.S. Cultural Model Two young Mexicans, Marco Antonio and Adriana, sit aboard an airplane en route from Canada to Mexico City. She left Mexico after her father died, and completed a university degree in Canada. He was her childhood friend, and bought her father’s business shortly before the elder man’s death. They have issues. (She doesn’t trust his motives.) The scene of their dialogue is displayed in a series of horizontal panels, two per page, the characters and their environment rendered in detail, if somewhat stiffly, in a brownish ink. The perspective alternates from panel to panel between views of the interior and exterior of the plane. This visual sequence generates a sense of movement by breaking away repeatedly from the static surrounds of the first-class cabin (“Adriana and Marco Antonio were traveling in Executive Class,” the narrative text helpfully points out). Alternating views of the plane track the flight of Marco Antonio and Adriana through the ether, reminding the reader that they inhabit the pure global space of international transport. Meanwhile, the characters’ dialogue floats curiously between the interpersonal concerns of a budding romance and the pecuniary interests of a transnational business class: ADRIANA: The company continues the same as always, right? MARCO ANTONIO: It has grown, I now have sawmills in Durango and Sonora . Adriana, I have expanded thanks to our strong currency. I have a wellpaid and efficient staff, that’s why I want you to work together with me. ADRIANA: I owe you the money you lent me for my university expenses. El Libro Semanal and the U.S. Cultural Model 71 MARCO ANTONIO: You don’t owe me anything. That’s how things are, they are never done without reason, there is always a purpose, and there are powerful motives that force situations that don’t always have a clear explanation. ADRIANA: Are you referring to you and my father? MARCO ANTONIO: I am referring to everything. I would like you to understand it without my having to state it so clearly. Feelings push you to do things that you might not have wanted to do. It was easier to forget everything and run away, seek out a new life, seek out new horizons. (“El Interesado,” 133–36) Marco Antonio is a beneficiary of NAFTA: his northern Mexico sawmills are well positioned to compete for the U.S. market for lumber, and his cognizance of this fact is reflected in his comment on the strength of the peso (undoubtedly making technological “inputs” more affordable). His admittedly vague discourse on fate seems to do double duty as business philosophy and guide to matters of the heart. “Feelings” indeed. Adriana, who came to distrust the young businessman upon learning of his purchase of her father’s legacy (in effect disinheriting her), is eventually persuaded that “if [Marco Antonio] did not buy what my father was selling, my inheritance [patrimonio] would have ended up in strange hands” (137). In the end, the “powerful motive” of selfinterest develops a double countenance—revealing itself as both amorous desire and the profit motive, family values and market values—and then falls in love with itself all over again. A Mexican family legacy is salvaged by a successful Mexican business, and a new family is begun. These characters’ reflections on the role of “feelings” in business calculus— including trace elements of Mexicanidad and anxieties over lost “patrimonio,” which is also the term Mexicans use for national heritage—precede the romantic climax of yet another episode in NIESA Editores’ popular weekly historieta El Libro Semanal (The Weekly Book) series. The Semanal series provides a weekly book-length storyline (typically in excess of 100 pages) organized around a specific lesson in personal morality. Storylines are usually set in contemporary Mexico, and commonly follow the romantic desires and personal ambitions of Mexican characters, whose failure to abide by gendered codes of honor and sexual morality exposes the protagonist to the risk of failure in love, business, and/or professional advancement. In the words of Libro Semanal editor Rubén Monsalvo Carreola, “[W]e advise the reader against falling into those errors. [3.93.162.26] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:11 GMT) El Libro Semanal and the U.S. Cultural Model 72 That is how most of our stories are handled. We always give the wrongdoer their punishment. In contrast to the...