Out of the Classroom Maze: Cold War Diplomacy and Intercultural Communication in El laberinto de la soledad

This article examines Octavio Paz’s canonical study of Mexican identity, El laberinto de la soledad, against the backdrop of the current political environment in the United States; it interrogates how we can make Paz’s rich, ambitious text meaningful for today’s undergraduates. How can we teach El laberinto de la soledad in a way that advances, rather than impedes, cultural awareness? Ultimately, I elaborate a scholarly and pedagogically valid interpretation of Paz’s text that tasks undergraduates to celebrate cultural diversity even while accounting for the text’s historical context. Specifically, I propose that it can be compellingly deciphered for students by employing categories of analysis provided by intercultural communication, a field of study which, tellingly, originated during the time when Paz wrote El laberinto de la soledad and which is still widely taught in US colleges and universities as a required introductory course meant to equip undergraduate students with the interpersonal skills necessary to live and work in a multicultural society. By employing intercultural communication’s conceptual toolkit, as it was developed by Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede, I read Paz’s interpretation of Mexico as coherent, compelling, and enlightened.