What is Mexican in Mexican Gothic? Transnationality and Mexico’s Mestizaje System in and around Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Novels

Authors

Keywords:

Mexican Gothic, transnationality, Mestizaje system, decolonial feminisms, Gothic Studies, sociology of literature, coloniality and gender

Abstract

Mexican Gothic (2020) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (SMG) seems to embrace a transgressive role for the traditional Gothic heroine and for Southern mestizaje, countering colonialist forces, patriarchal subjectivities and a dominant morality. We argue instead that SMG’s perspective is not quite so inclusive and critical, and less anticolonialist than meets the eye. It is rather anchored in white feminism, and reproduces Mexico’s mestizaje system that promotes a whitening of the “race.” Mexican Gothic in particular tells a story of conflict between colonizers and colonized, but makes it a binary conflict of evil Europeans against valiant mestiza Mexicans, erasing the women of the First Peoples and of whole classes of non-whitened Mexicans. To understand this tension, we ask what is Mexican in Mexican Gothic. We begin with a discussion of the dominant narratives of Mexican identity, centred on whitening and mestizaje. Then, we look at how female characters are written in Mexican Gothic and five other novels. We outline the novel’s transnational conditions of production and reception, between Mexico (the author’s country of birth), Canada (where she lives) and the United States (where she publishes). 

Author Biographies

  • Dr. Luisa Fernanda Grijalva-Maza, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla

    Luisa Fernanda Grijalva-Maza holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and is professor in the department of International Relations at Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Mexico (UPAEP). She is currently working on hybridity and liminality, their intersections, and how they transgress the patriarchal-colonial-modern power structure in Mexican horror films and cultural figures, such as Santa Muerte. She is the managing editor of Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society. Her latest publications are “Entre la Santa y la Muerte: Liminality and Empowerment in Mexico’s Saint Death” in Monsters and Saints: LatIndigenous Landscapes and Spectral Storytelling (2024); and “Giving Satanic and Divine Patriarchy a Run for their Money: Hybridity, Liminality, and Female Empowerment in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Hell’s Under New Management (2023).

  • Dr. Claude Denis, University of Ottawa

    Claude Denis is a Full Professor at the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, University of Ottawa. He is the author of We Are Not You. First Nations and Canadian Modernity. He is currently working on the interface between art and society, especially in Mexico; and on contemporary sociological theory. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the U. of Toronto.

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Published

2026-08-05

Issue

Vol. 47 No. 2 (2026): Open Issue

Section

Original Research

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Luisa Fernanda Grijalva-Maza, Dr. Claude Denis

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