Buffington co-authors encyclopedia of contemporary Mexico

Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, and a “significant majority” of them are Mexican-Americans, says Dr. Robert Buffington, history.

Dr. Robert Buffington

In addition to people, Mexican goods are moving freely across the border—as are U.S. companies, going south. “Our economies are linked at this point,” he adds.

These, Buffington says, are among the good reasons why Americans should learn more about Mexico, the subject of an encyclopedia he has co-authored with colleagues from Texas Christian University and the University of the Pacific. Published this fall by ABC-CLIO, the volume covers the last 100 years of Mexican history and culture.

“Mexican food can become the only thing Americans know about Mexico,” notes Buffington, saying that he hopes his encyclopedia entries about Mexican society and culture will build upon what the reader may know and make it more complex. In addition to food, his topics included film, literature, sports, music, poetry and theater.

With the book meant to be “more a general-use encyclopedia” than an academic volume, he considered what material would be interesting and challenging, yet also accessible to a general audience, he explains.

Along the way, he had to deal with stereotypes, such as the negative notion that siestas are frequent, and encouraged. The truth, though, is that people in Mexico work hard just to get by, often 14-16 hours a day and for low wages, he points out.

“It’s a very diverse country,” Buffington says, citing differences between people and regions of Mexico and in the historical experiences of its indigenous groups. But the influence of native Indian culture is felt strongly throughout the country, despite its mix with European culture brought by the Spanish explorers who exploited the native population, he adds.

In addition to those “antagonistic forces”—a cultural mix but at the hand of foreign conquerors—another inherent contradiction in Mexican society is its strong Catholic tradition but traditionally anti-clerical government, Buffington notes. The government has enforced separation of church and state since the mid-19th century, when the Liberal Party became a dominant political force, he says.

An expert on Mexican and Latin American history, he was approached about the encyclopedia by its principal organizer, Dr. Don Coerver, a history faculty member and associate dean of the AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Texas Christian. Coerver was seeking someone to write social and cultural entries and was familiar with Buffington both through his writing and mutual acquaintances.

With only three authors—Dr. Suzanne Pasztor of Pacific is the other—the book differs from most similar publications, which recruit many writers to produce essays, according to Buffington. Instead, each of the encyclopedia’s authors wrote roughly one-third of its more than 150 entries, or about as much as a full book apiece within the 621 pages.

Roughly five years in the making, the encyclopedia also features a profile of each Mexican state, biographies of leading political and cultural figures, coverage of recent events—including the election of current President Vicente Fox—and a look at the ups and downs of U.S.-Mexican relations.