El Paso Blue
As Octavio Paz notes at the beginning of his 1961 meditation on Mexican culture and identity, The Labyrinth of Solitude, there comes a time in the lives of individuals and nations when they ask themselves, “What are we, and how can we fulfill our obligations to ourselves as we are?” Paz associates these questions with adolescence and with Mexico’s state of development–that awkward period between childhood and responsible adulthood when we first have “a vision of our existence as something unique, untransferable, and very precious” and then, in the next instant, realize that “we are alone.”
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At this point, having seen their reflection in “the river of consciousness,” some fall in love with their own images–and cease growing. Others pause before the “infinite richness of the world” and are paralyzed by its possibilities, unable to decide what, if anything, to do. Still others begin a search that takes a lifetime, posing variations on the question quoted above again and again: “Who am I? What do I do now? How do I live in the world yet remain true to myself?” These questions first began to bedevil Paz when he moved to the United States from Mexico for a two-year stay. “It was enough…simply to cross the border,” he observes, for his identity crisis to begin.
But what makes Solis such a wise and interesting playwright is that even as he explores issues of identity, he never falls prey to the two traps of identity politics, narcissism and nostalgia. He may create characters who’ve fallen for the narcissistic, dangerous lies of ethnic purity, but he takes joy in showing how such simpleminded categories just don’t work. Solis creates a bigoted, white conservative Texan in Santos & Santos, then shows over the course of the play how in some ways he’s more pro-Chicano than the politically active but corrupt Santos brothers.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): El Paso Blue theater still/ uncredited photo.
