The Crystal Frontier Thesis

Carlos Fuentes portrays one of the main characters in his novel, The Crystal Frontier, as a man who spends his whole existence hating on the American way of life and eventually begins to bite the hand that feeds him, both figuratively and literally speaking. Dionisio becomes what he initially hates. He has a fervent addiction for American TV infomercials and eating fast food—all while ridiculing the American way of life, specifically, seeing as Fuentes infuses Dionisio into the novel as a chef, the American cuisine. We may then relate the way Dionisio views American and Mexican cuisines to Anderson’s claim that the nation “is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”. While Dionisio has a preconceived

negative view of American cuisine and he is compensating for the sake of compensation—for pride’s sake; Dionisio has an egocentric and nationalistic view of cuisine and he views cuisine as the most effective way for his country to rebel and retrieve its lost land. Unfortunately, Dionisio’s experiences have molded him into the very consumer of abundance for which he ridicules. This essay will seek to explore to what extent the Mexican cuisine has recovered its lost land through the perception of its food in America. It will continue by highlighting Dionisio’s affection for those institutions that he condemns, and, finally, the essay will explore the depths of the relationship dynamic between the United States and Mexico respective cuisines and intend to interweave this perception within the scope of Anderson’s “imagined communities”.
Dionisio “Baco” Rangel is a renowned cuisine connoisseur who appears to have a very polarized and nationalistic view of the way American consumers enjoy not only their own cuisine but also the Mexican cuisine. Dionisio initially ridicules a few aspects of American culture, but becomes strangely attracted to them. We may then draw a conclusion that the American institutions are subconsciously consuming the Mexican way of life. I believe Gloria Anzaldua would agree with this claim. In her poem, The Cannibal’s Cancion, Gloria pronounces “it is our custom to consume the person we love” (165). When we relate this consumption to the American people and Mexicans—the effect is twofold. First, Americans are watering down and devouring the Mexican culture by means of their gluttony. Second, Mexicans, and in The Crystal Frontier, Dionisio, are on the receiving end of this institutional feasting. Initially, Dionisio has a strong aversion for most American institutions; later, he acquires a peculiar yearning for those people and cuisines which once were abhorrent for him.
Today, there remains a dominant Mexican influence in the southwestern United States. The imagined political communities of Texas were originally under Mexican rule in the 1800s. One may then conjecture, because the area still exerts a large Mexican influence, the country which claims the land is irrelevant. Its cultural aspects remain eternal—especially its cuisine. The Tex-Mex cuisine is a prime example of such an everlasting, albeit watered down, cultural aspect that remains seemingly everlasting.
An alternative perspective which addresses the perception of imagined communities in relation with regional cuisines is that American consumers are not actively seeking to devour the Mexican culture. One would argue that Americans generally consume a lot and that consumption of its southern neighbor is not its intent. Americans certainly do not think that they are figuratively consuming the Mexican culture when he or she eats an enchilada at a Tex-Mex restaurant. Similarly, the typical American does not believe that Mexican culture is by any means diminishing due to an individual’s taste in food, or even how much he or she chooses to eat; it is all relative to the individual.
An opposing opinion would assert that Dionisio rants simply for the sake of complaining and he is not anti-American at all.

One would claim that Dionisio is simply a prideful individual. Fuentes claims that Dionisio, himself, said “he wasn’t anti-Yankee in this matter or in any other, even though every child born in Mexico knew that in the nineteenth century the gringos had stripped us of half our territory” (57). The trouble with Fuentes’ claim is the inherent implication that all Mexicans hold some type of resentment toward their northern neighbor, and that Dionisio is not the exclusion to the rule. He implies that the anti-United States resentment runs deep through the veins of the Mexican consciousness. Dionisio referred to the United States as the “United States of Amnesia”, as a country who ignored the plights and needs of the Mexican people (57). This notion of anti-American sentiment is bolstered by Gloria in Borderlands, for “The Battle of the Alamo… became the symbol for the cowardly and villainous character of the Mexicans. It became (and still is) a symbol that legitimized the white imperialist takeover (28). The modern day Mexicans view the Americans as the invaders who aggressed into Texas, and that the political community which had existed was consumed by America. This parallels the notion that American incessant need for abundance, in every regard, is causing the withering of the Mexican

identity.
At the beginning of Spoils, we find Dionisio as a skillful and knowledgeable chef. At the end of the chapter, we find him as both a consumer of the abundance, and the mere thought of his preference to consume rather than be the consumed. The fact that he prefers the gringo way nearly drives him to the brink of insanity.