Chin-Chun-Chan and Vale Coyote: Performers and Puppets Act out Mexican National Identity

In the first decade of the twentieth century, actors premiered what became Mexico’s most popular music comedy, or zarzuela, “Chin Chun Chan.” In over a thousand performances, actors used a case of mistaken identity to discuss national issues of ethnicity, urbanization, gender, and cosmopolitan values that formed the official Mexican nationalism in both a humorous and musical way. At the same time, Mexico’s popular puppet character, Vale Coyote, continued to perform an independence oratory that represented the popular components of the common, unofficial nationalistic views of the everyday Mexicans. Entertainment contributed to the hardening of two different, contrasting views of the nation that exploded in the revolution of 1910. This paper draws on archival and secondary written sources, visual records, and participation in performances. Among its various goals is an effort to explore the implications of Anderson’s Imagined Community in performance rather than print media and trace the popular understanding of the nation.