The Yalitza Phenomenon: Indigeneity, the Decline of “Nonracism,” and the State of Mestizaje in Mexico’s Early MORENA Era

Indigenous Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio’s rise to fame as the star of the Oscar-winning film Roma precipitated national racial discourse in Mexico beginning in late 2018. The “Yalitza phenomenon” affords a rich opportunity for analyzing the state of Mexico’s racial ideology in the context of ongoing multicultural shifts and the populist MORENA party’s rise to power. To this end, I conducted content analysis of two Mexican daily newspapers between 2018 and 2023: El Universal (conservative and historically aligned with the PRI party) and La Jornada (progressive and pro-MORENA). How did these media outlets present the Yalitza phenomenon, and what does their coverage indicate about the evolution of Mexico’s long hegemonic racial ideology of mestizaje? Both papers acknowledged racism as a social problem meriting punitive state action, and both accepted Aparicio as a legitimate representative of the Mexican nation. This surprising consensus provides supporting evidence for the decline of the “nonracism” pillar of mestizaje and for the diminishing stigma of indigeneity, at the ideological level. However, ideological differences also remained apparent at the poles of the mainstream political spectrum. La Jornada consistently attached Aparicio’s prestige to the MORENA rejection of mestizaje’s historic goal of ethnic assimilation, while El Universal was more accepting of a “vestigial” mestizaje that centered mestizo identity while othering indigeneity. I conclude that Mexican racial ideology is moving away from assimilation and “nonracism,” but that this shift is occurring unevenly across the political spectrum.