Forums

I suggest to include Nobel Prize Mexican writer and poet Octavio Paz who was also a diplomat to the United States and had great influence in literature movements of Surrealism and Existentialism. Additionally, Paz lectured at Harvard University from 1970 to 1974 where he held the Eliot Norton professorship, and later on received an honorary doctorate for his outstanding contribution.

I can suggest an excellent text, first published in the New Yorker back in 1979, but even more relevant today: "Reflections: Mexico and the United States". Unfortunately I cannot find a link to the article (without a New Yorker subscription), though it can be read for free with a free registration on Jstor (http://www.jstor.org).
Among his many insights, Paz claims that, in contrast to Mexico, "In the United States, the Indian element does not appear. This, in my opinion, is the major difference between our two countries."
This finally means that "the United States was founded on a land without a past." And this entirely unique mythological deracination, Paz argues, makes for a culture eternally "oriented toward the future": "the American lives on the very edge of the now, always ready to leap toward the future."
His conclusion, much like the discussion in the 'Outsiders' threads above, is that:
"To conquer its enemies, the United States must first conquer itself--return to its origins.[...] If the United States is to recover fortitude and lucidity, it must first recover itself, and to recover itself it must recover the "others"--the outcasts of the Western world."

If anyone can get a link to the paper, I can guarantee some lively discussion. It is a seminal piece of Their Americana!