Human rights and social injustice in Nadie me vera llorar's Mexico of 1880-1930.

Through her acclaimed novel, Nadie me vera llorar, Cristina Rivera Garza, prolific Mexican author, and feminist literary icon, explores the conflicted history of vanilla as it is intimately intertwined with the history of Mexico and its people. This thesis offers a deep dive into the history of vanilla, from a prized and sacred crop of the indigenous Totonac people to the vessel of brutal oppression of said people by the European colonizers of the country. Using the New Historicism theory as a critical lens, the author of this thesis attempts to fill the gap of the widely misunderstood and often overlooked struggle for human rights throughout the history of Mexico, as illustrated by instances in the novel. The thesis will carefully explore the contextual history and human rights movement of the Porfirian era and how these are juxtaposed with Rivera Garza’s own view and beliefs regarding the movement – to shed light on the stories of the forgotten.