Fiction or reality: the weak and complicated presence of French women in Mexico, 19th and 20th centuries

Abstract

In the historical archives of the French consulates in Mexico, located today in the city of Nantes, we find different types of letters. Between fiction and reality, these documents enclose the weak and opaque testimony of a set of discontinuous histories, through which it is possible to discover the migration of French women to Mexico. In spite of writing rules, we discover real or invented words that allow us to visualize feelings and passions of men and women affected by absence, deception or abandonment. Their lives reveal the dangers they face, the desire of return, the lost honor or the anxiety of fortune. We wonder if these stories nurture the Mexican imaginaire about French women.