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This article examines Octavio Paz's canonical study of Mexican identity, El laberinto de la soledad, against the backdrop of the current political environment in the United States; it interrogates how we can make Paz’s rich, ambitious text meaningful for today’s undergraduates. How can we teach El laberinto de la soledad in a way that advances, rather than impedes, cultural awareness? Ultimately, I elaborate a scholarly and pedagogically valid interpretation of Paz’s text that tasks undergraduates to celebrate cultural diversity even while accounting for the text’s historical context. Specifically, I propose that it can be compellingly deciphered for students by employing categories of analysis provided by intercultural communication, a field of study which, tellingly, originated during the time when Paz wrote El laberinto de la soledad and which is still widely taught in US colleges and universities as a required introductory course meant to equip undergraduate students with the interpersonal skills necessary to live and work in a multicultural society. By employing intercultural communication’s conceptual toolkit, as it was developed by Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede, I read Paz’s interpretation of Mexico as coherent, compelling, and enlightened.
