The nineteenth century in Latin America constitutes a key period in the building of collective identities. In this process, the confluence of travel discourses and representation of national identity is fundamental. This article proposes the analysis of La vida en México durante una residencia de dos años en ese país (1843) by Madame Calderón de la Barca. The intertwining of views implied act of enuntiation generated a text full of tensions from which multiple contradictions and ambiguities emerge. This discursive complexity is the main focus of this article.