What is the Mexican's ideal of manliness? How does it affect his interactions with other people?

The Mexican's ideal of manliness is of a man who is strong and protects his privacy at all costs. Weakness and passivity are seen as a mark of the inferior man - a man who wants nothing more than to be perceived as strong. The true man might bow or stoop before his enemies, if necessary; but he will never back down. He is stoic. This ideal affects the Mexican's interactions with other people because he separates himself from them, building a wall of protection around himself. It is safer to shut people out than it is to let them in and become weak. Every interaction is shaded with suspicion, for fear that the other person is attempting to break the wall of defense. And, as seen throughout the Chapter, that greatly deepens man's sense of isolation and displacement.