In the book, Refusing the Favor, Deena J. Gonzalez investigates how the lives of Spanish-Mexican women in Santa Fe were affected when the United States colonized northern Mexico between the early and late 19th century. Her work focuses on the cultural contrast among the Euro-Americans and the Spanish-Mexicans in the area. Gonzalez analyzes the histories of women of the period through the lens of those who would bestow upon them "the favor" of colonialism. Hence, she indicates her position through the title of her book. She illustrates how female inhabitants of the defeated territory resisted and scorned the newly arrived powerful Anglo immigrants. She shows how women's responses to the conquest were extremely diverse and illustrates their efforts to preserve their culture. Much of her work focuses on the economic effects and cultural responses to the process of Americanization that took place in New Mexico after the United States took control of the territory. The author challenges the generally accepted history of the United States that has largely put forth that the U.S. conquest was "painless" and beneficial to Spanish-Mexicans in Santa Fe.
New Mexico, long before the United States took over, always had a degree of "Spanish character". Her work focuses on Santa Fe which was one of the largest cities west of the Mississippi and oldest of all the territories of the Provincias Internas that opted to stay with Mexico in 1821. In 1846 the land was invaded and conquered by the United States. Much of her interpretation is on the lives of women in the capital city utilizing a range of sources, from travel literature, newspapers, wills, deeds, court records, Catholic Church Archives, Property Census records, and Spanish written sourc...
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...zalez 72). Although about half of the Euro-American men in Santa Fe lived with Spanish-Mexican women by 1850, these unions included only several hundred of some four thousand Spanish-Mexican women and were therefore less significant from the perspective of Spanish-Mexican residents (Gonzalez 74).
Gonzalez is an author with a mission: she wants to reverse traditional historiographical interpretations about the West, and specifically New Mexico. She wants to give life to the lifeless voices of women who lived in the era. It appears that Gonzalez's primary motive in writing Spanish-Mexican women into the history of U.S. conquest appears to show how the women of Santa Fe were affected and how they overcame a challenging systems which reshaped their lives. In the end, the author successfully achieves her goal of rescuing the voices of New Mexican Spanish Mexican women.
Additionally, this essay would be a good read for those interested in the topic of sexuality, gender and culture or anyone studying anthropology. This essay contributes to understanding aspects of California history that is not primarily discussed. The reader gets and insight on two different cultures, and the effects of them merging together -- in this case, the cultures of the Spaniards and Indians. I believe that this article supports Competing Visions as the text also discusses how “the object of the missions was to convert the natives to Christianity as well as to Hispanicize them…” and both touch upon the topic of the rapes of
Ramos, Raul A. Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. The University of North Carolina Press. 2008.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly captures a Mexico in its true light.
Oftentimes, societal problems span across space and time. This is certainly evident in Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents a novel in which women are treated peripherally in two starkly different societies. Contextually, both the Dominican Republic and the United States are very dissimilar countries in terms of culture, economic development, and governmental structure. These factors contribute to the manner in which each society treats women. The García girls’ movement between countries helps display these societal distinctions. Ultimately, women are marginalized in both Dominican and American societies. In the Dominican Republic, women are treated as inferior and have limited freedoms whereas in the United States, immigrant
This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daughters – Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and Loca live in the little town of Tome, New Mexico. The story focuses on the struggles of Sofi, the death of her daughters and the problems of their town. Sofi endures all the hardships and problems that come her way. Her marriage is deteriorating; her daughters are dying one by one. But, she endures it all and comes out stronger and more enlightened than ever. Sofi is a woman that never gives up no matter how poorly life treats her. The author- Ana Castillo mixes religion, super natural occurrences, sex, laughter and heartbreak in this novel. The novel is tragic, with no happy ending but at the same time funny and inspiring. It is full of the victory of the human spirit. The names of Sofi’s first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals (Hope, Faith and Charity).
Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
Aztec women embarked on several defining moments of labor, gender, class, symbolism, and political power in the Aztec Mexico history and culture. The roles of the Aztec women were unjustly marginalized. Their contributions to the work activities, economy, government and the influence of growth and development were grossly deceptive in the Ethnohistoric documents. Moreover, the variations of Aztec women cooking and weaving revolutionized gender.
Fernandez, Lilia. "Introduction to U.S. Latino/Latina History." History 324. The Ohio State University. Jennings Hall 0040, Columbus, OH, USA. Address.
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
When Spaniards colonized California, they invaded the native Indians with foreign worldviews, weapons, and diseases. The distinct regional culture that resulted from this union in turn found itself invaded by Anglo-Americans with their peculiar social, legal, and economic ideals. Claiming that differences among these cultures could not be reconciled, Douglas Monroy traces the historical interaction among them in Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California. Beginning with the missions and ending in the late 1800s, he employs relations of production and labor demands as a framework to explain the domination of some groups and the decay of others and concludes with the notion that ?California would have been, and would be today, a different place indeed if people had done more of their own work.?(276) While this supposition may be true, its economic determinism undermines other important factors on which he eloquently elaborates, such as religion and law. Ironically, in his description of native Californian culture, Monroy becomes victim of the same creation of the ?other? for which he chastises Spanish and Anglo cultures. His unconvincing arguments about Indian life and his reductive adherence to labor analysis ultimately detract from his work; however, he successfully provokes the reader to explore the complexities and contradictions of a particular historical era.
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
Mexican Women began to work the jobs men did, such as jobs that required maintenance, miners, and defense plants. This era proved to be especially significant for Mexican American women, whose new wage-earning status created a sense of self-sufficiency and intensified issues of self-identity” (Quinones 245) These Mexican women were the “Susanas del SP” which was the Mexican version of “Rosie the Riveter.” After World War II, when women were forced to return their job to the men, their ideals of family and marriage change. They longer believe they needed a men to support them because they could be independent and support
Indigenous people of the world have historically been and continue to be pushed to the margins of society. Similarly, women have experienced political, social, and economical marginalization. For the past 500 years or so, the indigenous peoples of México have been subjected to violence and the exploitation since the arrival of the Spanish. The xenophobic tendencies of Spanish colonizers did not disappear after México’s independence; rather it maintained the racial assimilation and exclusion policies left behind by the colonists, including gender roles (Moore 166) . México is historically and continues to be a patriarchal society. So when the Zapatista movement of 1994, more formally known as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National (Zapatista Army of National Liberation; EZLN) constructed a space for indigenous women to reclaim their rights, it was a significant step towards justice. The Mexican government, in haste for globalization and profits, ignored its indigenous peoples’ sufferings. Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, consisting of mostly indigenous peoples living in the mountains and country, grew frustration with the Mexican government. It was in that moment that the Zapatista movement arose from the countryside to awaken a nation to the plight of indigenous Mexicans. Being indigenous puts a person at a disadvantage in Mexican society; when adding gender, an indigenous woman is set back two steps. It was through the Zapatista movement that a catalyst was created for indigenous women to reclaim rights and autonomy through the praxis of indigeneity and the popular struggle.
Juliana Barr’s book, Peace Came in the Form of a Women: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands. Dr. Barr, professor of history at Duke University-specializes in women’s role in American history. Peace Came in the Form of A Women, is an examination on the role of gender and kinship in the Texas territory during the colonial period. An important part of her book is Spanish settlers and slavery in their relationship with Natives in the region. Even though her book clearly places political, economic, and military power in the hands of Natives in the Texas borderland, her book details Spanish attempts to wrestle that power away from indigenous people through forced captivity of native women. For example, Dr, Barr wrote, “In varying diplomatic strategies, women were sometimes pawns, sometimes agents.” To put it another way, women were an important part of Apache, Wichita, and Comanche culture and Spanish settlers attempted to exploit
3. Anita Edgar Jones, "Mexican Colonies in Chicago," Social Service Review 2 ( December 1928): 39-54.