Mexicans in New Mexico: Deconstructing the Tri-Cultural Trope
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Mexicans in New Mexico: Deconstructing the Tri-Cultural Trope Item Type Article Authors Fairbrother, Anne Citation Fairbrother, Anne. "Mexicans in New Mexico: Deconstructing the Tri-Cultural Trope." Perspectives in Mexican American Studies 7 (2000): 111-130. Publisher Mexican American Studies & Research Center, The University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) Journal Perspectives in Mexican American Studies Rights Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents Download date 30/09/2021 22:07:23 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624842 MEXICANS IN NEW MEXICO: DECONSTRUCTING THE TRI -CULTURAL TROPE Anne Fairbrother If Coronado and Ouate were to meet, would they recognize their own people? What vestiges of the colonies created by Conquistadores would they find? What would they say of that riotous preoccupation about Spanish origins, recalling, with a smile, that none of the great leaders brought a wife or family with him? Arthur L. Campa' Arthur Campa, the renowned folklorist who wrote in the 1930s and 1940s, provides a refreshing response to the "preoccupation about Spanish origins" in New Mexico, and should be a key voice in the discourse around the tri -cul- tural trope2 that represents New Mexico today. That tri -cultural image is of the Indian, the Hispano, and the Anglo, and that image manifests itself in public enactments, in tourism publicity, and has penetrated the collective consciousness of the region. The questions that must be asked in this region so recently severed from Mexico, and so long the outpost of an empire of colonized mestizos, are: Why is the mestizo, the mexicano, excluded from that iconic image? Why was the mes- tizo invisible and unheard from the time of the U.S. conquest in the mid -1800s through the 1930s, a subaltern without even the image- representation afforded the Hispano and the Indian? The answers must be pursued in historical and political territory, and into the labyrinth of colonization, internal and external, that was inflicted on the region by both the Spaniards and the Anglo Americans. While still part of New Spain, New Mexico territory reflected the Spanish colonial social structure; essentially there were two classes: ricos and pobres, the rich and the poor. The ricos made up only two percent of the population but had all the political, social, and economic power, and were the beneficiaries of the large land grants.3 The class system in play was also a caste system, since the wealthy were lighter skinned, and thus more "Spanish" than the majority of the population. There was a "mixing of blood" that occurred over the years, and as the population 112 PERSPECTIVES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES increased, the proportionate amount of Spanish blood declined. By 1822 the population in New Mexico had risen to forty -two thousand with only a small portion being seen as Spanish in ancestry.4 Thus, the gap between the rich and the poor was maintained by class and caste distinctions, and Mexican Indepen- dence in 1821 primarily served the interests of the criollos, those of Spanish de- scent born in the colonies, and the upwardly mobile mestizos. The poor were driven into peonage. The Spanish elites held the land, and thus the power, in the region. They were not prepared to give up that power when the United States took over the territory, and indeed, from all accounts, many did more than accommodate the Anglo Americans in the years of territorial government following the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The Anglo American opportunists who moved in, as early as the 1820s, "to enjoy the spoils of conquest," made alliances with some of the wealthy Mexican class.5 Many of them became the middle class of that feudal society. In effect, "[t]he reality is that a small oligarchy ofAnglo Americans, aided by a small group of ricos, established their privilege at the expense of the Mexican masses. "6 That wealthy nuevomexicanos saw their darker mexicano brothers and sisters as inferior is clear, since to be Indian in Spanish colonial society was the lowest station. But we can also see how the incoming Anglo Americans perceived the mestizo population by the literature of the time. Impressions of this region re- ported by early travelers from the eastern U.S. varied. Some travelers experienced culture shock, finding the land and the people strange and repellant, some re- ported on the hospitality and the intelligence of the people. The Puritan abhor- rence of Catholicism colored the perceptions of the Anglos who entered the region, and the written reports depicted the Mexicans as being on a continuum between "lazy, ignorant, and of course, vicious and dishonest" and "kind, gentle, hospitable, intelligent, benevolent and brave. "8 Some Americans spoke out against the injustice of the Mexican -American War, and called for a more balanced view of the people, but the war also fueled further denigration of Mexicans. One influential expedition chronicler, Frank S. Edwards, wrote in 1848 that Mexi- cans were "debased in all moral sense, [and comprised] the meanest, most con- temptible set of swarthy thieves and liars to be found anywhere. "9 Subsequent travelers often reported what they expected to find from reading such reports, and negative images became entrenched. Stereotypes evolved: "the sinister, mes- MEXICANS IN NEW MEXICO 113 tizo scoundrel, and less frequently, the decadent `Castillian' romantic. "10 The reasons Raymund A. Paredes gives for these unjust negative images of Mexicans include the fear of the "other," anti -Catholic sentiment, racial prejudice, and eth- nocentrism. Also, as Anglo America took over the region, such perceptions of the people as debased and villainous served to justify the subsequent actions of the colonists -the taking of land and the destruction of culture. Whatever the reasons, many Anglo Americans entered the region with irrational prejudices and hatred against Mexicans already established. The ricos could often adapt to the ways of the Anglo American. They, be- cause of their wealth and education, adopted the fashions and lifestyles of a cos- mopolitan society. They had often attended private Catholic academies, and had learned English, and "acquired a taste for Anglo food, politics, and status." 11 The people who lived in small settlements in the New Mexico territory were more isolated and felt the new cultural influences less. In fact, until the coming of the railroad in the 1880s, the Anglo conquest had more positive than negative consequences for the Mexican villages in this northernterritory.12 Therewas increased opportunity for trade, and access to seasonal work in Anglo industries. But the land encroachment and the discrimination that barred the Mexicans from free commerce came soon enough. According to Sarah Deutsch, the main disruption that occurred in the decades after 1848 was at the heart of communal village life. Communal land that bound the villagers together as a community was taken, leaving them without their traditional social foundation: the "plaza structure," and there was pressure to replace that communality with a more indi- vidualistic economic system. Land was often taken by fraud, through default after excessive taxes were levied, and through extortionate payments to greedy lawyers. Once the land went to the public domain -used, for example for the railroad and for national forests, the villagers had insufficient land to continue their pastoral livelihood.13 Even the main income source, sheep ranching, suf- fered from intrusive Anglo business practices, making the Mexican villagers even more dependent on working as migrant labor in the mines, the fields, and on the railroad. There was, of course, competition between the Mexican elite and the power- ful and opportunity -seeking Anglo Americans. But it was the small landowners who suffered the most. Some powerful ricos joined with some of the Anglo Americans and formed the notorious Santa Fe Ring, that in the two decades 114 PERSPECTIVES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES following the Civil War, grabbed an estimated 80 percent of the New Mexico land grants.14 Thus, the Mexican elite fought for its land, but it often meant alliances with the Anglo Americans to consolidate and increase land holdings. There was mobilization along ethnic lines against the cultural, economic, and linguistic threats of Anglo American institutions.15 But to poor Mexicans in this northern region, there was often little difference between the Anglos and the ricos, and they mobilized to support such activists as Las Gorras Blancas (the White Caps) who rode at night to cut property fences and destroy railroad struc- tures, symbolically and actually challenging the Anglo and Hispano power elites. They declared their purpose to be to protect the rights of all people and especially those of the "helpless classes."' 6 The choice was always resistance or accommoda- tion, and resistance was widespread as the activity of "social bandits" and the many incidents of labor mobilization show. Many Anglos and establishment Mexicans saw such activity as anti -American and revolutionary, and indeed crimi- nal.'7 The widespread -andopen- support for such acts of resistance, for the grassroots People's Party, and for the mutualistas (village -based mutual -aid soci- eties), only served to separate the "Mexicans" from the Hispanos in popular con- sciousness. This insurgence was not the behavior of noble Spaniards, nor of those descended from them. With the land base of the communal village life eroded, many of the men had to find work in industry, on the railroad, or in the fields. Working as a periodic migrant wage laborer was the preferred way to both support and main- tain the cultural integrity of their home communities, and became an central part of life for the nuevomexicano villagers.'$ These workers were described by a critic of the time as: "lacking in thrift, ambition, and strength, and filled only with listlessness, unsteadiness and violence.